In this episode of AnthroTalking we talk to Matthew Hull, who is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Hull started off his research in Islamabad with an interest in architecture and the built environment. Gradually, his attention shifted toward the role of files and documents in government practices. We discuss how to methodologically approach files and documents as agentive objects, and what city administrations are like to do fieldwork in. Hear Hull explain the challenges, and opportunity, for anthropology and ethnography to engage in bureaucratic processes, in particular as they become all the more organized through large databases.
Published on:
September 30, 2015
Created by:
Jenny Lindblad and Nora Schröter
Keywords:
Anthropology, bureaucracy, materiality, Islamabad, Matthew Hull
Further information:
References:
- Bowker, Geoffrey 2006. Memory Practices in the Sciences. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
- Hull, Matthew 2008. Ruled by Records: The appropriation of Land and the Misappropriation of Lists in Islamabad, American Ethnologist, 2008 34(4):501-518.
- Hull, Matthew 2012. Government of Paper: The Materiality of Bureaucracy in Urban Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Miller, Daniel 1987. Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell.
Cite as:
Lindblad, Jenny and Nora Schröter. “Matthew Hull on studying materiality of bureaucratic practices in urban Pakistan” AnthroTalking: Podcasts at Stockholm University's Department of Social Anthropology, online September 30, 2015, http://www.socant.su.se/english/about-us/anthrotalking/matthew-hull-on-studying-materiality-of-bureaucratic-practices-in-urban-pakistan-1.249894