Close Encounters: Anthropologists in the Corporate Arena

Abstract

The corporate encounter invites casting an anthropological gaze on the objects and practices of corporate worlds. This article delineates three perspectives of the anthropologist on this encounter: (1) with the things corporations make (products and services), (2) with the way they make them (acts of production), and (3) with organizational imperatives (corporate forms). This examination draws specifically on the work of those who operate from within the corporate arena by referencing papers from Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC). Corporate actors, in turn, seek more nuanced views on human experience and aim to exploit the "people" and "practices" dimensions of their existence and have turned to anthropologists in the process. A brief exploration of the hopes and disjuncture that help shape the encounter from the point of view of anthropologists' interlocutors inside the corporation rounds out this examination of the anthropologists' corporate encounter. KeywordsDesign, EPIC, organizations, practicing anthropology, products and services

Entre hacer y conocer. Seis textos sobre antropología del diseño y antropología visual

“…Squires y Byrne presenta una de las discusiones más elaboradas sobre la interrelación entre la antropología y el diseño en este campo, enfocándose en el valor de la etnografía y en el rol de las perspectivas culturales en procesos de diseño aplicados, desarrollo de producto, negocios e innovación. El trabajo de antropólogos en escenarios corporativos y comerciales se relaciona claramente a la larga tradición de estudios antropológicos de organizaciones y cultura corporativa (Gellner y Hirsch 2001;Jiménez 2007;Orr 1996;Schwartzman 1993;Wallman 1979;Wright 1994), así como a la antropología empresarial (Baba 2006;Cefkin 2012;Jordan 2003, Ybema et al 2009. El término antropología empresarial se utilizó en los años ochenta para describir el trabajo antropológico fuera de la academia sobre el comportamiento del consumidor y la mercadotecnia, pero ahora involucra "cualquier aplicación de la antropología en los problemas orientados a los negocios" (Gray 2010: 1).…”

Business Discourse

“…A participant in corporate settings in such roles as researcher, consultant, manager, and designer, the anthropologist operates as a mutual corporate actor with other members of the corporation. Anthropology is identified as an acceptable and often desired area of expertise in job descriptions for positions as diverse as product designer to learning consultant (Cefkin, 2012: 95; see also : Baba, 2012;Czarniawska, 2012).…”

Corporate Sustainability through Stakeholders’ Engagement in Mining: Experiences from Shared Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility

“…For detail on the early relationship of anthropology with businesses see "anthropology and business: influence and interests" by Marietta Baba (2012). Similarly studies of economic anthropology have included a corporate ethnography on the consumer market, globalization, the exchange of products and services, labor changes, organizational culture, among other topics see Arrosquipa (2014), Cefkin (2012).…”