Paper short abstract:

Anthropologists working in industry are akin to artisans in their communities, where "ethnographic methods" are appropriated. Interestingly, in these situations, there is often an exchange where the "artisan" anthropologist learns from the industrial "appropriator."

Paper long abstract:

Following fieldwork on the southwest coast of New Guinea, I came to know the Kamoro as a community of artisans. Various practitioners were recognized for their ability to interpret events, to link the present with the mythical and historical past, and to exercise some control over their natural and built environment. Like the Kamoro storyteller or master carver, I've acquired my ethnographic skills through a variety of "apprenticeships" and long-term direct engagement with a community of anthropological practitioners. The training and knowledge that I've acquired over the course of formal education and more than a decade of practice that define me as an anthropologist are not prescriptively delineated means of uniting our field. Like the artisan, my "status" as an anthropologist is staked through an articulation of know-how that far exceeds technical ability and academic training. As "ethnographic methods" continue to be appropriated in market research and business-oriented qualitative research, it leaves the anthropologist to question "What is it about my practice of 'ethnographic methods' that allows me to claim status as 'owner'?" This paper will position the anthropologist in a non-academic environment where "ethnographic methods" are claimed as core competency by a broad spectrum of "industrial" practitioners. Rather than question the "authenticity" of the practice of ethnographic methods by those not trained in the anthropological tradition, I aim to examine areas where the "artisan" anthropologists can draw from the industrial practitioners and how anthropologically-trained researchers can continue to differentiate and contribute to both industrial and academic praxis.