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Interdisciplinary graduate student conference on the growing use of ethnography in marketing research, to be held at the CUNY Graduate Center in NY, NY on Thursday, May 8, 2008. Applications are invited for the suggested topics below, for morning and afternoon panel sessions and workshops. Reception to follow.
Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
+ The transfer of ethnographic marketing research into commodity
production;
+ How anthropological theories of consumption and materiality have been embraced by corporations, or how they have not;
+ Similarities and differences in academic and corporate coverage of
anthropological research topics;
+ What an anthropology of consumption means for the subjects it either creates or situates;
+ Given its historical antecedents, what makes the new use of
ethnography among corporations particularly unique or stimulating? What does the rise of ethnographic methods and firms in the world of
marketing research signify;
+ Discussions of financial, ethical and political considerations invoked by uses of consumer anthropology;
+ Thoughts on the interplay between anthropologists of corporations,
corporate anthropologists, and practicioners of "applied anthropology";
+ "'Popular" thought and ethnography: what kinds of knowledge are
produced by phenomena like "coolhunting", or "trendsharking";
+ Conflicts arising between the corporate ethnographers'
responsibilities to their employers (including confidentiality
contracts) and to their informants;
Deadline for abstracts is March 21, 2008. Please send a maximum 250 word abstract to WeNeedtoMake@gmail.com
This Conference is sponsored by Department of Anthropology and Center for Place Culture and Politics. The conference will be free and open to the public, and all CUNY students.
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