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- Convenors:
-
Simone Dennis
(The University of Adelaide)
Andrew Dawson (University of Melbourne)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Thursday 23 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Research is often funded by interested parties- an alcohol education body, for instance. Working with industry,though, may be regarded with suspicion by fellow researchers. But are our research relations best arrayed along lines of laudability?
Long Abstract:
Research is often funded by interested parties - the Cancer Council and the Foundation of Alcohol Research and Education, that deal with smoking cessation and alcohol regulation respectively, spring instantly to mind. Such associations are regarded in quite different terms than, say, a research relationship forged with the tobacco, alcohol or fast food industries. Agreeing to work with the latter group would indubitably raise the liveliest of suspicions among fellow researchers. In this panel, we're interested in examining the grounds upon which we might work with industry and interested parties. We do not think that we ought instantly and without due consideration take up ostensibly laudable research, such as that carried out by good citizens trying to address significant problems, just as much as we think it intellectually unsophisticated to automatically reject research alignments with industry players with financial or other peculiar interest in the field of enquiry. We invite papers that consider the bases upon which we should and should not make research associations. So doing raises serious questions about the critical edges of disciplinary enquiry, and the need to keep them open and sharp.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 23 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
This paper is an experiment in re-configuring the conditions of collaboration with industry for anthropologists. Conceived as a joint project by the two authors—one an anthropologist, the other a civil engineer—we propose interdisciplinary knowledge production as a mode in consulting for industry.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is part of a research plan that aims to understand engineering projects as temporally specific communities of architects, engineers, project manager, contractors and workers. The authors—one an anthropologist and the other a civil engineer—engage with the ethics of collaboration with industry by re-imagining it as an exercise in interdisciplinary knowledge production. We propose that such commitment to interdsiciplinarity may be one way to address the spectre of danger that collaboration with industry evokes. Our work brings together empirical data and literature in civil engineering together with ethnographic methods and anthropological literature on community, work, and fragmentation. We work through a single case-study involving the construction of a large dormitory on the campus of IIT Madras, where we both serve as faculty. There are three frameworks through which we locate our interventions. For the first, we work within questions of flexibility to understand how, why and when communication structures break down even as key personnel continue to move the work forward despite crises. Secondly, we ask as to how projects are organized in their capacity to give individuals both responsibility and power and whether one can probe structures to understand feelings such as power or powerlessness, boredom, ennui and hope. Lastly, we examine the roles of stakeholders within a project in relation to their own sense of worth as contributors to a larger cause or motive. Together, these questions allow us to think of collaboration between knowledge systems even in the seemingly dangerous company of industry.
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses ongoing discussions on energy conservation in the Danish construction industry as a starting point to discuss how changing hierarchies of expertise and moral controversies affect the anthropologist’s role and responsibility when conducting research with industry actors.
Paper long abstract:
Energy efficiency in buildings has been a topic of discussion in Denmark since the 1970’s energy crisis, but debates have intensified with increasing concerns for the climate. Various actors in Denmark – ranging from politicians and researchers to representatives from the industry - are currently discussing how to increase energy efficiency in buildings. Questions and debates like these remind us of the need to explore new forms of collaboration across disciplines and between research and industry actors. Based on long-term fieldwork in construction companies in Denmark, this paper focuses on the politics of energy conservation and the more or less intended alliances it has created between contractors, subcontractors, and researchers within the industry. I describe ongoing negotiations of expertise between subcontractors, contractors and construction workers in the industry in order to highlight the diverse orientations and practices that not only coexist in an industry, but that are constituted in relation to each other (Yanagisako 2002). Then, I show how debates on energy conservation has reconfigured relations between professional groups and further stimulated the development of a moral discourse that categorize actors and enterprises as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Lastly, I reflect upon how anthropologists might navigate the dilemmas produced by changing hierarchies of expertise and moral controversies between actors when conducting research with industry. Directing attention to the internal dynamics of an industry is essential, I argue, as we examine the grounds upon which we might work with industry actors.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at CCP Games, an Icelandic video game development company, I speak to the methodological and ethical complications that arise, as well as the insights to be gained, when working ethnographically alongside and within corporate entities.
