DOING ANTHROPOLOGY IN CONSUMER RESEARCH Patricia L. Sunderland and Rita M. Dennyfr transmisted in any form ot by any’ meat recording, or otherwise, without the prior Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sundetland, 2 L. (Patricia L.) Doing anthropology in consumer research / Patricia L. Sunderland and Rita M. Denny. pcm. ISBN 978-1-59874-090-5 (hardback : alk. pap 2 (pbb: alk paper) Reseat 2, Consumers--Research. Deny, Rita Mary Taylor GN4508.886 2007 658,84 -de22 2007034206 Sciences—Permanence , ANSYNISO 239 48-1992 ‘Cover design by Lia Devenish Dedication patient and supportive s this world has ever produced. To Sarah ‘A master ofthe nuanced cadences from-school greeting, “How's the book?” mother'srepl ‘With love and thanks. ‘To our research participants and to our teachers, our muses throughWhat Does Cultural Analysis Mean? For 21st-century anthropologists, the office cubicle will be as exotic as Samoa. Figure 24 mage accompanying che atic “Ine che WHE “Unknown of Work! Farare 2 hropologiss Revie Their Discipline” in US. News Wild Repo August 10, 1998 “The image of anthropologists at work inthe llustraton abows fret deal of misunderstanding eae 19 the way that Bost ar ropoloits frame or practice ther research The problem Wt simply aan pfertering iconograpby of people who seem part Puritan, part Sherlock 646 © Chapter Two ‘of knowing, are ideas that have been embraced by many inthe last few decades via the direct and indirect avenues of postmodern philosophy An appreciation ‘workings of everyday life and the sym- the currency ofadvertising, des! drawing from anthropology’ in ‘only the realm of the individual. Mu ‘United States, is permeated with imy “There isa strongly held (but often unnoticed) belief that psychological issues sadition provides the fodder ought to be generated as ied, The importance her ical analyses, lvidual psyche are as a rule the unit of concern.‘ What al features or personal tastes make these individuals different from, ihis person's “relationship” to the brand? Whats his n more than one person js involved, the analytic focus on the individual is often retained. Itis thus not imagery of the opening iustration, there is only one person being examined—one person with ‘not one person interacting with others, notever being observed. In the 1 of the man observed by-pseudo-Pilgrims, it js one person, in one cubicle, being examined. But, in general, this is not the reality of anthropologi are rarely observed—or considered—in isolation from social context." As Doi Sorbonne wi psychologic: cor her emot viduals 1 people and. inique Desjewx, a professor of anthropology at the ‘an active consumer research consultancy, has fornmulated it in, anthropological practice, the research focus, “the zoom,” is set to a different scale of observation, the cate of the social. More specifically, as Des} thehcuristic scale For *ethnomarketing” (aterm he coined with Sophie Taponi to refer to the application of anthropology to marketing) is often the micro- sand small groups) with consideration jons, systems of actions) and notes, culgural analysis on the social scale means that che kinds of ‘urally analytic consumer research are often different ‘consumer research analyses—the issues are examined through lens of refraction—and thus the answers one derives are differen of data in cul asked in adifferet ‘What Does Cultural Analysis Mean? @ 47 as well, even ifat first glance the questions can seem the same For instance, in guest lectures to business students and marketing profes sionals, we often include a video excerp' a New York, ‘woman, respondent in astudy for whi gold could be sold on the Id, a large South Afri Tate 1990s, in the heyday of Internet commerce possi .e minutes ye sees the woman sho a jewelry box in which she stores pictures of jewelry son from catalogs and ewepapers.She discloses thatthe jewelry box was orginally a present from her to her husband, but that since he did not use it, she had decided to— putting, yer husban ly banging toys, When we show this video, we soe the audience to answer the question, What is gold for this woman? The answers we get are usually along th ing a need that her ‘marriage cannot provide,” or “her motiv We also get reactions ierand antipathy—she is often depressed,” “I'd hate to be her husband.” The language is Psy terms are needs, mo | and emotional underpinnings. Students and ike are generally quick to offer the psyehographic