Corporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form

Revolution, Occupation, and Love: The 2011 Year in Cultural Anthropology

“…There were also additional themes I could have explored or alternate tags around which the above could be reorganized, such as food in both its production and consumption (Barlett 2011; Croegaert 2011; Gagne 2011; Hirsch 2011; B. Weiss 2011; Zlolniski 2011); ecology, environment, and resources (Anand 2011; Kaplan 2011; Reno 2011a, 2011b; Smith 2011; Zlolniski 2011); finance and corporate life (Aiello and Brooks 2011); gender and sexuality (Boellstorff 2011; Dave 2011; Inhorn and Wentzell 2011; Mitchell 2011), gift exchange (Gagne 2011; Lambek 2011; Venaktesan 2011; Anderson 2011; Buggenhagen 2011; H. Weiss 2011b), or even neoliberalism (although, as a concept, it seemed to be everywhere, yet nowhere in particular).…”

Opinions: Business History and Anthropology

“…The suggestion of these and other anthropologists of large-scale elites for countering the aggrandizing effect of more abstracted impressions of business firms is underlain by the same methodological insight reached by Ruskola (2014) -the understanding that careful attention to the quotidian particularities of business firms can be central in historicizing them (see e.g. Aiello and Brooks 2011, Ehrenriech 2010, Miyazaki and Riles 2005. The idea is to "shift away from default conceptualizations of corporations as solid, unified, self-knowing, and self-present actors that relentlessly maximize profits and externalize harm," as well as to turn from an overemphasized denunciation of business harms at the expense of a more agnostic inquiry that may include the social benefits of business as well (Welker et al 2011: s5-s6).…”

“…Legal scholars have worked to develop legally grounded theories of the corporate form, its "personality," and its place in society (Ho 2012;Iwai 1999;Millon 1990Millon , 2001Orts 1998Orts , 2013Ruskola 2000Ruskola , 2005Ruskola , 2014. Anthropologists have also begun to work to develop alternative theories (see, e.g., Aiello and Brooks 2011, Dolan et al 2011, Foster 2010, Gordon forthcoming; see also Urban and Koh 2013). Part of the continuing task of theorizing contemporary firms involves a descriptive analysis of how social and ethical commitments become drawn and redrawn by the various participants in business firms, including owners such as shareholders and creditors, managers and other employees, and other constituent groups (Gordon forthcoming; Orts 2013).…”