corporate & business anthropology

Call for research: How does digital surveillance change society?

Published on January 19, 2021 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology, politics, technology, Us and Them

Not only when we are reading the news, but also when we are on Zoom-conferences, sending messages with Whatsapp, playing silly games on our mobile or when we switch on our robot vacuum to clean the mess in our flat, we are tracked and analyzed by thousands of companies that would like to sell us something – be it a product or a message (here you can check trackers in mobile apps).

What does this constant surveillance do to us? Is it a threat as activists claim? And can something be done about it? What is the culture, ethos and worldview within these increasingly powerful corporations Google, Facebook and Microsoft that are developing these technologies of surveillance?

In the recent issue of the journal Anthropology Now, anthropologist Jennifer Huberman suggests several new areas of research for anthropologists.

New economic developments require detailed ethnographies!

In her article she reviews probably one of the most important recent books: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff – of of those few books that, as she writes, "forces one to radically question the way the world works":

Surveillance Capitalism is both an analysis and critique. Zuboff’s main argument is that surveillance capitalism poses an existential threat to democracy and human nature as it subordinates people to ever more pervasive forms of social control and “instrumentarian power.”

Zuboff does a masterful job laying bare the hidden laws of motion that structure the workings of surveillance capitalism. She has opened our eyes to what many of us perhaps already intuited but didn’t have a technical language to describe.

But her book is a general study, from a bird’s eye view, based on interviews and analyzing documents and texts. What we need now, she writes, are "detailed ethnographic accounts of the way that surveillance capitalism is lived, felt, experienced and, we hope, even resisted by those it seeks to dominate".

This includes also studies of corporate culture in the Silicon Valley:

What kind of ethos permeates institutions such as Singularity University or the MIT Media Lab, where according to Zuboff “some of surveillance capitalism’s most valuable capabilities and applications, from data mining to wearable technologies, were invented” (206)?

To pursue such questions is not just to push the envelope of ethnographic curiosities. It is also to align oneself with a valuable theoretical perspective. For as anthropologists have long demonstrated, the (re)production of power, whether it be elite power or labor power, is very much a matter of culture.

Even though the machinations of surveillance capitalism seem to suggest a world where people are increasingly subordinated to the workings of algorithms, computer science and big data, at the end of the day, as Zuboff herself emphasizes, what allows surveillance capitalism to achieve such dominance in society is not the technology per se but rather the people who decide toward what ends it should be used.

>> continue reading her article in Anthropology Now: What to Do with Surveillance Capitalism?

I suppose, she thinks of studies as the one I wrote about two weeks ago:

Pregnancy and baby apps, smart home devices: Anthropologist shows how surveillance capitalism targets children

Personally, I would find following questions also interesting to study:

Why do people continue using products that are spying on them? What keeps people from using privacy friendly alternatives? Jitsi instead of Zoom for example? Linux instead of Windows? Signal instead of Whatsapp? Libre Office instead of Microsoft Word?

The problem with many privacy-friendly alternatives, in my experience, is that they tend to be viewed as "geeky" and not very user-friendly. Here it would be intersting to look at the process of software development itself and the relations between developers and users: Design anthropology has made lots of products more user-friendly

"Anthropological customer research has become popular for a good reason"

Why the head of IT should be an anthropologist

Dissertation – Why kids embrace Facebook and MySpace

Online – New book on the cultural significance of Free Software

Why were they doing this work just to give it away for free? Thesis on Ubuntu Linux hackers

Journal of Business Anthropology: Open Access and “Without Jargon”

Published on June 19, 2012 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, corporate & business anthropology, journal articles / papers, Open Access Anthropology and Knowledge Sharing

“Please write for us, but write in plain English!” The new Journal of Business Anthropology (JBA) does not only provide open access to all articles. It demonstrates that open access should mean more: What’s the point with free access to scholarship when jargon is excluding most people from profiting from its contents?

“When you write [for us], please remember to write in plain English”, the editors Brian Moeran (Copenhagen Business School) and Christina Garsten (Stockholm University) ask in their editorial of the first issue:

One thing that can be said about anthropology in general is that, as a discipline, it has been blessed in the past by good writing, and by anthropologists who have been good writers. This is by no means the case nowadays, when the monograph is being ousted by the journal article, and freedom of expression by all kinds of restrictions.

