It’s true, anthropology often does not deliver on it’s promise of both getting into the head, hearts and lives of consumers as well showing “how all the data fit, one with another and each with the whole”.

That’s why i am so adamant about defining the practice of consumer anthropology as the collaboration between ethnographic / participant observation methodologies as well as other traditional qualitative methodologies AND quantitative.

I also stress the importance of customization of approaches based on the unique objectives of each project.

at Trend Influence (www.trendinfluence.com), where i am the Director of Knowledge and Insight, our philosophy is that in order to create sustainable brand growth, it is imperative to understand the confluence of Cultural context, Individual consumer behavior and Marketer / business realities.

on a side note, i’m also interested in this concept of “Conflict Ethnogrpahy”. I had the benefit of an undergraduate education in anthropology and gratuate studies in applied sociology, and Conflict theory in general was an interesting macro theoritical space for me…especially in the degree to which it translates into cultural consequences.

Posted by: | Aug 7, 2007 7:22:59 PM

It’s true, anthropology often does not deliver on it’s promise of both getting into the head, hearts and lives of consumers as well showing “how all the data fit, one with another and each with the whole”.

That’s why i am so adamant about defining the practice of consumer anthropology as the collaboration between ethnographic / participant observation methodologies as well as other traditional qualitative methodologies AND quantitative.

I also stress the importance of customization of approaches based on the unique objectives of each project.

at Trend Influence (www.trendinfluence.com), where i am the Director of Knowledge and Insight, our philosophy is that in order to create sustainable brand growth, it is imperative to understand the confluence of Cultural context, Individual consumer behavior and Marketer / business realities.

on a side note, i’m also interested in this concept of “Conflict Ethnogrpahy”. I had the benefit of an undergraduate education in anthropology and gratuate studies in applied sociology, and Conflict theory in general was an interesting macro theoritical space for me…especially in the degree to which it translates into cultural consequences.

I have to express my profound disagreement over your statement that quantitative languages allow communication and co-ordination regardless of cultural or individual barriers. Despite their appearance of objectivity, numbers embed culture to an amazing degree.

To give one example I have encountered frequently in my educational and professional life: mathematical probability theory encodes a particular, modern and western, view of the world, a view in which alternative possible futures stretch out before us. People from a different cultural background may have great difficulty understanding this view, and accordingly interpret the numbers differently to those who developed them, if they can understand the numbers at all. For example, if you think the future is pre-determined (to a greater or lesser extent), as many Confucians and Buddhists do, or is subject to hidden causal forces beyond any individual’s control, as most traditional African communities do, then what sense does it make to talk about alternative futures?

Western managers (at least those who have MBAs) have no trouble understanding and interpreting alternative forecasts of the same market under different assumptions. But several times in my professional life I have presented the results of scenario analyses and multiple alternative forecasts to Japanese and Chinese clients, and each time I have failed to communicate at all.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that mathematical probability theory was developed in one place in one decade (Western Europe, 1660-1670).

two things: however much we may feel that the quantitative paradigm has reached its limits, it is far too strong, too practical, and in itself also far too beautiful (remember it is the only language that allows communication and coordination regardless of department barriers, cultural barriers, individual barriers etc.) to ever totally make way for the subjective and qualitative.
and then: i personally think that both approaches are so completely and essentially different, that it would be a terrible waste of time and talent to try to turn a grant mccracken into a mckinsey-man.
it is what we learn in couple therapy: no silent assimilation but looking at the differences and the different strengths and then build a system of interaction on the basis of mutual respect…
–
in other words: keep on painting these watercolors!
be foolish, be “unprofessional”, be intuitive — and always become better at it. let the colors shine brighter, make the contrasts harder, and the brush strokes bolder. paint pictures so intense that the crews on their crusades will never forget your stories when they are out there on the water.

If we look at the wider culture (or the ecosystem) of large western corporations, much of their activities are driven by Wall Street. Unfortunately, The Street is ridden with quant-jocks, and so their concerns and their biases become those of the corporate chieftans they fund. The quant-consultants, such as McKinsey, simply serve those masters.

I think the comparison between commerce and the US military is apt at another level. From the time of McNamara and Vietnam, the US DoD has focused on things it could measure; that which could not be measured easily did not get managed or even ignored completely. Worse, the people collecting the statistics from the field, the US military, were the very same people charged with implementing the strategy, a conflict of interest which left numerous possibilities for the massage of data — eg, drawing the target diagam after the arrow has landed. The same failures to see the whole picture (quant favoured over qual) and organizational structure (conflicts of interest in reporting) seem to be in place in Iraq.

Dubious. I suspect there are sets of skills and personality tendencies that favor one or another product in a given individual or even sub-discipline.

Perhaps the ethnology of anthropology’s “quantitative other half” is worth some attention. The birthright would appear to be buried in the art/science of emerging collaboration that would allow a “package” for the client. Do the “McKinsey”s admit any lacunae in their approach? Do the “McKinsey”s’ clients long to ponder the watercolor elevations as context and inspiration?

What size project would you, yourself, need to snag in order to put anthropology in the driver’s seat and tap McKinsey as a willing subcontractor for systematic, quantitative, and other modules lying in their expertise?