David Wästerfors
Professor
Businessmen as folk ethnographers
Författare
Summary, in English
Before the rise of professional ethnography, untrained methods to investigate ‘other’ cultures prevailed among various Westerns actors: travelers, missionaries, colonial administrators, and traders. This article analyzes how such informal ethnography is still treated as an epistemic guide in a post-colonial and transnational business world. A particular case is examined: Swedish and Swedish-Polish businessmen
working in emerging markets in Poland and neighboring countries in Eastern Central Europe after the fall of Communism. Situated in what they regard as commercially attractive but relatively unknown cultures, these
businessmen oscillate between classic fieldwork and profitable control, pragmatically linking their eagerness for knowledge with their ambition to get things done. The overall vision is a folk version of ethnography,
rhetorically celebrated but practically complicated.
working in emerging markets in Poland and neighboring countries in Eastern Central Europe after the fall of Communism. Situated in what they regard as commercially attractive but relatively unknown cultures, these
businessmen oscillate between classic fieldwork and profitable control, pragmatically linking their eagerness for knowledge with their ambition to get things done. The overall vision is a folk version of ethnography,
rhetorically celebrated but practically complicated.
Avdelning/ar
- Sociologi
Publiceringsår
2008
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
235-256
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Ethnography
Volym
9
Issue
2
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
SAGE Publications
Ämne
- Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Nyckelord
- folk ethnography
- sociologi
- emerging markets
- business
- rhetoric
- culture
- Eastern Europe
- sociology
Status
Published
Forskningsgrupp
- Kriminal- och socialvetenskapligt nätverk
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1466-1381