Anthropologist-as-interlocutor, or Yes, it’s a Real job: Applied anthropology in a business context

It was bound to happen eventually: anthropologists’ skills are now recognized as having business value. Anthropologists always knew what we had to say was important. Getting people to listen and work with us was the hard part. Today, corporate cogs in the giant capitalist machine are turning to applied social science research approaches to help them frame problems, learn from people and influence how they design solutions. Why? What do businesses see in anthropology and how are anthropologists brought into these contexts?

This talk will share the perspectives of anthropologists who work at Idea Couture, a Toronto-based global innovation consulting agency, on translating academic training into applied research.

Dr. Tanya Ahmad received her PhD in socio-cultural Anthropology from Stanford University in 2009. She was a post-doctoral fellow at University of Toronto and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at York University prior to joining Idea Couture.