A key aspect of renewal is disciplinary renewal though the addition of new practitioners, who can bring revitalization to our practice. To successfully land their first job, today’s new practitioners need practical, relevant basic skills and knowledge, which they can acquire through a range of...
Tag: workplace
The De-skilling of Ethnographic Labor: Signs of an Emerging Predicament
An oft-stated rule in design and engineering is, “Good, fast, cheap: pick two”. The success of ethnography in business has forced this rule into action with a vengeance. As a result, ethnographers now face a threat experienced by many categories of worker over the past two centuries: job...
Policy Change Inside the Enterprise: The Role of Anthropology
This paper addresses corporate policymaking and its varied meanings through organizational hierarchies and across departments. We argue for an approach to policymaking and implementation in large companies such that the impact on work remains visible to decision makers, and such that employees...
Now You See It and Now You Don’t: Consequences of Veiling Relational Work
This paper offers findings from a study of relationship formation in Information Technology (I.T.) outsourcing services and explores the conditions in which relational practices are veiled by the work designs, tools, business lingo, and even media representations of Information Technology...
Practice at the Crossroads: When Practice Meets Theory, A Rumination
Consumer practices, work practices, not to mention management, design and research practices. The notion of “practice” remains core to much of what ethnographers in industry examine, expose and aim to inform. This paper questions: while we study practice(s), while we may frame our research and...