Paper short abstract:

The proposed paper discusses the issue of multiple audiences for anthropology in and about the world from the perspective of anthropological understanding we produce as contextualized/situated knowledge and how the context is shaped by our engagements with different audiences.

Paper long abstract:

Working as an anthropologist in the innovation and design industry, I believe that anthropologists in the world also conduct research about the world by using anthropology as a set of conceptual tools, while participating and functioning as part of the world with a particular committal responsibility. What appears to be the main difference between anthropology about and in the world seems to be the context.

In the applied anthropological research, boundaries of the context are drawn to drive and serve particular needs of so-called clients, which could be public organizations, philanthropies, or full-profit companies. The context is set up to drive certain solutions, and the knowledge we produce is framed and communicated to clients for such purpose. The context necessarily involves business prioritization as there is a tremendous pressure for speed. Furthermore, this notion of "client(s)" often implies a complex agent consisting of multiple audiences with different interests.

Through the recent widespread popularity of ethnographic research in the industry, an increasing number of researchers are claiming anthropological authority over the knowledge they produce for being "truer" understanding of the subject matter. The issue of context and how researchers' choices are implied in setting up a particular context to thrive for desired outputs remain unmentioned. Such phenomena challenge anthropologists in both domains with commodification of anthropology. In the proposed paper, I will discuss the role of anthropology in engaging with the world for difference audiences in relation to the relevance of anthropological practices established in our discipline.