Introducing an anthropology of convenience

Abstract

This article serves to introduce the Special Issue of Economic Anthropology dedicated to “Convenience as a Driver, Mediator, and Moderator of Social Economies.” The twelve articles in this issue are based on papers presented at the fortieth annual meeting of the Society for Economic Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame from April 30 to May 1, 2020. In this introductory article, I briefly introduce, conceptualize, and generally define “convenience” as a heuristic and part of doxa and as a powerful force driving social economies, freshly revealed in the fractures left by the global COVID‐19 pandemic. I then discuss the etymology of the term convenience and review previous research on the topic of convenience within marketing, technology, business, and the medical sectors, which reveal it to be a fluid, multidimensional concept centered on key concepts such as efficiency, efficacy, ease, comfort, and/or advantage, but also culturally circumscribed. The articles in this issue speak to the complexities of “convenience” with ethnographic cases from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Being one of the cornerstones of consumption driving contemporary global economies, “convenience” as a driver of economies has significant and even positive impacts for issues such as poverty alleviation. It also has, in this hyperscale global economic landscape, negative implications for human societies in its impacts on health and the environment. As such, I argue that convenience is a crucial topic for future anthropological concern.

Role of gender in white-collar crime: an examination of the emancipation and focal concerns hypotheses

“…Convenience theory is an emerging theoretical perspective to explain the phenomenon of WCC where convenience was first introduced as a core concept by Gottschalk (2022). Recently, the theory has been reviewed (Chan and Gibbs, 2020; Hansen, 2020; Oka, 2021; Vasiu, 2021; Vasiu and Podgor, 2019) and applied by several scholars such as Asting and Gottschalk (2022), Braaten and Vaughn (2021), Dearden and Gottschalk (2021), Desmond et al (2022), Qu (2021), Stadler and Gottschalk (2022) and Sterri and Borge (2022).…”

To What Extent Is White-Collar Crime Understandable? An Empirical Study of Determinants Based on the Theory of Convenience

“…The theory of convenience suggests that corruption and other forms of FC can be triggered by a motive of possibilities or threats and can be conveniently committed and concealed in a professional setting by individuals who demonstrate willingness for deviant behavior. The theory was introduced a few years ago by and has since been given favorable reviews (e.g., Hansen, 2020;Oka, 2021;Vasiu and Podgor, 2019) and has been applied by a number of scholars (e.g., Braaten and Vaughn, 2019;Dearden and Gottschalk, 2020;Desmond et al, 2022;Qu, 2021;.…”

Understanding business offending: survey research in Iran

“…The convenience theory is an emerging theoretical perspective to explain the phenomenon of white-collar crime where convenience was first introduced as a core concept by Gottschalk (2017). Recently, the theory has been reviewed (Chan and Gibbs, 2020; Hansen, 2020; Oka, 2021; Vasiu, 2021; Vasiu and Podgor, 2019) and applied by several scholars such as Asting and Gottschalk (2022), Braaten and Vaughn (2021), Dearden and Gottschalk (2020), Desmond et al (2021), Qu (2021), Stadler and Gottschalk (2022) and Sterri and Borge (2022). A combination of motive, opportunity and willingness determines the extent of white-collar crime convenience, as illustrated in the structural model in Figure 1.…”