Overview

This book shows the daily life of businessmen in a particularly productive area of Northern Italy, Lombardy. It provides insights into their business, entrepreneurialism, and of them as individuals, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in these businessmen's world, full of plans, ideas, hopes, and failures in the struggle to survive during a time of economic recession.The analysis reveals the importance of trust and networks as a way of opposing the vulnerability and risk involved in entrepreneurialism. As such, the book has an appeal that extends beyond anthropology. It will be of interest not only to students of sociology, Italian studies, and business studies, but also to anyone with an interest in seeing business through different lenses. Through its close ethnographic accounts of businessmen, it provides a different approach to capitalism and a reflection on human nature.

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9781527528192

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Reviews

The book is a real novelty in the scenario of Italian social anthropology. Elena Sischarenco explores the fragmented world of little and medium size companies in the construction business in the province of Bergamo, following the entrepreneurs, winning their resistance, and obtaining their - sometimes unconditioned - trustThe accurate and very detailed ethnographic accounts stop on the individuals, on their personalities, on the small and global daily difficulties they have face to make their business survive in a world in permanent economic crisis. The book is a novelty because this specific professional world is rather discreet and inaccessible, therefore seldom investigated with ethnographic tools, but also because the author shares the geographic origin with most of her informants, a biographical detail that gives her a privileged access to their dialects and background knowledge , qualities otherwise difficult to gain in an accurate way. The book is an unafraid exploration of the blurred borders between what is considered to be illegal and what it is not , a crucial crossroad in every company ethical profile........Sischarenco's analysis is always passionate and involved. She never takes the distance from her field, she doesn't even try, which makes her book even more convincing and powerful. On the contrary, she spends her time trying to let her informants understand what ethnography is, what her research is about, and trying to make herself useful ,showing and engagement that is notable and promising, especially for a first work of a young researcher. Prof. Elena Bougleux, University of Bergamo, 2019

Author Information

Elena Sischarenco holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews, and is an Associate of the St Andrews Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies. She has previously published on informal relations and trust, and her research interests go beyond the anthropology of business.

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