INTRODUCTION: ETHNOGRAPHY AS TRANS-DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARY OBJECT

Beyond its origins in anthropology, ethnography has virally replicated into forms of design ethnography, marketing ethnography, ethnographic evaluation of policy, educational ethnography, etc. Its cyclical hyper-visibility in the business pundit media such as Fast Company and Business Week only muddles its visibility in business contexts of production (design) and consumption (marketing). Yet as defined by the Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, ethnography can now be considered a trans-disciplinary praxis:

Transdisciplinarity concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline. Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge (Nicolescu 2007).

Ethnography no longer “belongs” to any discipline; it operates between, across and beyond disciplines as diverse as anthropology, sociology, business, politics, design, engineering, medicine, and education. Within this diversity, it maintains its core intention to understand the present world. What distinguishes ethnography from other philosophical orientations towards knowledge is the belief that the one must understand and represent knowledge of the present world from the ways of being of the people studied (Tunstall 2006). From the synthesis of the multiple ways of being and knowing the world comes the “unity of knowledge” that is the trans-disciplinary imperative.

Ethnography’s trans-disciplinary position poses interesting opportunities in regards to its role across the social worlds of anthropology, marketing, and design. Ethnography has successfully become a boundary object that “…inhabits several intersecting social worlds…and satisfies the informational requirements of each” (Star and Greisemer 1989: 393). Each social world claims their own form of ethnography as distinct from how practiced by the others, yet share enough similarities to sustain a conference on ethnographic praxis in industry. Beyond the term, one can speculate that it is the satisfaction with the information that ethnography provides which brings these groups together. What is the informational requirement that ethnography satisfies? It is the desire to gain a truer understanding of human (group and individual) behaviors. Yet, in spite of this shared desire, I argue that the resultant human understanding is put to different ends in anthropology, marketing, and design. Thus, ethnography’s ubiquity raises certain challenges and questions for its praxis. How does ethnography operate as a boundary object for design compared to anthropology, or marketing? What does a designer mean by his or her praxis of ethnography versus a marketer’s praxis ethnography? And how does the variances in the meanings of ethnography in those domains affect ethnography’s ability to develop and maintain “coherence across intersecting social worlds” (Star and Gerisemer 1989: 393)?

To analyze and make visible the variances in meaning of ethnography, this paper uses Alan Barnard’s (2000) notion of theory as defined as made up of four elements: questions, assumption, methods, and evidence (QAME). Methodologically, a content audit of both popular and academic literatures serves as data for defining the meaning of anthropological ethnography, marketing ethnography, and design ethnography. Visualized as a matrix, each ethnographic domain is systematically classified according to its hegemonic questions, assumptions, methodological approach towards ethnography, and evidence. Three exemplars of each type of ethnographic praxis are analyzed: the work of Intel’s People and Practices Group for anthropology, the work of Cheskin for marketing, and the work of IDEO for design. The paper concludes with the implications of the multiple meanings of ethnographic praxis for its theoretical and practical visibility and efficacy in the design and marketing domains.

THE “QAME” OF THEORY: QUESTIONS, ASSUMPTIONS, METHODS, AND EVIDENCE AS COMPARATIVE FRAMEWORK

In his book History and Theory in Anthropology, Alan Barnard (2000: 5-6) defines theory as made up of four elements: questions, assumption, methods, and evidence (QAME). While there are other definitions of theory, I find his framework most useful for sharing with interdisciplinary colleagues and students due to its flexibility and lack of pretentiousness. Barnard’s framework is flexible because every domain has a set of questions it seeks to answer, a set of assumptions it holds dear, a methodological approach towards getting to the answers it seeks, and its own notion of proper evidence. One can use Barnard’s QAME to engage in a conversation of what are the questions of anthropology, marketing, and design; what are the assumptions that each domain brings to the table, how does each domain approach answering its questions through ethnography, and what does it use to communicate to others as evidence or proof. Defining theory within the non-pretentious framework of QAME enables both academics and practitioners within and across domains to discuss the similarities and differences in how they build and utilize knowledge. And while these discussions often take place in competitive and, sometimes, accusatory tones on listservs, blogs, and conference hallways, the QAME framework enables discussions to be grounded in a shared systematic analytical process. It is my assertion that anthropology, marketing, and design represent different theoretical perspectives on ethnographic praxis based on each domains specific questions, assumptions, methods, and evidence: Table 1. These differences reflect ethnography’s adaptations to the multiple environments in which its contemporary praxis finds itself.

Table 1. Matrix of the QAME of ethnography across three domains

THE “QAME” OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL ETHNOGRAPHY

The role of ethnography in anthropology has almost mythological status. By this, I mean that people treat it as if the practice is frozen in the times of Malinowski’s Argonauts of the Western Pacific or Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa. Popular perceptions of anthropological ethnographic praxis in the trade publications continue to emphasize ethnography’s Colonial past, with images of pith helmets and the language of exoticism. Lucy Suchman (2007) in a conference presentation entitled “Anthropology as Brand” analyses the over fifteen years in which trade publications such as Business Week, the New York Times, and Fast Company have described anthropologists “going native” in the corporate world. The persistence of the exotica mythology of anthropological ethnography is unfortunate because it allows people to ignore the vibrancy of contemporary anthropological ethnographic praxis, both academic and industrial. As Bill Maurer (2005: 1) describes in the AAA flagship journal, American Anthropologist, “ethnographic emergences” include the anthropology of science, technology, law, media, the environment, or even design, which can now be “repatriated to the center of anthropology.” To illustrate the vibrancy of these ethnographic emergences, this section follows the trajectories of anthropological ethnography among the Peoples and Practices Group (PaPR) at Intel.