Full Text Available
Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.
The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state
Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008.
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2008
|
| Subjects: | |
| Tags: |
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1867613777928650752 |
|---|---|
| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | McCusker, Monique |
| author2 | Van der Waal, C. S. |
| author_browse | McCusker, Monique Van der Waal, C. S. |
| author_facet | Van der Waal, C. S. McCusker, Monique |
| author_sort | McCusker, Monique |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/1856 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:41:32.562Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2008 |
| publishDateRange | 2008 |
| publishDateSort | 2008 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/1856 The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state McCusker, Monique Van der Waal, C. S. Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology. NGO Professionalization Politics Ethnographic Dissertations -- Sociology and social anthropology Theses -- Sociology and social anthropology Dissertations -- Organisations and public cultures Theses -- Organisations and public cultures Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa Non-governmental organizations -- Government policy -- South Africa Corporate culture -- South Africa Organizational effectiveness -- South Africa Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. The NGO sector is continuing to diversify, experiencing increasing competition from the for-profit market and pressure from the state looking for support through service delivery. There are growing internal and external calls for the development of appropriate evaluation methods within NGOs, intended to provide a much needed transparency, and to monitor and evaluate the sector’s accountability, legitimacy, and credibility – the very politics of its image and identity. As a result many NGOs are adapting their strategic behaviour to increase their efficacy to meet these new challenges. Professionalization or corporatization is said to be transforming NGOs into new regimes of efficiency, leading to their absorption of increasingly commercial practices. How professional NGOs go about their business has become as important as what they do. Using an ethnographic approach and participant observation, this study reveals the many constraints and opportunities one such NGO faced as it employed strategies to professionalize, and the various forms of organising it exhibited in its political, economic and social context. I explore the social interface between the organisation and its environment, and again between the staff members and the organisation itself. The study explores the connectedness between the broader context and the local experience, which in turn informs the NGO’s shifting strategies. An ‘embedded’ understanding provides insight into the evolution of social processes behind the production of everyday life within the professional NGO, exploring how it arrives at a certain coherence in the face of multiple realities at the local level. Development literature is used as a point of departure before applying anthropological theory as a lens through which to interpret the research questions. I place the NGO in a historical context and depict the political nature of the state-NGO relationship within a contract culture and competitive market. Discourses around surviving the embedded contradictions within accountability and legitimacy are explored. I reveal the pains of institutional and cultural evolution within the organisation under the push to professionalize as staff search for meaning and agency in everyday practice. And finally, I describe how the professional NGO negotiates an identity through both the external and internal politics of representation. There is no simple trajectory for professional NGOs. I find instead a competitive fight for survival and increasing dependence on political and economic savvy. The professional NGO has to constantly re-define and re-affirm its mission, while staff members weather the effects of this ongoing change and are forced to continually reconcile the very meaning of their work and identity to make sense of this experience. As an organisational study this contributes to an understanding of one professional NGO’s survival strategies in context, its organisational culture as an activity, and individual sense-making and identity formulation in the local setting. This study hopes to reveal what is gained and lost through employing the strategy to professionalize, and add to a growing body of research narrating the evolution within the NGO sector, informing questions currently being asked by state, business, and civil society groups. Masters 2008-09-11T10:16:44Z 2010-06-01T08:34:55Z 2008-09-11T10:16:44Z 2010-06-01T08:34:55Z 2008-03 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1856 en Stellenbosch University application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | NGO Professionalization Politics Ethnographic Dissertations -- Sociology and social anthropology Theses -- Sociology and social anthropology Dissertations -- Organisations and public cultures Theses -- Organisations and public cultures Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa Non-governmental organizations -- Government policy -- South Africa Corporate culture -- South Africa Organizational effectiveness -- South Africa McCusker, Monique The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state |
| title | The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state |
| title_full | The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state |
| title_fullStr | The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state |
| title_full_unstemmed | The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state |
| title_short | The politics and micro-politics of professionalization : an ethnographic study of a professional NGO and its interface with the state |
| title_sort | politics and micro politics of professionalization an ethnographic study of a professional ngo and its interface with the state |
| topic | NGO Professionalization Politics Ethnographic Dissertations -- Sociology and social anthropology Theses -- Sociology and social anthropology Dissertations -- Organisations and public cultures Theses -- Organisations and public cultures Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa Non-governmental organizations -- Government policy -- South Africa Corporate culture -- South Africa Organizational effectiveness -- South Africa |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1856 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT mccuskermonique thepoliticsandmicropoliticsofprofessionalizationanethnographicstudyofaprofessionalngoanditsinterfacewiththestate AT mccuskermonique politicsandmicropoliticsofprofessionalizationanethnographicstudyofaprofessionalngoanditsinterfacewiththestate |