In spite of all appearances to the contrary in most academic journals, it is possible to express complex ideas in simple language. Theoretical musings can be intelligible, divested of jargon.

And articles in the JBA, unlike articles in most other journals, really ought to say something that is novel, exciting, stimulating and provocative. They ought to strive to reach across to a variety of audiences. Otherwise, there isn’t much point in publishing them in the first place – unless, of course, we are going to play the citation index game, which we’re not. So there!

The journal is not meant to be interesting for researchers only. According to their selfdescription the journal staff hopes the articles may “guide business practitioners in their day-to-day working lives”. A better understanding of organizational structures and interpersonal relations, they argue, “can help in the management of personnel, workplace design, and formulation of business strategies”.

Business is understood broadly, as they explain in the editorial: Business is done both on a Norwegian oil rig or, a Peruvian craft market, a tea plantation in the Himalayan foothills, a Bulgarian rose field or on a camel train in the Saudi Arabian desert. In all those places, people engage “in practices that form many of the building blocks of anthropological theory: material culture and technology; gifts, commodities and money; labour and other forms of social exchange; (fictive) kinship, patronage, quasi-groups, and networks; rituals, symbolism and power; the development and maintenance of taste; and so on.”

The Journal of Business Anthropology adopts “a critical stance towards the commercial exploitation of academic research through the publication of overpriced journals that take advantage of under-budgeted university and educational libraries”:

By adopting a multiple format approach, it also takes a stand against current administrative evaluations of ‘academic quality’. It does not believe in the value of, although it may be obliged to take part in, citation indices. It also makes its contents entirely free. Copyright for all material published on the journal’s Open Access website remains with its authors, who may use it elsewhere as they wish.

Multi-format means there will be both traditional articles (published in traditional issues at specific intervals – two issues in 2012) as well as case studies and field reports that will be published separately as they become available. They will also be supported by blogs to enable the journal’s readers to engage in ongoing dialogues about issues arising from these writings. They also intend to run a news and information section.

One of their aims is also to counter what they describe as an “unfortunate development in the discipline of anthropology” – US-centrism.

“During the past two to three decades”, the editors write, “it seems to us that American anthropology has turned in on itself; its proponents have talked mostly to themselves and often ignored the work of those who live and work elsewhere”:

It is our abiding impression that the anthropological study of business is an American development, and that the businesses studied are themselves either American or located in the United States.

But other anthropologists in other parts of the world have also been conducting research on different aspects of business relations: for example, Norwegian herring fleets (Barth 1966), labour migration in Uganda (Elkan 1960), family firms in the Lebanon (Khalaf and Schwayri 1966), and transnational mining and the ‘corporate gift’ (Rajak 2011).

Their aim in launching the JBA is “to bring together fragmented anthropologies”. In the future, they intend to include an essay on one national or regional anthropology in each of the early issues of the JBA. “It is not simply in its methodology, but in its general approach and attitude, that anthropology needs to be holistic”.

Articles in the first issue:

Melissa Cefkin: Close Encounters: Anthropologists in the Corporate Arena

Marietta L. Baba: Anthropology and Business: Influence and Interests

Allen W. Batteau, Carolyn E. Psenka: Horizons of Business Anthropology in a World of Flexible Accumulation

Barbara Czarniawska: Organization Theory Meets Anthropology: A Story of an Encounter

Annamma Joy, Eric Ping Hung Li: Studying Consumption Behaviour through Multiple Lenses: An Overview of Consumer Culture Theory

Among the case studies we find A Funky-Formal Fashion Collection: Struggling for a Creative Concept in HUGO BOSS (pdf) by Kasper Tang Vangkilde.

The field reports include The Making of Lonely Planet guide (pdf) by Ana Alačovska.

The book review section also contains an extensive bibliography.

So far, there has been little innovation in the field of open access journal publishing. Most of them are based on traditional paper thinking. One of the few exceptions is Anthropology Reviews: Dissent and Cultural Politics (ARDAC).

George Marcus: Do we (still) need journals?

Used anthropology to predict the financial crisis

How to get more young readers? Associated Press turns to anthropologists

Timo Veikkola at Nokia – The Anthropologist as Future Specialist

“Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist”: A call for action

Anthropology and the challenges of sharing knowledge online: Interview with Owen Wiltshire

Interview: Self-publish your thesis!

