Paper short abstract:

This paper shows how anthropological research methodology and theory were applied in the design and development of training curricula for various audiences. Examples are taken from change management consulting, teaching IT to seniors and teaching English to international students.

Paper long abstract:

This paper gives an account of applying anthropological research skills and concepts outside mainstream academia in areas ranging from change management consulting to teaching laptop skills to older people at AGEUK, and in teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) to international students at British universities.

I will present an overview of how, on reflection, anthropological research skills were used in eliciting details in conducting training needs analyses (TNAs) in order to design and develop training materials for corporate clients; how, as an AGEUK volunteer, anthropological insights and concepts were used in designing a curriculum to teach technology to learners aged 60 to 90+, and in my current role as an EAP teacher preparing international students to cope with the linguistic and cultural shifts required when studying in British universities.

Through illustrations I will highlight how often:

(1) students have to 'unlearn' previously-held understanding of their world, just as trainee anthropologists must unlearn aspects of their own culture before they can 'make the familiar strange';

(2) as a teacher I have to appreciate the student's emic perspective, before I could find the most effective way of motivating and helping them explore new knowledge, technology, other unfamiliar ways of thinking; and

(3) a grasp of indigenous knowledge encompassing history and literature goes some way in innovative curriculum design.

I will conclude by exploring other areas in which anthropological study and its research methods could potentially be deployed outside the university to meet specific learning/business objectives.

Paper short abstract:

In my paper, I reconsider how the 'active voice' entailed by applied anthropology can be used in tourism planning, based upon the results of a project dedicated to mapping the intangible heritage in a region from Southern Transylvania (i.e. the CarPaTo Project).

Paper long abstract:

Based upon the results of a project dedicated to mapping the intangible heritage in a region from Southern Transylvania, in this paper I reconsider how the applications of anthropology can be used in tourism planning. The 'active voice' entailed by applied anthropology is essential for identifying new ideas and original perspectives about the local communities' actual needs. Intangible heritage can be used for tourism and to improve the lives of community members. These ideas and perspectives are in turn important for structuring an efficacious plan for touristic development. Furthermore, the 'active voice' of applied anthropology can ease to a significant extent the process of bringing together organizations, communities and agencies that will become involved in the implementation of the plan. I argue that the sharp distinction between planning and acting should be abandoned. Accordingly, the research process and the information obtained are complementary facets of community-based tourism planning. Moreover, I approach the role that applied anthropology can play in helping local residents and communities in terms of: (a) articulating their 'heritage concepts' (Mason, 2005, p. 168); (b) developing participatory strategies; (c) increasing the level of residents and communities' self-confidence in relation to various organizations and stake holders.

Paper short abstract:

This paper engages with the methodological and conceptual notions of "participation" at the crossroads of applied anthropological research and participatory learning and action (PLA) approaches in the context of interventions to prevent violence against women and girls in Mumbai, India.

Paper long abstract:

The ethnographic endeavor is premised on participant observation, where research becomes possible through the ethnographer's sustained presence in a community, and participation in their social and cultural practices. However, what does "participation" mean in contexts where ethnographic research is "applied," and when such application is further premised on "participatory methods," like Participatory Learning and Action (PLA)? Can the notion of "participation" in ethnographic research and participatory methods be considered coterminous? This paper addresses these questions by drawing on collaborative applied anthropological research carried out in an ongoing cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Mumbai, India. The RCT, which is implemented by a city-based non-governmental organization (NGO), adapted six participatory learning and action (PLA) tools to the context of VAWG. The use of PLA in VAWG interventions demonstrates the strength of using participatory approaches to work with vulnerable communities in establishing trust and rapport with participants, and collecting "data" that can be used in evaluating programs. In particular, this paper addresses, and builds on, critical appraisals of participatory approaches, especially the limitations of PLA to account for intersectional social divisions of gender, age, religion, and caste. It shows that combining PLA with ethnographic research elicits grounded and nuanced explanations of causality and social context from community women, giving them opportunities to articulate concerns over violence, inequity, and their desire for change. This also has utility for designing critical realist evaluation in RCTs which emphasize the context, mechanism and outcome (CMO) configuration.

Paper short abstract:

How to get to the point without losing the relevant anthropological theoretical knowledge along the way? In this communication, reflections will be shared based on the experience of working on interdisciplinary projects related to nature conservation in Portugal and Guinea-Bissau.

Paper long abstract:

For the past 10 years, as an environmental anthropologist and ethnoecologist, I have been involved in interdisciplinary projects that aim to support decision-making in the field of conservation. Projects related to the reintroduction of Iberian lynx in Portugal, and the conservation of chimpanzees and community-based conservation in Guinea-Bissau. Working mainly with primatologists, but also with biologists, geographers and lawyers, two main questions arise: How to translate anthropological theoretical configurations to interdisciplinary teams? How to adjust the ethnographic methodology and new approaches (for example, multispecific) to respond to the expectations and deadlines of the funding organizations? How to accept other scientific views of the world? This challenge leads to a rewarding learning experience, but above all it allows to improve the anthropological knowledge of reality and to uncap the anthropological theory.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the affinities of the production of anthropological knowledge with the practices fundamental to entrepreneurship. I focus on three characteristics that both venturing and anthropology share: failure, pivots, and uncertainty.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I trace the affinities of the production of anthropological knowledge with the practices fundamental to entrepreneurship. Specifically, I focus on three characteristics that both venturing and anthropology share: failure, pivots, and uncertainty as a milieu which must be embraced, navigated, and captured in the production of value on behalf of others. In the first part of the paper, I examine how each of these domains have been conceptualized in the literature in both anthropology and entrepreneurship. As an illustrative, but not exclusive example, drawing on my experience as an anthropologist coaching startup teams, the paper discusses these points through the lens of social venturing. It focuses on current calls in entrepreneurship to use starting up as a way to tackle societal Grand Challenges and to use them as a framework for venture creation. Because there is virtually no formal cross-pollination between anthropology and social entrepreneurship until now, the paper addresses specific areas in which ethnographic expertise is especially relevant and applicable. It also explores how in turn anthropologists can further experiment with the form and the potentials of ethnography via venturing. The second part of the paper therefore zooms out to address the applied - and applicable but yet underexplored - potentials for a better rapprochement between business anthropology and entrepreneurship as two distinct fields; how anthropological thinking can lend itself to entrepreneurship - both as a field of applied practice and as a field of research - and what business anthropology can learn from entrepreneurs.

