Expert: Ralph Salier - 5/16/2010

Question
Hi Mr Salier.  I recently graduated with my MA in Applied Anthropology.  Having just discovered this website and having a interest in business anthropology, I quickly read several of your questions/answers.  I noticed when explaining what Anthropology is, you state it as a broad umbrella with numerous fields falling under it including Economics, Ethnography, Human Geography, Medicine.  Although I do not necessarily disagree, I am curious why you do not employ or at least include the four field (Cultural, Archaeology, Linguistics, Biological) approach.  I am under the impression that this explanation is more of an American understanding and perhaps this is the cause of the difference.  Either way - I am incredibly curious!  Thank you in advance!

Answer
Hi Jenn,

I also include Cultural (under ethnography), Archaeology is also under ethnography, Linguistics falls under Human Geography and Biological falls under medicine.  Some disagree with my "family tree" and I have no problem with this.  But Anthropology being  the umbrella of all human studies breaks into various realms.  Ethnography is any study of a human culture, even global cultures or business cultures.  An example would be the culture of the Dow Chemical company.  They have a very unique organizational culture which can be studied as if doing an Ethnography.  Another such company is General Electric.....  

As a business Anthropologist (or applied Anthropologist in the business field),  I look at how these "business cultures" interact with each other (during negotiations or joint ventures),  or how they behave internally so that when a merger occurs, how do these two business ventures with their different corporate cultures come together into a cohesive organization.  And of course, when companies are global, they tend to move people around which then brings  them into contact with not only a different aspect of the corporate culture but a new "home culture" one which that employee's family must now integrate with.  And how do these companies become global, what do they do to act globally but behave locally...

An Applied Anthropologist can go into many areas such as "media Anthro", Retail Anthro, behavioral Anthro and many other areas that are now coming to the fore.  A media anthropologist is going to become more important as media outlets become more global like CNN and BBC.  They report on cultures and places that many do not know about or understand.  This lack of understanding by the viewing public sows  the seeds of even more misunderstanding and confusion.  Look at how Americans now view people who follow Islam.  Americans have a totally distorted view of  Islam, this helps no one and sows the seeds of hate.  We don't need any more of that.  

A Retail Anthropologist looks at how retail stores target their patrons.  What are the color schemes, the store lay out, the "type of products" .  Do  they need to target two or more groups (kids and  their parents) Tweens etc... Colors and lay outs can be very different between these different ages and genders.  

Behavioral Anthropologists look at broad cultural issues and how they impact our values, infrastructures, ideas, view points etc... And they can also work in areas such as profiling, gang relationships, cult behavior etc... Many work for large city police departments, the FBI, CIA etc...

Archaeology ( being one my self) is viewed differently in the US vs. England or Europe.  In the US, it is much more technical in nature.  We apply scientific method and approach this with a more methodical eye.  Having "read" archaeology at the University of London and having done archaeology in the UK, Germany and Switzerland, it is approached with more of a "cultural reconstructionist" view where the tiny bits are not as important as the macro bits.  This is changing however as there has been a greater exposure to the US style in European archaeology.  

Most of the people who approach me fall on either the Archaeology side or the business anthro side.  Those who fall on the business anthro side  of things I direct towards the less familiar sub-segments of Business anthro.  They will, for the most part, have been taught about the 4 AAA sub sets of Anthropology (cultural, Archaeology, linguistics and bio) but I challenge that - I think that these four are far to restrictive in nature.  

I hope that I have clarified my approach and that it makes sense to you.  Where did you get your degree and what do you plan to do with it?

Ralph