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- Convenors:
-
Sarah Buckler
(Robert Gordon University)
Julie Scott (Canterbury Christ Church University)
- Formats:
- Panels
- Stream:
- Anthropology
- Location:
- Examination Schools Room 11
- Start time:
- 18 September, 2018 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel is proposed by Apply, the Applied Anthropology Network of ASA. We will explore how ethnography has changed and what different uses it is being put to both inside and outside the academy.
Long Abstract:
Ethnography was once the province of anthropology and anthropologists - academics who spent many months living amongst peoples they were studying so that they could come to understand and effectively describe their ways of life, and what lay behind those ways of life. Ethnography was a project that took months or years to execute effectively, it was a rite of passage in many ways, and much has been written about it for those who wished to follow that route.
These days, however, the nature of ethnography has changed. No longer the province of academic anthropologists, the strengths of ethnography in reaching an understanding of varying points of view is now recognised by many other disciplines and in many other industries. Nurses and marketing managers make use of ethnography to understand experiences of patients, families, potential customers. Rapid ethnographical accounts enable corporations to get a feel for a variety of cultural contexts where they may want to sell their products.
We invite contributions from those who use ethnography in applied contexts to present some of their work and engage in a discussion about what implications there may be for the discipline of anthropology and the ways that anthropology can be valued as a professional practice in a variety of settings
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
My paper introduces a new piece of research tracing the career of Eric J. Miller to recover a post-war 'expansive moment' when anthropologists were applying their skills to understanding industrial working conditions and urban life, with the express purpose of making improvements.
Paper long abstract:
My paper will introduce a new piece of research which traces the career of Eric J. Miller, to recover a post-war 'expansive moment' when anthropologists were applying their skills to understanding industrial working conditions and urban life, with the express purpose of making improvements. By drawing on fresh archival material of the Tavistock Institute at Wellcome Library, combined with free-flow narrative interviews with family and colleagues, and background research using private collections in the UK and in India, the research will trace the evolution of Miller's career from academic anthropologist at Cambridge University in the late 1940s and early 1950s, where Miller worked on the changing place of occupational caste in imperial and post-imperial India, through his work as an internal consultant anthropologist to a large family-owned textile business in India, through to his organisational consultancy career at the Tavistock Institute, to delineate the influence of an anthropological training on Miller's approach. The project will generate a monograph that reframes Miller's deployment of anthropology as a model by which we might not only practice social science, but teach social anthropology so as to practice. By exploring and publishing on Miller's anthropologically-informed methods, it is hoped more social anthropologists will take up his approach and be better equipped to work across academic and applied social sciences and organisational consultancy, so as to re-engage anthropology in industry.
Paper short abstract:
A debated issue of anthropology applied "to" development remains the engagement of the researcher and ethnographic fieldwork. Based on the 'case' of a project and my experience working as part of the research team, the paper reflects upon the roles and expectations placed on research activities.
Paper long abstract:
Research methods build the bridge between the world, on the one hand, and its representations on the other. One of the ways that ethnography has done this in the field of international development and cooperation is by examining, through the "researcher" in the field, the development project life that policy legitimises as social processes. Ethnography, it is believed, can help explain the complexity of development policy and practice, as it can assert the why of specific decision-making processes; and therefore, it has been used to investigate development by most social anthropologists around the world, not without concerns. A debated issue of anthropology applied "to" development remains the engagement of the researcher and his/her ethnographic fieldwork in the project context.
Overall, most research on this topic reviews how anthropological research contributes to understanding local social contexts, discussing project's success and impacts. However, research in development action can also be part of project planned activities. Problems begin when research outcomes begin to quietly challenge the project (and its project leader) with contradictory or divergent results.
Based on the 'case' of a project in India, promoting local development through cultural heritage revitalisation and my experience working as part of the researcher team, partnering in the project, the paper reflects upon the different roles and expectations placed on research activities in project context and highlights the actors' position towards the researcher and its ethnographic work.
Paper short abstract:
A small but rapidly growing part of research done on libraries is ethnographic. What knowledge can we gain if we gaze upwards from instrumental, 'ethnographish' problem-fixing and employ open, explorative approaches and fuller participation in applied research and settings like the library?
Paper long abstract:
There is much research done on libraries, of which a small but rapidly increasing part is ethnographically inspired. 'Ethnographish' is the derogative term the library ethnographers Lanclos and Asher (2016) give this 'short-term and narrowly contextualised' research. Here, open and explorative vistas, broader contexts, serendipity and transformative experiences, or ponderings on larger issues are rare. Rather, the instrumental and often normative discipline of Library and Information Science (LIS) seems to rule the ground alone.
This paper explores what kind of unique knowledge a broader contextualisation and commitment to participant observation, including 'living attentionally with others' (Ingold 2014), can offer from institutional settings like the library. It addresses thus the interface between applied and basic research, and between anthropology inside and outside of academia. How can we enhance both sides, at a time when the two need each other more than ever? How can academic anthropology become more relevant, without losing its unique advantages? And how can applied ethnography lift its gaze, and become more useful, in unexpected ways?
The research project is based on long-term fieldwork in an academic library and in various public libraries in Oslo. Participant experience, sensory ethnography, attempts at grasping the broader life and history of the participants as well as a wider socio-political context were important methodological ingredients. The particular findings are of minor importance to this paper, but relate to a wide range of issues from socio-political integration; urbanism; atmosphere, materiality and built environment; sociality and subjectivity; and therapy.
Paper short abstract:
Questioning the assumption that anthropologists have a special 'way of seeing', I explore whether other practitioners of ethnography could do the work that anthropologists do, and if applying anthropology is not the same as applying common sense.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation questions the assumption that anthropologists have a different or even special 'way of seeing' through our ethnographic practice/s. By listing and examining several examples (in business process re-engineering, business models, writing training materials, in education practices, social care arrangements, etc.) of how I have applied - I thought - my special way of seeing and anthropology in analysis and coming up with the required solutions, I question whether it was my training in anthropology and ethnographic methods that really played a significant part. Could another practitioner without a background in anthropology have done the same, or perhaps even better?
Was I applying anthropology based on ethnographic data, or common sense?
Have l become so thoroughly an anthropologist that whatever l observe in social life whether or not it constitutes 'official' research data, ethnographic or otherwise, is filtered through anthropological lenses? Is this any different from the engineer or architect who looks at a building and knows exactly where a structural wall should be positioned, or a mathematician who knows which theorem to apply to solve a seemingly intractable problem?
Anthropologists have prided themselves in questioning everything in making the familiar strange. I wish to scrutinize our own practices to contemplate how exactly does anthropological wisdom benefit life's processes outside academia. Is it necessary, or even possible, to teach 'applied anthropology' (or 'applied ethnography') within the academy? While anyone can do ethnography, or so it seems, I will assert that not everyone could do anthropology.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore how feminist activist ethnography is used within midwifery education to enable sudent midwives to prepare for professional life and critically review the realities of practice through the narratives of women who have recently given birth.
Paper long abstract:
We have used feminist activist ethnography as a framework for student midwives to explore women's birth narratives and identify issues that arise in contemporary childbirth in Scotland.
By positioning women at the heart of the students experiences a space is created for students to explore their own working practices and developing professional identities as they prepare to qualify as midwives.
The paper looks at how a close relationship between the pregnancy and parenting charity and the university has had a positive impact on the midwifery curriculum. We will discuss how student midwives are encouraged to critically reflect on key themes within women's childbirth experiences and how this fosters a re examination of their own midwifery belief systems. As a result of this collaborative approach students are able to express their findings through a range of creative mediums that provide both reflexive and reflective opportunities.