The need for more spectacle in academic presentations: What anthropologists can learn from wrestlers

The end of one-way communication – Anthropologists help news providers and advertisers

Published on March 21, 2010 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, cyberanthropology, gift economy gift giving, media, Us and Them

For the second time, Associated Press has engaged anthropologists in order to improve its services. The first research project, conducted by Context-Based Research Group, revealed that people – contrary to what AP believed – wanted more breadth and depth instead of short blasts of news. The new study shows that news consumers want a two-way conversation instead of one-way bombardment:

It is not just that people feel overloaded. As consumers, they long for a better way to communicate with information providers – news companies and advertisers alike. They want that communication to be two-way, transparent and honest. They seek a new relationship that is built on trust, not simply on the value of the content or advertising itself.

“You have to socialize the space before you can monetize it,” Robbie Blinkoff, principal anthropologist for Context, concluded. “The solution is not just to create more engaging content, but to create better environments for engaging with content.”

In the report, Blinkoff used Victor Turner‘s concept “Communitas” – something that APs Vice President Jim Kennedy Vice President called “an interesting bit of cultural theory”:

He called Communitas a time of egalitarian information sharing which can be harnessed to rebuild trust between information providers and consumers. He likened Communitas to the social networking phenomenon online, where consumers feel comfortable engaging with information among their friends and peer groups. (…) With Communitas, there is no such thing as one-way communication. There are only two-way conversations that inspire loyalty and trust, and those are key ingredients with the power to cut through the clutter of the Internet.

Both studies are based on ethnographic research methods. The researchers tracked and analyzed the behavior of individuals in their work and home environments.

AP seems to be fascinated by anthropological methods. “One of the keys to understanding how to address the situation”, AP writes, “has been the extraordinary insight enabled by the Context methodology”:

Context does ethnographic research, meaning it studies small groups of people up close to get at the root of their behavior. That “Deep Structure,” as Context calls it, opens up a view of how companies can respond to cultural changes that aren’t so obvious on the surface.

>> press release

>> download the research report “A New Model for Communication: Studying the Deep Structure of Advertising and News Consumption”

I found one more report on Context’s website called Grounding the American Dream: An Ethnographic and Quantitative Study on the Future of Consumerism in a Changing Economy where they “portray a society and culture going through a “rite of passage” and moving into an era where we measure the quality of our lives in social terms before economic ones”.

The Internet Gift Culture

“Prosumers”: Consumer Anthropologist Uncovers Proof of New Species of Consumer

Exploring the honor culture of social media

Ethnographic study: Social network sites are “virtual campfires”

Digital Anthropology Report: Attitudes to technology = basis of future class divides

What is good applied anthropology?

Published on January 6, 2009 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, University / Academia

Most anthropologists work outside the university where they don’t enjoy academic freedom. These anthropologists must be better prepared for the perils of non-academic applied work, Brian McKenna writes in Counterpunch. For good applied anthropology is being troublesome:

He quotes Robert Lynd who in 1939 wrote:  

[T]he role of the social sciences to be troublesome, to disconcert the habitual arrangements by which we manage to live along, and to demonstrate the possibility of change in more adequate directions . . . like that of a skilled surgeon, [social scientists need to] get us into immediate trouble in order to prevent our present troubles from becoming even more dangerous. In a culture in which power is normally held by the few and used offensively and defensively to bolster their instant advantage within the status quo, the role of such a constructive troublemaker is scarcely inviting.

Too often, applied anthropologists say “Yes, sir”:

Some years back Harvard anthropologist Kris Heggenhougen argued that the strength of anthropology in collaborating with other disciplines lies in saying, “yes, but. . . and to critically examine the decisive factors affecting peoples’ health including power, dominance and exploitation.” (Heggenhougen 1993)

Yes, but. . . . while that sounds good, more needs to be said.  

First of all, we spend much more time saying “yes, sir” than “yes, but” in paid employment. This is necessary if we wish to stay employed. The workplace is a not a democracy but a hierarchy in which academic freedom does not apply. (…) (A)pplied anthropologists have to be prepared to travel the road from “yes, but,” to “no, sir” in order to better serve the public interest.

Brian McKenna mentions several applied anthropologists who were “troublesome”. One of them is Barbara Johnston who has worked with environmental justice. She warns about associated risks:

Environmental justice work “requires confronting, challenging and changing power structures.” When someone is involved in this work, says Johnston, “backlash is inevitable.” Because most anthropologists usually enter organizations as change agent s of some kind they need to be aware that they are especially at risk of being labeled a “troublemaker” at any time. If the label sticks it can lead not only to getting fired; it also can lead to a vicious form of bullying that can make one’s life unbearable.

