Organisational Anthropology
Doing Ethnography in and Among Complex Organisations
Edited by Christina Garsten, Anette Nyqvist
Publication date:
20 October 2014Length of book:
272 pagesPublisher
Pluto PressISBN-13: 9781849648660
Organisational Anthropology is a pioneering analysis of doing ethnographic fieldwork in different types of complex organisations, focusing on the process of initiating contact, establishing rapport and gaining the trust of an organisation's members.
The thirteen contributors work from the premise that doing fieldwork in an organisation shares essential characteristics with fieldwork in more 'classical' anthropological environments, but that it also poses some particular challenges to the ethnographer, with barriers including the ideological or financial interests of the organisations, protection of resources and competition between organisations.
A number of organisational contexts - including corporations, EU policy arenas, think tanks and the public sector - are explored in case studies from the UK, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Mexico and the USA.
The thirteen contributors work from the premise that doing fieldwork in an organisation shares essential characteristics with fieldwork in more 'classical' anthropological environments, but that it also poses some particular challenges to the ethnographer, with barriers including the ideological or financial interests of the organisations, protection of resources and competition between organisations.
A number of organisational contexts - including corporations, EU policy arenas, think tanks and the public sector - are explored in case studies from the UK, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Mexico and the USA.
'This excellent and timely book shows that the anthropological gaze continues to shed light on all things human in surprising ways'