Melissa Vogel and Adam Gamwell at Anthropology News write about the value of anthropology to business and how this value can be articulated in language a business understands.
As anthropologists, our approach to human insights research and analysis offers businesses a unique way to understand patterns of behavior and meaning making that differs from quantitative data analysis. For example, ethnography of tech industry consumer needs conducted by anthropologists, who use cross-cultural knowledge, cultural relativism, and a holistic approach, will offer businesses a way to understand consumer needs that is not often present in a management-, psychology-, or even sociology-based perspective. These insights then allow businesses to provide better products and services.
Very moving song by the Elias String Quartet, “Lament for Mulroy”.
With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic I have spent most I my time at home, working and away from friends and family. I therefore have had to significantly make use of video chat for work meetings and meeting loved ones. In an article on Vox, Adam Clark Estes writes about the history of this technology and how these changes are shaping our lives and the technology itself:
In this talk David Graeber gives a good overview of his book “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”:
Prof. Ron Anderson writes at The Society Pages about the importance of thrust during the Covid-19 pandemic. He gives an overview of different types of social thrust that have been theorised by classical sociologists and how their insights may apply to our current situation.
DW Documentary published a short documentary about the use of a type of pesticide, neonicotinoids, which are now seen as the main cause of damage to ecosystems and death of bee colonies. The video shows the truly horrendous practices of Bayer Group, which sells these pesticides, in manipulating research and policy.