Beyond Anthropology's Edges
Debunking the ‘Noble Anthropologist’, Practicing Pragmatism, and Embracing Entrepreneurialism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 18975306 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cynthia Sear (0000-0001-9694-4249, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 42-55 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Anthropology in Action (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0967-201X • E-ISSN: 1752-2285 |
| Publisher | Berghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3167/aia.2023.300105 |
| OpenAlex | W4361018505 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
In recent years, anthropology has become a buzz word in the corporate world. Companies such as Google have hired anthropologists for research and product design while marketing consultancies such as Red Associates have built their brands around anthropological methods. Yet, corporate anthropologists such as myself occupy an uneasy space within anthropology. Despite the discipline's internal commitment to reflexivity of its complicity in broader hegemonies, on the ‘outside’ when communicating to the public, the pristine figure of a ‘noble anthropologist’—acting to make the world a better place, free from influence and self-interest—is often evoked. While some applied anthropologists conform to this image of the ‘noble anthropologist’, the corporate anthropologist often does not. In the context of decreasing student numbers and dissolving departments for anthropologists working in the academy, I consider how a pragmatic and entrepreneurial approach to securing corporate work, while not necessarily ‘noble’, might still be ‘good’
Applied anthropology · Business · Complicity · Marketing buzz · Media studies · Political science · Reflexivity · Sociology · Anthropology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · History · Law
Constructing knowledge
Selected Papers from the "American Anthropologist" 1946-1970
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword —Patterns of Japanese Culture
Looking for a place to stand
The New Imperial Histories Reader
Colonialism and Culture
What has anthropology learned from the anthropology of colonialism
Introduction
Cannibals and culture
Existing in Liminal Space
Anthropology
An Anthropology of Anthropology
What Anthropologists Do
Claude Levi-Strauss
Purity and Danger
Dialectical Anthropology
American Anthropologist
The French Enlightenment and Its Others
Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History
The Anthropology of Colonialism
Culture, Identity and the Project of a Cosmopolitan Anthropology
The Coming of Age of Anthropological Practice and Ethics
The Anthropology of Populism
The perils and prospects for an engaged anthropology. A view from the United States
The Case for Letting Anthropology Burn
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |