There are several opportunities as well as limitations that ethnography can give to critically examining policy. Ethnography allows for the opportunity to look at a cultural phenomenon and be able to critically analyze that phenomenon in order to gain a wider understanding.
One such cultural phenomenon that is becoming very prevalent in the world today is the importance of water. The world’s water supplies are shrinking to the point that it is estimated 1.2 billion people will need to receive water from U.S. and European firms by 2015. (Goldman, 786) As a result of this need for water in the Global South, there is an overwhelming trend towards the privatization of water, which “reflects a major shift in the global development industry.”(Goldman, 787) This is an important cultural phenomenon that will effect this generation and many future generations. Out of the seeds of this shift there are movements against the privatization of water as well as continuing discussions by political leaders about what kind of policies should follow in the footsteps of this diminishing world water supply.
Of course the phenomenon is not just about water but it is about privatization and specifically the neo-liberalism of privatization. Neo-liberalism has had a dramatic effect on the world and its consequences are far reaching. Because of the recent ideology that is neo-liberal thought, privatization has allowed for “even the most essential public-sector services, such as education, electricity, transport, public health,
water and sanitation, [are] being put on the auction block.”(Goldman, 787) It seems that the only values in 21st century thought is ‘value.’ Nothing is sacred, everything can be bought and sold for profit, including a basic necessity for life, like water.
Ethnography allows us to ask the hard questions. Questions like, what causes a culture to become so entrenched in money? What causes us to allow trans-national corporations to buy and sell water to the highest bidder? When did we place a monetary value on human life? It gives us the opportunity to study and learn about things that can not necessarily be defined or narrowed down. The limitations to ethnography are simple, while it can help us to understand cultural phenomenon, it can not provide a cut and dry solution for the problems that the cultural phenomenon produces. It seems that there is never a right answer.
