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Loading... Anthro-Vision: How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life (edition 2022)by Gillian Tett (Auteur)
Work InformationAnthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life by Gillian Tett
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A revelatory model that explains how we buy, sell, work and live. For over a century, anthropologists have immersed themselves in unfamiliar cultures, uncovering the hidden rituals that govern how people act. Now, a new generation of anthropologists are using these methods in a different context, to illuminate the behaviour of consumers and businesses at home. In Anthro-Vision, Gillian Tett - bestselling author, Financial Times journalist, and anthropology PhD, reveals how anthropology can make sense of people's behaviour, in business and beyond. She outlines how anthropology helps explain consumer habits, revealing the 'webs of meaning' that underpin how we shop, and unpicking the subtle cultural shifts driving the rise of green investment. She explores how anthropology can shed light on the workplace, identifying the hidden tribes within the office, and pinpointing which rituals are binding together a team. And she shows how we can all use anthropology in our own lives, too- helping us make better decisions, navigate risk - even work out what our peers are really thinking. Along the way, Tett draws on stories from Tajik villages and Amazon warehouses, Japanese classrooms and Wall Street trading floors, all to reveal the power of anthropology in action. The result is a wholly new way to make sense of human behaviour. In a short-sighted world, we can all learn to see clearly - using the power of Anthro-Vision. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)338.7Social sciences Economics Production Business EnterprisesLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.21)
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Wikipedia in English
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Before becoming a Financial Times journalist, Tett was an anthropology student whose doctorate examined Islam and Communism in rural Tajikistan. I came to anthropology a bit later in my life – for bureaucratic reasons, my PhD, which was in the history of science, was administered in the Social Anthropology department at the Queen’s University of Belfast. I developed a deep respect for that discipline, and I’ve written about this here in the context of the House of Lords and, er, England. In my day job as a public affairs consultant in Brussels, it seems to me that I get a much better understanding of what is going on and what is likely to happen by applying anthropological analysis of human behaviour and organisational culture than by the traditional methods of political science, let alone philosophy.
Tett doesn’t make quite such grand claims for her discipline in her book Anthro-Vision. She argues merely that it would be good to take an anthropological perspective into account in making important decisions, as well as the legal, economic, political etc points of view that already are well represented around the table. Among the topics she examines are the response to the 2013-14 Ebola outbreak in West Africa; the failure of bankers to spot the risks in their own behaviour that caused the 2008 financial crisis; the appeal of Donald Trump; the difference between remote and office working; and the intriguing rise of environmental, social, and corporate governance as a serious concern in the top boardrooms of the private sector.
I think that she undersells the case for anthropology. As I said above, I think it is actually superior as an analytical framework, perhaps precisely because it is insufficiently used. On the other hand, she also frames herself as a feminist outsider who has a healthy scepticism about the claims of capitalists; but can a Financial Times journalist truly be a mere observer of the world of high finance? With that slight pinch of salt, I strongly recommend the book as a refreshingly different look at what is really going on in the world, and how important (and often bad) decisions get made. (