Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 80:85-95 © Springer 2007 DOl 10.1007/s10551-007-9448-7

The Ethnographer's Apprentice: Trying Consumer Culture fron1. the Outside In John F. Sherry, Jr.

ABSTRACT. Anthropologists have long wrestled with professor of marketing and an industry consultant, I their impact upon the people they study. Historically, the advise students and clients how best to accommodate discipline has served and subverted colonial agendas, but and resist this culture. I believe that an ethical views itself traditionally as an advocate for the disem­ approach to marketplace behavior is possible and powered and as an instrument ofpublic policy. Marketing necessary, but my grasp of such an approach more is now among the pre-eminent institutions of cultural resembles the Buddhist parable of the blind men and stability and change at work on the planet. Currently, the elephant with each recounting. Depending upon ethnography is assuming a growing importance in the marketer's effort to influence the accommodation and which horn of a dilenmu I grab, I sense a snake, a resistance of consumers to the neocolonial forces of coluom or a granary, as my (mis)understanding shifts globalization. The ethical consequences of market-ori­ with each new purchase. That's why I've adopted such ented ethnography are explored in this essay. a punning title for this effort. I provide a personal account, through the prism of KEY WORDS: anthropology, consumerism, ethnogra­ my experience as a disciplinary interloper, of phy, globalization, marketing anthropology's engagement with the marketplace. The ambivalence of my home discipline has increased, as ethnography has become a current methodological darling of the market research community. My opening epigram captures this CORPORATION, 11. An lllgenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual anthropological ambivalence. For better and for responsibility. worse, marketing has become perhaps the greatest force of cultural stability and change at work in the Ambrose Bierce, The DeviI's Dictionary contemporary world (Sherry, 1995). Elsewhere (Sherry, 2000) I have claimed that the problems Let me disclose and disclaim at the outset of this essay. caused by marketing are best solved by marketing, I am an anthropologist, and not an ethicist. I am at and that such mitigation might be well informed by once a vocal critic ofand enthusiastic participant in the ethnography. This is a minority viewpoint in my culture ofconsumption I describe in these pages. As a tribe. A tribe that rightly fears abetting the rise of a "great imperium with the outlook of a great Johl1 F. Sherry, Jr., Herrick Professor al1d Chairmal1 of the emporium" (De Grazia, 2006, p. 3). Department of Marketil1g at the Ul1iversity of Notre Dame, As Hill (2007) has succinctly surveyed marketing's is al1 anthropolo,~ist who studies the sociocultural and symbolic critique of itself, my goal in this essay is a bit more dimel1siol1s of cOl1sumptiol1, and the ntltural ecology of mar­ ketil1g. His work appears il1 l1umerous joumals, book chap­ discursive. I begin by erecting an anthropological ters, professiol1al mal1uals al1d proceedil1gs. Sherry has edited platforn1 for the staging of ethics, and launching an Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior: ethnographic sortie from the badlands ofmarketing. I An Anthropological Sourcebook, as well as Servi­ then examine consumer culture as a phenomenon of cescapes: The Concept of Place in Contemporary eutopic as well as dystopic proportion, and assert that Markets; he is co-editor of Advances in Consumer market-oriented ethnography can refine both our Research (Vol. 19), Time, Space and the Market: grasp and command of moral geography. I look to Retroscapes Rising, al1d Consumer Culture Theory. 86 John F. Sherry Jr.

Scandinavian social science in particular for inspira­ Activism is a third crucial element bearing upon tion into enlightened intervention. I close with some ethics. Applied anthropology has a long history of anthropologically informed suggestions for managing involvement in public policy issues, in war efforts consumer culture. Throughout this essay, I strive not (both pro- and anti-), in human rights campaigns and to reify this culture, as its lived experience is wildly other civic spheres (Caplan, 2003; Edel and Ede!. variable across and within individuals. 1968; Hill and Baba, 2006). The classroom itself h,1S long been a radicalized, experiential forum. Finally, anthropology has traditionally been Anthropology concerned with the negotiation of authenticity (having tracked, once upon a time, the devolution A quick click through the web site of the American of "folklore" to "fakelore," and thence to '·take­ Anthropological Association (n.d.) will provide the lure"). The constitution of the true, the genuine, casual browser with enough of an inkling to surmise the real, the authoritative, the pure or pristine, