Overview

Organisational Anthropology is a pioneering analysis of doing ethnographic fieldwork in different types of complex organisations, focusing on the process of initiating contact, establishing rapport and gaining the trust of an organisation's members. The thirteen contributors work from the premise that doing fieldwork in an organisation shares essential characteristics with fieldwork in more 'classical' anthropological environments, but that it also poses some particular challenges to the ethnographer, with barriers including the ideological or financial interests of the organisations, protection of resources and competition between organisations. A number of organisational contexts - including corporations, EU policy arenas, think tanks and the public sector - are explored in case studies from the UK, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Mexico and the USA.

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9780745332475

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Reviews

Christina Garsten and Anette Nyquvist have put together baker's dozen of fresh and lively first-hand accounts of carrying out ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary organizational settings - from convenience stores to high tech firms, from think tanks to advertising companies. That classical anthropological interests and means are highly relevant in such settings - although strained and stretched in various ways - is a point brought home vividly across the selections. This is a work that will appeal not only to anthropologists but also to all those with a scholarly or practical interest in culture and organization. -- John Van Maanen, Erwin Schell Professor of Organization Studies at MIT, author of Tales of the Field The engagement between organization studies and anthropology is both longstanding and rapidly developing. In this fascinating volume some of the leading exponents of organizational anthropology reflect on its history and future directions; its potentials and pitfalls. The book is an invaluable resource for all those who research organizations or are simply interested in the nature, both extraordinary and mundane, of organizational life as disclosed by anthropological study. -- Christopher Grey, Professor of Organization Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London.

This vital and vibrant collection is sure to appeal to graduate students in anthropology and sociology as well as those in organizational psychology. Highly Recommended. -- CHOICE For more than a hundred years, anthropologists have excelled in making the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic. This excellent and timely book shows that the anthropological gaze continues to shed light on all things human in surprising ways, as well as providing a much needed alternative analytical perspective on bureaucracies and other formal organisations. -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo Christina Garsten and Anette Nyqvist have put together baker's dozen of fresh and lively first-hand accounts of carrying out ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary organizational settings - from convenience stores to high tech firms, from think tanks to advertising companies. That classical anthropological interests and means are highly relevant in such settings - although strained and stretched in various ways - is a point brought home vividly across the selections. This is a work that will appeal not only to anthropologists but also to all those with a scholarly or practical interest in culture and organization. -- John Van Maanen, Erwin Schell Professor of Organization Studies at MIT, author of Tales of the Field The engagement between organization studies and anthropology is both longstanding and rapidly developing. In this fascinating volume some of the leading exponents of organizational anthropology reflect on its history and future directions; its potentials and pitfalls. The book is an invaluable resource for all those who research organizations or are simply interested in the nature, both extraordinary and mundane, of organizational life as disclosed by anthropological study. -- Christopher Grey, Professor of Organization Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London.

For more than a hundred years, anthropologists have excelled in making the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic. This excellent and timely book shows that the anthropological gaze continues to shed light on all things human in surprising ways, as well as providing a much needed alternative analytical perspective on bureaucracies and other formal organisations. -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo Christina Garsten and Anette Nyqvist have put together baker's dozen of fresh and lively first-hand accounts of carrying out ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary organizational settings - from convenience stores to high tech firms, from think tanks to advertising companies. That classical anthropological interests and means are highly relevant in such settings - although strained and stretched in various ways - is a point brought home vividly across the selections. This is a work that will appeal not only to anthropologists but also to all those with a scholarly or practical interest in culture and organization. -- John Van Maanen, Erwin Schell Professor of Organization Studies at MIT, author of Tales of the Field The engagement between organization studies and anthropology is both longstanding and rapidly developing. In this fascinating volume some of the leading exponents of organizational anthropology reflect on its history and future directions; its potentials and pitfalls. The book is an invaluable resource for all those who research organizations or are simply interested in the nature, both extraordinary and mundane, of organizational life as disclosed by anthropological study. -- Christopher Grey, Professor of Organization Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Christina Garsten and Anette Nyquvist have put together baker's dozen of fresh and lively first-hand accounts of carrying out ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary organizational settings - from convenience stores to high tech firms, from think tanks to advertising companies. That classical anthropological interests and means are highly relevant in such settings - although strained and stretched in various ways - is a point brought home vividly across the selections. This is a work that will appeal not only to anthropologists but also to all those with a scholarly or practical interest in culture and organization. -- John Van Maanen, Erwin Schell Professor of Organization Studies at MIT, author of Tales of the Field The engagement between organization studies and anthropology is both longstanding and rapidly developing. In this fascinating volume some of the leading exponents of organizational anthropology reflect on its history and future directions; its potentials and pitfalls. The book is an invaluable resource for all those who research organizations or are simply interested in the nature, both extraordinary and mundane, of organizational life as disclosed by anthropological study. -- Christopher Grey, Professor of Organization Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London. For more than a hundred years, anthropologists have excelled in making the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic. This excellent and timely book shows that the anthropological gaze continues to shed light on all things human in surprising ways, as well as providing a much needed alternative analytical perspective on bureaucracies and other formal organisations. -- Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo

Author Information

Christina Garsten is Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University and Chair of the Stockholm Centre for Organisational Research. She is the co-editor of Organisational Anthropology (Pluto, 2014), Ethical Dilemmas in Management Organizing (2009) and Transnational Accountability (2008) and author of Workplace Vagabonds: Career and Community in Changing Worlds of Work (2008). Anette Nyqvist is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University and holds a research position at Stockholm Centre for Organisational Research. She is the co-editor of Organisational Anthropology (Pluto, 2014) and the author of Opening the Orange Envelope: Risk and Responsibility in the Remaking of Sweden's National Pension System (2008).

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