engleski

‘Managing’ Consultancy?: Charisma, Competence and Translation in Transnational Spaces

This paper explores the nature of time-limited inputs from ‘consultants’, in international development projects, programmes and strategic support, exploring the relationship between charismatic and competence-based claims to expertise and authority in transnational consultancy encounters. The paper questions a rather limited and linear notion that external consultancy encourages a ‘cut and paste’ approach to policy transfer with a more nuanced understanding of processes of persuasion, intermediation, and translation. It explores the ways in which consultants are both ‘managed’ by others, and themselves ‘manage’ a wide range of relationships and activities, in terms of impressions and reputation. Through four case studies forming a critical reflexive ethnography based on the author’s own consultancy experiences in South East Europe, the suggestion is that the management and ownership of consultancy processes is a complex, contested and discursive process, akin to a drama, in which situated encounters involving diverse actors and actants, play a much greater role than might be assumed. The implications for research moving beyond (auto)ethnography are also addressed.

consultancy; management; ethnography

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