The algorithms that underlie much of the modern world have grown so complex that we always can’t predict what they’ll do. Iyad Rahwan, who directs the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, proposes a radical idea: the best way to understand them is to observe their behavior in […]

For a number of years, we have witnessed a diminishing appetite for ethnographic work among commercial clients, writes Patricia Sunderland, PhD and founder of Cultural Research and Analysis, on the site of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA). Competition and challenges from new methodologies are understandable and to be expected. Yet an undercurrent of ‘we […]

Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus Margaret E. Morris MIT Press, 2018 192 pages Unexpected ways that individuals adapt technology to reclaim what matters to them, from working through conflict with smart lights to celebrating gender transition with selfies. We have been warned about the psychological […]

In an age where we can collect and store (forEVER) every second of every day, how much do we truly need… to learn? To react? To do good deeds that benefit society? Assuming we champion that, what does it mean for privacy and security and (maybe most importantly) global knowledge? And what does any of […]

Stories of Capitalism: Inside the role of financial analysts Stefan Leins University of Chicago Press 2018, 224 pages The financial crisis and the recession that followed caught many people off guard, including experts in the financial sector whose jobs involve predicting market fluctuations. Financial analysis offices in most international banks are supposed to forecast the […]

Just about every automaker in the world is enlisting experts from a variety of fields outside engineering and design to help them develop autonomous vehicles. One of the best known is Nissan’s Melissa Cefkin. Her official title is principal researcher-Human Centered Systems, Nissan Research Center. She is a cultural anthropologist who is helping Nissan designers […]

Ethnography for a data-saturated world Edited by Hannah Knox and Dawn Nafus Manchester University Press October 2018, 296 pages This edited collection aims to reimagine and extend ethnography for a data-saturated world. The book brings together leading scholars in the social sciences who have been interrogating and collaborating with data scientists working in a range […]

As part of a new approach to user interfaces, Amy Wilson, Head of Product at SAP SuccessFactors, pulled designers together with behavioral scientists with backgrounds in cultural anthropology. The goal was to help the designers better understand the way most individuals intuitively work. This way, even while high-design was still a priority, the designers could […]

Last week IKEA launched its fifth Life at Home global research report. Every year, the company sets out to understand more about what makes a better life at home by connecting with thousands of people where they live. Ever since the 2016 report, IKEA has been harbouring a deep curiosity about where the feeling of […]

Left to Our Own Devices: Outsmarting Smart Technology to Reclaim Our Relationships, Health, and Focus By Margaret E. Morris MIT Press, November 2018, 192 pages Unexpected ways that individuals adapt technology to reclaim what matters to them, from working through conflict with smart lights to celebrating gender transition with selfies. We have been warned about […]

Moments when the experience of a blistering day turns public attention to the expertise of climate scientists brings Hannah Knox, associate professor of anthropology at University College London, to explore some of the thorniest of questions we face in the global, modelled, connected world in which we live: How does knowledge about phenomena we experience […]

Datafication and data fiction: Narrating data and narrating with data Paul Dourish, Edgar Gómez Cruz Big Data & Society Journal Sage Publications, July 4, 2018 Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial 4.0 License https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951718784083 Data do not speak for themselves. Data must be narrated—put to work in particular contexts, sunk into narratives that give them shape […]

New York based writer Carrie Neill interviews tech ethnographer Tricia Wang on why the digital age means everyone (even non-researchers) should understand ”thick data”. Any modern person who calls themselves an ethnographer or a qualitative researcher needs to be both a people nerd and a data nerd. Those things are interchangeable because data is people, […]

Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset by Jay Hasbrouck Routledge Press, December 2017 140 pages This book argues that ‘ethnographic thinking’―the thought processes and patterns ethnographers develop through their practice―offers companies and organizations the cultural insights they need to develop fully-informed strategies. Using real world examples, Hasbrouck demonstrates how shifting the value of ethnography from […]

James Ingram, chief executive officer of visual content creation company Splashlight, explains why we need digital anthropologists to handle handle, interpret and apply cultural analysis to data and arrive at consumer insight. Making sense of copious amounts of data in a way that will benefit consumer experience is a problem that most retailers aren’t sure […]

In the spring of 2017 the Danish Business Authority and MindLab, a Danish policy lab, developed a methodology to quickly identify costly regulations and how they could be improved, by combining the Standard Cost Model (SCM) method (a quantitative methodology that can measure the compliance costs of laws and legislation) with design anthropology, which takes […]

Design and anthropology have been seen together with increasing frequency over the last few years, but how do design and anthropology fit together in relation to industry? And, how does this pairing create insight? The team of This Anthro Life is joined by Dr. Natalie Hanson to explore these questions and more. Dr. Hanson is […]