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Over the past several decades, corporations such as Intel, Microsoft, and General Motors have been hiring anthropologists. What are anthropologists doing in business? Why do so many companies today want the insights anthropological training and research can bring? While most business anthropologists do not regularly write for academic audiences, this class will focus on work that has come out of business anthropological research, from re-designing the cockpit of the Airbus to coming up with the idea of Go-Gurt, from concern with epistemic transfer to the focus on implementable reliability. The larger issue addressed throughout the semester is the role of culture in business, anthropology being the principal discipline associated with the culture concept and with the methods for studying it.
STUDENT BLOG
Marina Montaño Designs
On 1914 Fairmount Avenue you may spot a small shop with mannequins draped in stylish clothing on window display. On the inside, Luz Marina Montaño works to create fashion designs, alterations, and custom clothes. She is the owner of Marina Montaño Designs, a small business I studied this semester as a part of a Small Business Anthropology course…
Chinatown & the Language Barrier
If you’ve ever been to Philadelphia, you probably know Chinatown is one of the most visited places in the city. Welcomed by a huge Friendship gate constructed back in 1983, tourists and locals keep Chinatown bustling with excitement and engagement. Where it all started with one laundromat by Lee Fong in 1870 in order to escape anti-Chinese sentiment, has now expanded into a huge sector of Philadelphia with…
Blue Sole Shoes
For many people, the shoes they choose to wear act as a symbol of individual expression. As Steve Jamison, the owner of Blue Sole Shoes, says, people come to our store “because we’re going to offer you something different.” Steve focuses..
Mood Café
Business anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that explores the behavior in and around any organization, or the behavior of the consumers of products and services provided by an organization (Jordan, 2015). This paper intends to specifically focus on minority-owned small businesses in Philadelphia. How “different” is ethnic minority business activity from the wider small business population? After an interview with Hasan Bukhari, the owner of Mood Café, an Indian street food café in West Philadelphia, I found that in addition to Hasan’s palpable passion for his business, his adamance on maintaining authenticity of his food as well as…
Ammas South Indian Cuisine
As a Philadelphia suburb native, I would often visit the city with my family. Like many city-goers, Center City would be our primary destination, often to dine at the assortment of restaurants available in the area. Growing up, Amma’s South Indian Cuisine was a family favorite: the rich Chicken curries, steaming biryanis, buttery parathas, and…
Spadea Studying Spadea: Small Business Ownership as Identity
Studying my dad’s small business has been an ongoing endeavor that has lasted (and probably will last) far longer than the span of this one semester. I have always been surrounded by the plethora of new ideas that he shares around the dinner table. His work ethic has been a model for my own life, and first-hand I have seen just how important…