Paper long abstract:
With the rise of digital platforms, questions surrounding the role of what Tarleton Gillespie terms "custodians" of such online spaces continue to loom large (2018). Simultaneously, gaining ethnographic access to such institutions is challenging and oftentimes predicated on one's ability to demonstrate 'value' to the company in question (cf. Welker 2016). Against the backdrop of my ethnographic research on Icelandic game developer CCP Games, this paper highlights the complexities of studying corporations from within due to the necessity of contributing to corporate success while conducting participant observation. Keeping in mind Welker's (2014) argument that corporations are neither inherently 'good' or 'bad,' this paper suggests that anthropologists not shy away from corporate-engaged research. Instead, I argue that anthropology, a deeply colonial disciplinary endeavor that is itself far from benevolent, should not presume to judge research partners' merits and to bound off particular interlocutors accordingly. Anthropologists should instead seek to answer research questions through partnerships grounded in ongoing commitments to reflexivity rooted in self-reflection on researchers' situatedness à la Haraway (1988). In doing so, the discipline stands to gain access to a wider range of research partners while better encouraging work that promotes good and minimizes harm. Ultimately, this paper hopes to highlight the fact that ethnography has been and always will be rooted in complicated webs of research relations and questions of researchers' motivations. By acknowledging the particular financial and ethical complexities of corporate-engaged anthropology directly, however, I hope to make space for similar work in the discipline's future.
Paper short abstract:
Researching with industry is very much needed in my project but it is also needed in anthropology in order to have a more complete view of our world and society. In this paper, I draw on the example of a difficult but successful multidisciplinary collaboration with industry partners.
Paper long abstract:
My research is in the context of a large EU Horizon 2020 project on responsible research and innovation in AM (Additive Manufacturing, sometimes called 3D printing) technology in the automotive and medical equipment industries.
The project comprises academics of which I am the only anthropologist, AM equipment companies, potential suppliers of AM components, the research centre of an automotive company, hospitals, universities, and other users of AM equipment. In this context, I want to concentrate on the experience I had inside a company, which produces machines for AM. Collaboration with industry can be an incredible opportunity to access environments otherwise impossible to be part of with a very privileged position, but it is often hard to balance research and requests from the company management. How to create a successful relation and full access when the company does not pay for your work and there is no clear benefit from their side? How to be flexible and keep open to the field but at the same time pay attention not to be manipulated or used for other interests?
Methodological expectations often differ and negotiation of space is required. How to maintain research ethics and good practices, when constantly challenged and questioned in its own methodological foundations by both industry and research partners? Expectations in terms of final results might also be dissimilar. How to mitigate such expectations coming from industry, but also from colleagues of other disciplines, used to different types of research and different timings?
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on my ongoing research, which focuses on entrepreneurs operating within the field of the ethics of artificial intelligence, I argue that key issues brought about working with industries demonstrate that anthropologists still struggle with studying upper ends of the social structures.
Paper long abstract:
In 1972, Laura Nader pointed out to the necessity of researching higher
echelons of the power structures, if anthropologists were to develop any
adequate description or theorisation of social phenomena. Still, nearly
fifty years afterwards, we ask ourselves whether companies, institutions
at the core of the hegemonic capitalist system, are a legitimate object
of inquiry. This has to do with the anthropological inclination towards
the underdog, reinforced by the discipline’s swapping of the “savage
slot” with the “suffering one” (Robbins 2013), but also with challenges
that “studying up”, as Nader labelled the scrutiny of the upper ends of
power structures, brings. These pertain to securing access within the
context of pronounced property rights, the inability of the participant
observation method to travel smoothly “up the social structure” and
writing critical repatriated anthropology (Gusterson 1997).
In this paper, I draw on my ongoing research in Finland with “AI ethics
entrepreneurs”, people whose job consists of translating increasing
ethical concerns related to artificial intelligence into a commodity,
which they then try to sell. I reflect on the issues of trade-offs in
negotiating and maintaining access, polymorphic nature of my research
material and difficulties I am facing in writing up. I compare these and
contrast them with the challenges I encountered during my doctoral
research, as a foreigner studying transformations of Finnish
universities. I argue that resolving issues brought about work with
industries requires stronger disciplinary engagement with questions
related to “studying up”.
Paper short abstract:
The paper reflects upon the negotiated contribution of critical anthropologists to the Slovenian mental health literacy programme, which was designed, implemented and evaluated by a multidisciplinary team between 2017 and 2019.
