The cultural swirl: anthropological perspectives on innovation

Abstract

As the emergence of a globalized economy transforms the conditions under which economic performance and productivity growth occur, the ability to innovate has come to the fore as the key factor determining the competitive advantage of national economies, entire industries and individual firms alike. Linking the economic concern with the new products and services to more general questions of the social organization of culture, this essay sets out to explore the contribution of anthropology to an understanding of how innovation occurs. Against the backdrop of theories of cultural change and the identification of parameters that define innovative environments, anthropology enquires into how historical contingency and social agency make innovation possible. In-depth ethnographic studies emphasize that innovation is much less dependent on the creative individual than on the interaction within social milieux that create what anthropologist Ulf Hannerz calls a 'cultural swirl'. Such milieux appear to function best when they incorporate heterogeneous actors and are not closed systems but exposed to serendipitous encounters and exchanges with others actors and milieux.How do new things enter the world? Who are the people who generate novel ways of doing things, of looking at the world? When and where are such new ideas most likely to emerge and take hold? And how does the world enter into new ideas? A lively interest in these questions is evident in the work of Ulf Hannerz, underlying his studies of cities and urban lives, his research on the social organization of diversity in complex cultures, and his focus on the cultural dimension of transnational mobility and communication. Enquiry into how historical contingency and social agency make cultural innovation possible is one of the threads most consistently woven into the fabric of his theoretical thought -perhaps a minor thread, but a persistent one in Ulf Hannerz's ongoing enterprise of developing a social theory of culture and a cultural theory of emerging socialities. This theoretical endeavour encourages sociologists and anthropologists alike to transcend the conventional boundaries of their disciplines. It challenges sociology to transform itself into the study of the post-national and the transnational, questioning the location and boundaries of that entity called 'society'. At the same time, it provides anthropology with the theoretical tools to analyse the cultures of late modernity 'at home', from the inside out, as a subject in its own right.For anthropologists taking their cue from the central cultural topics of late modern societies, the concern, or one might even say, obsession with innovation might provide a promising starting point for analysing contemporary cultural dynamics.

Zapotec innovation in a Mexican village: Building an autonomous mobile network

“…He writes: 'creativity … may come about as perspectives meet with other perspectives', whether through affinity or discord (Hannerz 1992: 212). See also Welz (2003).…”

Innovation: transforming hierarchies in South Asia

“…In sociocultural systems, there is an ultimate need to find a balance between invention and convention. In the long run, cultural entities can only survive by immunizing themselves against radical change, but they simultaneously risk deterioration unless they manage to transcend what they are and transform themselves (Welz 2003). In some situations, change is a result of using traditional means of action and structures of meaning in novel and unpredictable situations.…”

Comparing the Impact of Intra- and Inter-regional Labour Mobility on Problem-solving in a Chinese Science Park

“…This is because mobility between workplaces generates "weak" occupational ties (GRANOVETTER, 1973;AGRAWAL et al, 2006), which creates social cohesion between firms exchanging personnel. Other work in this vein emphasizes the importance of building social capital alongside strong networks (DEFILLIPPI et al, 2006;BROWN and DUGUID, 2001) and the building of common practices for learning within different types of practitioner groups (LISSONI, 2001;WELZ, 2003). It is furthermore argued that, given the importance of fluid communication for the transfer of tacit and often highly complex knowledge, physical proximity will underline the benefits of these informal associations, hence many examples of knowledge worker ties emerge from studies of spatially clustered firms such as Silicon Valley (SAXENIAN, 1994) and the Cambridge and Munich science clusters (CASPER and MURRAY, 2005).…”