According to Johnston, academic culture “trivializes the importance of this work,” while, at the same time, the engaged anthropologist struggles to find disciplinary support.  

Another example is Ted Downing who worked for the World Bank. In 1995, he wrote about the potential social and environmental impacts a proposed World Bank dam project will have on Chile’s Pehuenche Indians. The result: The report was censored:

After his report was censored Downing demanded that the World Bank publicly disclose his findings. The Bank responded by threatening “a lawsuit garnering Downing’s assets, income and future salary if he disclosed the contents, findings and recommendations of his independent evaluation.” (Johnson and Garcia Downing). As a result of his whistleblowing, Downing was blacklisted from the World Bank after 13 years of consulting service. 

In his case, “yes, but” didn’t work. He progressed, reluctantly, to “no, sir”:

In fact this happens to many applied anthropologists but most do not have the resources, support or disciplinary guidance to assist them in their struggles. They might become whistleblowers but their careers suffer. And their stories are untold. We do not have a good accounting of how often this happens to anthropologists, but we need to learn more about this. In any case, resisting censorship is, as Downing says, “good applied” anthropology.

>> read the whole article in Counterpunch

When applied anthropology becomes aid – A disaster anthropologist’s thoughts

Bush, “war of terror” and the erosion of free academic speech: Challenges for anthropology

USA: Censorship threatens fieldwork – A call for resistance

Examples of engaging anthropology – New issue of “Anthropology Matters”

Omertaa – Open access journal for Applied Anthropology

Most anthropologists work outside the university where they don't enjoy academic freedom. These anthropologists must be better prepared for the perils of non-academic applied work, Brian McKenna writes in Counterpunch. For good applied anthropology is being troublesome:

He quotes Robert…

Used anthropology to predict the financial crisis

Published on November 9, 2008 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, culture traditions

She spent a year in Tajikistan during her PhD, looking after goats. Two years ago, she predicted the current financial crisis. “I happen to think anthropology is a brilliant background for looking at finance,” anthropologist Gillian Tett, assistant editor at the Financial Times, says in an interview with The Guardian:

Firstly, you’re trained to look at how societies or cultures operate holistically, so you look at how all the bits move together. And most people in the City (financial district of London) don’t do that. They are so specialised, so busy, that they just look at their own little silos. And one of the reasons we got into the mess we are in is because they were all so busy looking at their own little bit that they totally failed to understand how it interacted with the rest of society.

But the other thing is, if you come from an anthropology background, you also try and put finance in a cultural context. Bankers like to imagine that money and the profit motive is as universal as gravity. They think it’s basically a given and they think it’s completely apersonal. And it’s not. What they do in finance is all about culture and interaction.
(…)
“(Anthropology is) a weird background to have. But it’s helped me in covering the financial crisis. Having seen the Japanese financial crisis, I’ve always known that banks can fall apart. We never imagined that the Soviet Union would break up. And then in Tajikistan there was a horrific civil war. So that whole experience taught me that extraordinarily unexpected things can happen.

Tett was Japan correspondent for the Financial Times during the country’s financial collapse, and wrote a book about it, “Saving the Sun”:

The behaviour and the psychological mood of the markets in late July was almost identical to what happened in the autumn of 1997 in Japan. I was busy cancelling holidays and things. But it came out of the blue for many people – investors, policymakers, bankers, our readers were suddenly completely at sea, at a loss to make sense of it. The financial system is so dysfunctional, so tribal, that people just don’t communicate with each other.

More non-economics should be interested in finance, she says:

People who come from a background of arts and humanities and social studies tend to think that money and the City is boring and somehow dirty. But if you don’t look at how money goes round the world you don’t actually understand the world at all. When you try and join up the dots about how money can be linked to politics, can be linked to culture, then it’s electrifying.

>> read the whole interview in The Guardian

>> Gillian Tett’s articles in the Financial Times

Anthropologist Gillian Tett finds insight into Japan’s bad-loan crisis

She spent a year in Tajikistan during her PhD, looking after goats. Two years ago, she predicted the current financial crisis. "I happen to think anthropology is a brilliant background for looking at finance," anthropologist Gillian Tett, assistant editor at…