Paper long abstract:
The paper discusses the efforts of a multidisciplinary team of core researchers from psychology, psychiatry and anthropology in designing, implementing and evaluating the programme With Raised Mental Health Literacy to Better Managing Mood Disorders (OMRA). The programme OMRA, which consists of several activities and involved parties, was conducted in Slovenia between October 2017 and June 2019. Despite initial expectations of an easy distribution of disciplinary tasks among the OMRA creators, some fields of disagreement emerged between anthropologists on the one hand, and both a psychologist and a psychiatrist on the other hand. The author focuses on the questions of how these discrepancies were met in order to fulfil the OMRA aims, and under what circumstances one can remain a critical anthropologist in such a multidisciplinary team, which followed as well the expectations of the funder - the Ministry of Health. Considering the necessary conditions for a fruitful multidisciplinary endeavour while not merely paying lip service, the author reflects upon the analysis of the qualitative part of the OMRA evaluation, which consists of the pre-OMRA pilot one group and 11 personal interviews with research participants, regular observations through ethnographic diaries of all 22 five-hour-long mobile workshops with 956 participants, and the post-OMRA evaluation two group and 20 personal interviews with the research participants.
Paper short abstract:
Elisabeth Sturm (1895-1960) combined her training in social work, psychology, "race theories" and ethnology for an applied anthropology in the Nazi industrial sector where she took advantage of research opportunities.
Paper long abstract:
The case of Elisabeth Sturm and her activities in Nazi Germany is an early negative example of applied anthropology and research opportunities in industry. Sturm had finished her school education in Vienna in 1912, followed by years of broad training in various professions and different languages. At the age of 31 she attended lectures at Vienna University, e.g. in philosophy, pedagogy, psychology but also ethnology. She traveled to numerous European countries as well as to Palestine and Egypt. After Austria's annexation to Nazi Germany, Sturm joined the Nazi party and continued her studies in Leipzig. Parallel to that she worked as a social consultant at "Brabag", regarded as "Nazi model companies", and wrote articles for the company magazine. In 1941 Sturm began work in the cellulose and paper factory of Lenzing (today: Upper Austria) directed by an SS-"Brigadeführer". Numerous foreigners worked there and received different treatment depending on their home country and "racial affiliation". Sturm was enthusiastic about this opportunity for contributing to her "knowledge" and further "educating" herself at the same time. This would happen in the local folk museum, in "racial policy" training, as head of the "Department for Social Affairs" and in the direct "administration of the barracks for foreigners". There are indications that Sturm was also involved in managing the sub-camp of Lenzing-Pettighofen. Since October 1944 women from the Mauthausen concentration camp were detained here and were forced to work in the Lenzing factory until the camp was liberated by the US Army in May 1945.
Paper short abstract:
To what extent does using participatory methods to develop the rights of bidi (hand-rolled leaf cigarette) workers in India constitute making research relations with the tobacco industry?
Paper long abstract:
What constitutes 'the tobacco industry'? This paper draws on the experience of two different research projects that have been addressing this question in the Indian context, where the 'tobacco industry' is somewhat different to the transnational tobacco corporations that are subject to the opprobrium of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Our particular focus is the bidi (hand-rolled leaf cigarette) industry. Structured as a devolved set of companies across the country, the bidi industry is a complex web of 'bidi barons', agents, contractors and subcontractors. While bidi manufacturing companies are not as bid as the cigarette manufacturers, their political patronage is generally higher. Bidi barons are often politicians at state and national levels, sometimes even playing an active role in committees established to further the goals of tobacco control. At the other end of the spectrum are 4-7 million 'bidi rollers', 90% of them women. Their working conditions are extremely precarious and open to exploitation and they lack power and influence in policy making circles. In undertaking pilot research for a non-industry funded 'Network for the development of participatory methods to investigate current and alternative livelihoods with bidi workers in South India network', under the aegis of the FCTC's Article 17 'Provision of support for economically viable alternative activities', we have come up against the issue of whether and if so how working for the rights of bidi workers constitutes 'research relations with industry'.
Paper short abstract:
Work with a large number of applied anthropology projects has led me to argue that the discipline suffers from a self-inflicted moral superiority complex that impedes its ability to learn from practice in order to become a more mature and responsible profession.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I draw together some of my experiences with applied work from diverse settings, from social policy concerns with sex workers and drug users to the development and assessment of technologies for trade and commercial shipping. Based on George Foster's suggestion (1969) that applied anthropology should be defined in terms of its association with practice, I argue how anthropologists need to pay careful and pragmatic attention to the social relationships of their professional work - a perspective more explicitly developed among practicing anthropologists than within academia. Rather than relying on complacent disciplinary assumptions about the inherent 'goodness' of anthropology, we need to develop more critical and self-critical abilities to handle ethnographic work as a powerful tool that require a strong sense of circumstantial professional responsibility in interdisciplinary work. And rather than attempting to carve out preordained 'go' and 'no-go' zones of collaboration, with the related division of society into 'good' and 'bad' sectors, interdisciplinary skills may make us better at avoiding harm and promote the useful effects of anthropological work. Finally, I would argue, this perspective has implications for the teaching of anthropology.