Doing anthropology in consumer research / Patricia L. Sunderland and Rita M. Denny.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sunderland, Patricia L.

Contributor:

Denny, Rita Mary Taylor, 1956-

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Business anthropology--Research.

Business anthropology.

Consumers--Research.

Consumers.

Anthropology--Methodology.

Anthropology.

Physical Description:

368 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Walnut Creek, CA : Left Coast Press, [2007]

Summary:

This book is the essential new guide to the theory and practice of conducting ethnographic research in consumer environments. The recent explosion of "ethnography" in the corporate world has provided unprecedented opportunities for anthropologists and other qualitative researchers, yet this popularization has also too often divorced ethnography from its foundations. Sunderland and Denny reframe the field by re-attaching ethnography to theoretically robust and methodologically rigorous cultural analysis. The authors' eclectic variety of case studies combined with four provocative forewords by leading figures in anthropology and consumer research push the boundaries of the field and challenge the divide between academic and applied work.

Contents:

Part I. Introduction

Anthropologists and anthropology in consumer research

What does cultural analysis mean?

Framing cultural questions: what is coffee in Benton Harbor or Bangkok?

Part II. Engaging approaches

The ordinary matters: making anthropology audible / Donald D. Stull

Apposite anthropology and the elasticity of ethnography / John F. Sherry, Jr.

The social life of metaphors: have we become our computers?

Finding ourselves in images: a semiotic excursion

Contextualizing emotion: when do boredom, paranoia, and "being strong" become emotions?

Diagnosing conversational details

Part III. Engaging entanglements

Entagled / Russell Belk

Reflexivity and visual media: entanglements as a productive field / Vilma Santiago-Irizarry and Frederic W. Gleach

Anthropology and consumer sementation: the terrain of race and ethnicity

Ethnographic video in consumer research: fulfilling the promise?

Photographs, ethics, and exoticization in/of practice

Part IV. Engaging one another.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-357) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781598740905

1598740903

9781598740912

1598740911

OCLC:

166255173