Paper short abstract:

In this contribution, I seek to address applied anthropology initiatives as a creative enterprise against the background of profound changes in the contemporary corporate and academic landscape highlighting challenges and opportunities starting from the experience with Halo Ethnographic Bureau.

Paper long abstract:

What does it mean to understand Applied Anthropology as a form of Creative Enterprise? Far from situating such venture as tied to the spread of the neoliberal agenda (GLEDHILL 2004; FERGUSON 2006) and entrepreneurial parlance (FREEMAN 2014) I wish to make an argument in favour of the powers of Anthropological imagination.

The growing interest in applied anthropology is understood by Downey and Fisher (2006) within widespread developments in management and new corporate structures in late capitalism. "Executives believe that anthropology provides a deeper understanding of the ways consumers invest their fantasies, dreams, and hopes." The rise of applied anthropology would signal a crisis of conventional forms of knowledge but also the growing dependency on immaterial labour to produce rapid and continuous innovation.

Managerialism in higher education and the shrinking of the academic job market outline an environment of increasing competitiveness and forced the discipline to revisit its own formal power structures. Issues of elitism, underrepresentation, and misconduct are being addressed by a new generation of scholars to rethink anthropology's political and theoretical commitments.

I situate applied ventures as creative enterprises as a way to reconnect scholars with anthropology's premise of social invention, openness, and moral aspiration. (PADIAN 2019)

In this contribution, I seek to continue on this critical perspective through a focus on my own initiative. Halo Ethnographic Bureau is a platform to promote ethnographic thinking across academia and industry launched in 2018. I propose to share the challenges and opportunities encountered during planning and operation.

Paper short abstract:

This is a case study of being an anthropologist working in the field of qualitative evidence synthesis for decision-making. How can we meet the needs of evidence synthesizers in terms of transparency, detail, context and reflexivity while maintaining the creative edge of ethnographic writing?

Paper long abstract:

This is a case study of being an anthropologist working in the field of qualitative evidence synthesis for decision-making. Decision makers in organizations and governments are increasingly interested in the questions anthropologists dedicate themselves to, and the qualitative methodologies they use to explore them. Questions of equality and equity, tradition and change, embodiment and culturally-mediated perception, and subjective and relational experience, are all of interest to decision makers implementing change, whether for preventive healthcare or environmental management. Ethnography is, perhaps to our own surprise, highly regarded by decision makers who recognize and value its depth and breadth as well as its ability to go beyond the descriptive into the realm of interpretation and explanation. I entered this new world of evidence synthesis, unexpectedly, while conducting ethnographic research in Uruguay and South Africa. The timing made me think in a different way about my written work, and how publications might be used for action. However, I have had few opportunities to engage with my disciplinary colleagues around this topic. In this presentation I give some background on the popularity of systematic reviews of qualitative research and how we can optimize the chances of our research being found, fairly assessed and interpreted, and ultimately used in systematic reviews to inform decision-making. I would like us to think in particular about how we can meet the needs of evidence synthesizers in terms of transparency, detail, context and reflexivity while maintaining the creative edge and rich heterogeneity of ethnographic writing. Watch presentation here: https://vimeo.com/440250908

Paper short abstract:

The paper presents the interdisciplinary co-creation process of a corporate, an innovation platform, and an externally hired team. It reflects on how anthropology, design, business and technology inform the development of a new smart home product for more sustainable consumption and supply chains.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will refer to concepts of co-creation and the post-phenomenological notion of human-technology-world relations, while show-casing the development of a smart home product for people to better manage their households. It will reflect on the following three topics

a. Assumptions-driven innovation vs. good old theory and research

This section will show how applied anthropology plays a role in today's often assumptions-driven innovation. While fast-paced innovation projects demand to work with assumptions, theory and research remain an important sparring partner. Questions like: Who are the people interacting with the future product?; What's the meaning of the space in which they might interact with the future product?; What are important value shifts?; How would the future product transform people's sensory experiences in the home?; or: How will human-technology-world relations change?; need to inform the innovation space.

b. Co-Creation: Is it about finding, defining, or inventing value?

In this chapter we will discuss how anthropological investigations of finding out what is valuable can inform the generation of new value, while also reflecting on the question: does new value always have to do with what people identify as valuable today?

c. Holistic sustainability - An interaction of interdisciplinary knowledge

This section will provide an overview of the resulted product vision, challenges and approaches the team currently works on, and thereby showcase how data science, algorithm-development, anthropology, design, business modelling and hardware expertise need to interact with each other to develop a holistically sustainable product.