Ilustración: María González IllustrationAna : Ana María González
Business Anthropology ● ISSUE 15 ● october 2021
Ethnographic Challenges
Issue N°15
Staff
Founders: Giovanna Manrique, Natalia Usme Content Director: Natalia Usme Editor in Chief: Natalia Usme Art Director: Cristi De Matos Ilustrator: Ana María González Columnists: Jesús Contreras Natalia Usme Sara Hernández Translator: Natalia Usme * Follow us on Social Media: Facebook: Flipa Consultora Twitter: @FlipaConsultora Instagram: @FlipaConsultora Youtube: Flipa Antropología de Negocios Web: Flipa Consultora Flípate © Magazine, October 2021. Issue No. 15. All rights reserved. Flípate Magazine is not responsible for the publication or distribution of international editions, unless the edition has been authorized by Flipa’s administrative staff. Do you want to receive the magazine, or send us some comments? Please, email us at contacto@flipaconsultora.com
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Ethnographic Challenges
— Issue 15° —
* According to the El Dorado legend, there’s a magical place filled with gold . Many have tried to find it; however, no one has succeeded. Some have become so obsessed with it that they have not been able to get out of it. We could extrapolate this legend to the organizational realm. What is the gold that companies are looking for? Data. In the eagerness to find it, they get carried away by fetichisms on what it feels to have large amounts of it. Thus, in this issue we seek to destabilize the classic views of what it means to gather data, and above all, understand the deep layers behind it. Can we demystify the Dorado legend? *
Founder
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Issue N°15
p06 From a Dirty to a Sexy Ethnography By Natalia Usme
p12 The Challenges of Ethnography By Sara Hernández
p17 In the magnifying glass By Jesús Contreras 4 | Flípate
Ethnographic Challenges
Our writers Natalia Usme Co-owner at Flipa Consultora. She is the pioneer of Business Anthropology in Colombia. Natalia has more than 8 years of experience. She focuses on designing present and future strategies for companies. She has a Master of Arts in Applied Cultural Analysis from Lund University in Sweden. She has experience leading international and national projects. Currenlty she works as a service designer within the tech realm. Natalia is the creator of the first Online Summit on Business Anthropology in Latam: The Flipa Summit.
Jesús Contreras Founder of the GOST Project, an initiative that uses photography as an instrument for change. He holds a B.A in Communication, Social and Cultural Anthropology. Jesús has more than 10 years of experience on media. He specializes in print journalism and photography. In 2008 he won the National Journalism Award in Venezuela with mention in Photography. He focuses on visual arts, culture and inclusive education.
Sara Hernández Sara is passionate about social sciences applied to the business world. She loves delving into the intersection between fiction, critical and strategic thinking. She has studies in Modern Languages, Cognitive Processes and Discourse Analysis. She has had the opportunity to work for international organizations in Brazil, Sweden, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. She has developed initiatives for social responsibility, communication and organizational culture and is also an international speaker.
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Photo by Jack Gittoes from Pexels
Ethnographic Challenges
From a Dirty to a Sexy
Ethnography
By Natalia Usme
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need to understand my user’s needs, could is that of time. The client is filled with anxiety. He wants the insights, he is always in a hurry. What is you do an ethnography within a month? hidden from classical anthropology is that lacking time does not imply missing on rigor or depth. This is what classical anthropology would call When we conduct fieldwork we do it both in “Dirty Ethnography”. It is not a secret that they perceive organizational ethnography as dirty. The the field as using our theoretical lenses. Thus, as we client asks for quick results, the analysis is thought carry out interviews or participant observations, we can also delve into the vast analytical world as shallow, and context is lost, so they say. of that phenomenon that we want to decode. In 2014 I was just starting my master’s degree Theory becomes the compass to make sense of the and one of my teachers raised this same dilemma behaviors and practices we are registering. Without in one of his classes by suggesting that this type theory, ethnography is nothing more than a casual of ethnography was not dirty, but sexy. I will observation. never forget that moment. To be honest I could not The theoretical step is the one that is often understand it at first, but then it just made sense. forgotten by companies. Design, marketing and other areas boast of having an ethnographic Sexy Ethnographies approach, but they do not connect the dots with One of the most pressing dilemmas that theory. When referring to this approach I mean ethnographers have to face in the business world exploring the possibilities of its application. |7
Issue N°15
❢ The field does not only take place in the other, the field is also us and what we experience in it as observers. Using it to understand human behavior and discovering the gaps we might not see just by doing fieldwork. The small details we find in how people talk and behave are a real treasure. However, they are easy to miss if you are not paying attention. So, one should aim at observing how people create their social constructions. This in depth observation has to do with their theatricalities, with the subtlety of expression. That’s what my teacher was referring to when he suggested conducting a sexy ethnography.
We can spend an hour, a week, a month or more observing and interviewing a group of people, it doesn’t really matter, because it all comes down to the intention and strategy we have when conducting fieldwork. It is also important not to be blind to our own reality, there comes a time when the exploration process gets saturated. When patterns start to repeat and nothing new or insightful comes in, then it is time to stop. 8 | Flípate
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I have seen and, I have made the mistake as well, of conducting fieldwork with a single task in mind. But we cannot deviate from the essence of ethnography, we must allow ourselves to be seduced by what is emerging.
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So, spending more time with participants does not always mean finding new elements (although it can happen). Asking great questions
One topic that deserves more attention is asking the right questions. As much as we believe that we already have the highest level of expertise in generating questions, we can always be better. Good questions are those that make the interviewee show you something that you had not even contemplated, or give you further details into a topic. When you have three weeks with your participants, you have to learn to dance with them, to detect what sensory, language and emotional stimuli are evident. It is a dynamic in which you must exercise your ability to think fast. It is an art.
Anthropological theories can come to life in the business world as methodologies to design strategies, services and products
Do you want to continue reading? participants and even my emotions.
I ended up with a document of over 100 pages. The most interesting thing about this is that I did not understand the text as being academic nor static. I took it as a source that reflected the reality my participants were experiencing from a different perspective.
Another point that should never be forgotten is the power of triangulation. You need to deep dive into the details of the macro social, economic and cultural context that surrounds participants. If this is overlooked you will end up with nothing Buy your else but simple and isolated comments; missing annual From the meetings I managed to extract those the social construction that is embedded within little that people cared about; by doing an subscription insecrets this link them. analysis of their tones of voice, their gestures and actions. By triangulating this information with other inputs I was able to design and suggest The power of https://payco.link/960125 several corporate strategies. autoethnography One could argue that the field is created by the participant, and by us. In sexy ethnographies, it is important for us to recognize our experience and what it can tell us about the fieldwork we are conducting. I remember a project back in 2018. I was not happy with just conducting the interviews and observations, so I started recording my day-today life at the company I was working for. The meetings we held, the casual encounters with the 10 | Flípate
I did not achieve this by staying longer in the field but thanks to my intentionality, my goals and my approach. Anthropologists, designers, marketers and ethnographers, this is an invitation to change your perspective, to let ethnography use you. Be seduced by detail and minutia and, as my teacher suggested, go from conceiving a dirty ethnography to a sexy ethnography that generates value for you, for the other and for the client. ❢