Abstract
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.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 235-256 |
Journal | Ethnography |
Volume | 9 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2008 |
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
Free keywords
- folk ethnography
- sociologi
- emerging markets
- business
- rhetoric
- culture
- Eastern Europe
- sociology