Advancing the Value of Ethnography

Tag: embodiment

Distant Cousins? Minds, Bodies and Machines

Distant Cousins? Minds, Bodies and Machines

EPIC2019 Keynote Address, Providence, Rhode Island It was several centuries ago that the body was spirited out of conversations about intelligence. The mind-body dualism continues to exert strong influence on the world today—in fields as diverse as education, marketing, politics and technology....

In Defense of Personal Bias in Ethnographic Research

In Defense of Personal Bias in Ethnographic Research

Past midnight, I’m shivering outside a pub in Shoreditch, the rain beginning to drizzle ever so viciously. It has been fifteen minutes since I left my friends and ordered an UberPool home. As I watch yet another cab drive by, I think about the millions of factors that make one choose how to get...

The Virtues of the Visceral

The Virtues of the Visceral

The news on BBC Radio this morning: The Syrian crisis enters its seventh year with 400,000 dead and little hope that this complex catastrophe will be untangled any time soon. The scale of suffering is huge, but Syria accounts for just a fraction of an even more staggering number – the UNHCR...

Strategy as an Unfolding Network of Associations

Strategy as an Unfolding Network of Associations

Cast Study—This case explores a business strategy development project run by Stripe Partners for a London-based online healthcare company, Dr Ed. The first part lays out the details of the process: an intense four-day ethnographic research programme called the ‘Studio’ involving the Dr Ed senior...

Going with the Gut: The Case for Combining Instinct and Data

Going with the Gut: The Case for Combining Instinct and Data

"The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut," Otellini said. "My gut told me to say yes." So said the ex-CEO of Intel, ruing his decision to pass on the...

Knowing That and Knowing How: Towards Embodied Strategy

Knowing That and Knowing How: Towards Embodied Strategy

This paper explores two different forms of knowledge. We compare embodied understanding with propositional or abstract knowledge. Ethnographic research, with its commitment to understanding through immersion and engagement in social fields produces dexterous, intuitive and practical cultural...