profile sociocultural, tmesnings and practices in saervarcang eoporeniis (vera indvidual ao eer the symbolic meanings and practices that ate shared (ot cGatested) among respondents, 3 Kprer the existence of these through sted vrei individ’ sngula personal namics pe se reeds are ubiquitous marketing erm, ea a praets tey are abo pes anhropologial analysis, ana opie mel of behavior rt crap so demonstates bow the researcher andthe obser sre implicated agents inthe cretion of mea wees excerpt of an intervene The cultural analytic importantly, not ne of objective distance—as per the veering gas and notepads anding above ado aoe ee iableinvolvementin the process of discovery knowing aera pe hs, the proces of cultural analysis mustbe one of joning presuppositions —exam48 @ Chapter Two What Does poines of view and interrogating what we think we kr and why we think them were often not Ponow is For the Anglogold project, the analytic, culuural questions wer ‘What ts gold? What isivesumcnt? What i the Internet? And hese Wer 8 component of the analy ly the questions we asked of our researc participants, Bt sve asked ourselves. We answered these questions iteratv ly unexpected, but inex re that def process, evert as we strive t0 dee 1e questions teinderive what we se. The point is not to “other” the person through what process, but 10 interpret oe area, an heard, observed, wrote down, videotaped, photographed, Tf dhe caption, “For 2ist-century anthropologis Jeadingly evokes anthropol chest, gold as jewelry ant . nce nny as necessarily exoticizing (precisely fe, were significant 3s” that were form ic ideas of separately located, orca by no means mere observation —they were base intl reflections cotalayetems. For anthropologists, culeae isnot an ide that a en observed objects and events (icludinga distracting child) From ee va place o' thing, bat an idea tat ers Joosely tothe symbolic and ‘vantage point, markets are not constituted ‘segments of people with specific romena that become apparent at social level of obsenacos 8 sa pefiled “needs,” rather they ae constituted By sytemns of incre" conceptu ly abused, Within andhopology. culture is not seanings and practices that may oF may not have resonance fF > oduct, aaa prpod a sxnetsng that resides in a geographic location OF ONS Trand or experience. Gold sen through cultural lens transcends vidual ane one poupot people inherently different from another ENP TS life stories of ma the status of being a wife. ft not in another. Me sis tural notions and practices surrounding eiting, investment (he vaveking and making of relationships trickery reaure, magically endowed materials, and the like embarrassed, or inspired us. The jewelry box but rather as a ner example, consider not gok, but the study of household floor such as meaning, a, o hen we conduct studies om household cleaners, we aso took forthe ind processes, oF, alternatively 28 index that points ro symbolic meanings categories, creations, and practices that organize ie practices consiuted by humans which, turn are the organizing matrices people's perceptions and actions, Thus, while watching someone cleaning @ Sf ongoing human activity and meaning mak reer might be contemplating: What is a floor? What is clean? What "The misapprehensions of the leamer? What is cleaning? In asking ourselves (or others) these sve do 30 t0 discern the assumptions about floo w ist continually re-conftor Jeaning, or cleaners that oo often reified and essentialized not feibues to person's cleaning the floor ina particular manner AS mode wre business and the academy. In business research Praches) © f illumination and amplification, we would lso contemplate compara el en simply become a variable akin to others, €-8» PSY wographic or demo- What i diferent about a clean floor versus a clean chair or table? So what fered in an overall equation of eons 1g. As ‘eof a table, floor, and chair? A sense se well ax Shore and Wright have noted, proble n fact often sociated with cultural analysis be- ensue when“ js brought into the discourse. Anthropologists can then ‘oe so familiar or so tacit chat neither the research, find themselves called on to research the “ult * of a group, e., elderly participants nor the researchers can immediately discon teens, drug users, ites, Mexican-Americans, which ihe we are researching, we are trying eo make the wery fam) tmncomfortable position of reinforcing the esse ofc leat dand the very new (for instance, new ideas of what const the same time trying t0 ne and nuance clients’ understandings." We pviows to ourselves and to our clients. This tradition in cultural anthropologists traditionally studied in si srl worlds of the participants. “What are chairs and t Jc, chairs and what was accomplishes th such endeavors i elaborate our own experiences wi essence, then, culewral anal world, and for us, ethnography a5 mel inextricable f analytic mode. Whi ‘case, in actuality there is no peer 8. ooking at and analyzing the ily ey i would be easy £0 aTEHE ason for this50 Chapter Two What Dees Ci (Analysis Mean? @ 51 «ethnography match, except that ethnographic methods ae From an epistemological perspective, data are not understood 2s “gathered” w been developed over the yeats as the companion to this much ae they are produced; which isto say, our questions, our Presenee anthropological mode of analysis. And, as has often been, Dut must still be, spar sumptions, our views of the situation provide never-ending for pointed out, ethnography is not a method per se, but ra ion of the questions we ask, what we observe, and what we conchde, In 3 because the fodder on which such judgments are made learned 2 Cultural analysis unpacks ané jmportant to keep che perennial whipping Wha computer or microwave ar which i post, are no more superfi that observation (behavic belief and practices surroun presuppositions are made acknowledged or not. The more general rapt stration and not think of it as three objective Saree or investigators gathering data from the ene, site oF fictd but of ones ‘who research practices are producing the data (ere, seemingly. vfobservations ofthe kind that ean be entered into a notebook is inductive, iterative, and in a constant search for meanings52 @ Chapter Two What Does Cultural Anabsis Mean? @ 58 through rather Puritaical outlooks and a magnifying Jens), In ows PrN, services, Most importantly, cultural analysis yntrades into everyday thinking sve engage in a number of methodologies—the one we choose depends on ved allows one to thinkabout things diferentty—and not us abouttelaborately the question wn at hand. We conduct participant observation and decorated yam houses, but also about one's own house ngage in ethnographicencountrs, ut we also cary out focus groups, SARA Tn the chapters that follow, we provide case aaa cain dares ask consume to creat video documentaries and the frst of these, we will continue 10 to their taste preference. A participant who further observed thatinstant coffee had once been ‘westernized modernity. The seemi now filled with other things, werethat they are woeflly incomplete. We encouraged participants to try to think in Thai “insider” categories as we maintain that without the insider's point of view, cultural lif is ultimately always misunderstood, filtered to obscurity given its view only through the eyes of the observer. To do the study as a research project, not just a one would need ¢0 talk coffee drinkers, to understand what they think about coffee, talk about coffee, to know what goes 01 do as they take their first, middle, and I: do when drinking different types of coffee, to know what about while waiting at the street vendor or in the Starbucks. Ifthe study had been a ave perhaps heard that, in fact, morning,coffee is, offen drunk hot, and that we were just not touching that part of the elephant, focused as we were on the afternoon. In fact, a man with as storefiont, ‘who sold us some more sock-steeped coffee poured over ice, told us that he sold more coffe in the morning and that, at that time, he sold it hot Figure 3.12 A Bangkok vendor, with the coffe ‘who told us he sells more coffve in the morning chan in the afternoon ...and sells it hot. 2. rramang Cures gues Notes Fischer's (2007:3) more complete formulation was, “Objects, theories, and tech= niques change in focus reso (eo draw on visual and sonic descriptive ‘ed opinions and action seernsa\ io wich, in the aetual discusses the role (and consumption) of stories in negotiating identi ‘See Sherry (1995b), who, in an analysis ofcofle, using American TV programming, as data, comments on coffee's ubiquicous presence in living ts consumption akin, 1995). Developed out of the growth of ethnographic reseat of product des diagramming and other means of and analysis have also gained currency; see Beyer and Col * people ae drawn t produces help emplace and embed ofits production” }