Ethnographic listening for positive social impact

Some of us who want to do good arrive with the answer already in our pocket. We build the program we'd want for ourselves, then wonder why the community never shows up.

This course teaches ethnography as a way to slow down and pay attention: watching everyday life, asking sharper questions, noticing what actually matters to people. Over 4 weeks, you'll practice these tools on your own work.

What we cover:

• how modernity and coloniality shape the way social projects see the people they serve, and what ontological violence looks like
• the colonial genesis of anthropology, and how to turn its deep way of knowing toward decolonial ends
• the ethnographic toolkit: field diary, participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, thick description, and reading power in the field
• how to run a small ethnography of your own project or organization, and let it change how you design

Why now: the sector is finally reckoning with localization and the decolonization of aid. This puts practical tools in your hands at the moment your work is asking for them.

This course is for mid-career people in social impact who design, run, or fund projects in communities they didn't grow up in.

program managers, M&E and learning officers, consultants, foundation staff, social entrepreneurs

people who already feel that their surveys and indicators miss what happens on the ground

anyone ready to question their own place in the work, not only their tools

No anthropology background required. Bring a project you care about and a willingness to look at it honestly.

You'll produce a mini-ethnography of your own project or organization. You pick the field (a team, a meeting, a decision-making process, your own positionality), do about a week of fieldwork between sessions, and present it in the final class for feedback from the group and from me.