Using Anthropology by David W. McCurdy
What is the significance of the social interaction between McCurdy and a former student?
Anthropology…applicable to any social environment… any social group
Questions posed end of essay:
1) What kinds of jobs do professional anthropologists do?
Professional jobs
1) ex-Anthro student turned engineer
Daily tasks, maintaining complex engines, building relationships with a diverse crew, and interacting with land-based management
2) Community organizer
Mediating disputes & facilitating decision-making in a multi-ethnic neighborhood
3) Advertising account exec
Helpful in discovering what products are useful to customers…which heps her design more effective ad campaigns
Other jobs
Executive editor magazine for home weavers
Interviewer
Founder of a fencing school
Physician
Lawyers
Kitchen manager for catering firm
High school teacher
PhD graduates in Anthropology (in organizations)
Researcher on nutrition infant formulas; how employees adapt to working overseas, formulate govt policies
2.) What is special about anthropology
that makes fundamental knowledge of it valuable to some jobs?
3) What is meant by qualitative research? Why is such research valuable to businesses and government?
How is ethnographic research different from other social science approaches to research?
What can ethnographic research reveal that other forms of research cannot? What can the use of questionnaires and observational experiments reveal about people that ethnographic research might miss?
In general, anthropologists take
a qualitative approach.
In contrast to quantitative approaches, they use the insider’s viewpoint to discover problems, advise circumstances, and generate policy.
Business Anthropology
applies anthropological theories and practices to the needs of private sector organizations.
Anthropology teaches skills that are useful in the workplace.
From major corporations to program assessments for persons with HIV/AIDS on gov’t health projects to “user” or product friendliness
According to McCurdy in “Using Anthropology,”
How do new managers in many companies, tend to act in their new roles?
In many companies, newly installed managers tend to impose a new agenda on their employees.
How might taking an anthropological approach help?
5. What difficulties did the company manager described in this article face? What solutions did she invent to deal with them? How did her knowledge of Anthropology help her with this problem?
UTC
Susan Stanton
Given instructions:
Improve service
Get control of warehouse inventory
Ethnographic approach vs defensive stance
Ethnographic Management
Microcultures:
customer outlets
warehouse
Ethnographic training
Conduct interviews
Observe behaviors
Interpret & analyze behaviors
Problems & causes: misunderstanding & miscommunication between units (main office, customer outlets & warehouse)
Perceptions of workers
Lost inventory
Morale
Ethnography
is an important skill that people who study anthropology can take into daily life.
“Finding”
The manager at UTC spent time learning the warehouse system as an insider views it
discovered that inaccurate warehouse inventory numbers resulted from pressures on employees to work fast, preventing them from accurately counting and recording what was shipped.
Example 1 (UTC)
Shows how ethnography can solve a business problem
Describes how a new manager took an ethnographic approach before she introduced changes
Describes the simple innovation of shrink-wrapping educational materials in lots of five and ten
Shows how the improved service increased morale and job retention of employees
Example 2: Utility company
an anthropologist was hired to find out why customers of a utility company failed to reduce energy consumption, despite their claims that they were trying to conserve.
An ethnographic approach found
Despite their claims and reports that they were trying to conserve energy,
He discovered that while fathers turned down thermostats (then went off to work), other family members turned them up.
Last questions:
Why is qualitative research valuable to businesses and government?
Why is ethnography useful in everyday life? Could you think of any situations where you could use ethnographic research?
List some skills that are acquired by undergraduate anthropology majors that are useful to employers. How can this be translated into resume language that employers can understand?
Overall, what was your personal response to these essays? Liked best/ least; understood most/ least? Why?
Next class: Culture and ethnography cont’d
#2. “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” (Lee)
#3. “Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS” ( Sterk)
#4. “Nice Girls Don’t Talk to Rastas” (Gmelch)
Also read over the guidelines to the first written assignment due the following Thursday (Oct 11th)
Works Cited:
Spradley, James P. (2016) Ethnography and Culture. In Conflict and Conformity: Readings in Cultural Anthropology (15th edition). David W. McCurdy, Dianna Shandy and James Spradley (Eds). New York, City, NY. Pearson, pp:6-12.
McCurdy, David W. (2016) Using Anthropology. In Conflict and Conformity: Readings in Cultural Anthropology (15th edition). David W. McCurdy, Dianna Shandy and James Spradley (Eds). New York, City, NY. Pearson, 373-384.
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