The methods and ways of business anthropology

Abstract (English)

The paper is based on personal experience working as a business (corporate) anthropologist in marketing, advertising, product innovation, business consulting and market research in the U.S. from 2006 to 2024. The immersion a Stanford Anthropology graduate into the "real world" has resulted in a unique methodological journey whereby applying anthropological methods (ethnographic research, consumer participant observation, surveys, etc.) and leveraging the expertise of an ex-academic in the issues of culture had to be intertwined with deep personal participation ("going native" in the world of creativity, commerce and finance), constant "studying up" (Nader 1967; Yanagisako 2003) and reimagining anthropology for business purposes as a "mixed cognitive arts" exercise. Using personal experience in anthropological practice (starting from the iconic anthropological transculturation of Frank Cushing among the Zuni in the late 19th century) has never been formalized as a "method" of gaining credible insights about culture. The paper revisits its advantages and drawbacks. Next, the paper discusses an experience of displacing psychology as a go-to expert system in marketing with anthropology. Furthermore, the paper describes the use of "expert crowdsourcing" methodologies to study and predict markets and global cultural trends as a potential way to enrich anthropological methods writ large. Finally, the paper discusses the transformation of anthropology as a monolithic discipline with its well-formed methodological stack into an on-demand business knowledge platform whereby an anthropologist uses insights from cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, behavioral economics and Levi-Straussian myth analysis depending on the client, business and creative needs. The paper concludes with a summary of the importance of teaching business anthropology as part of general anthropology and enriching anthropological methods and applications through a "deep hanging out" (Clifford 1996) in the world of business, marketing and technology.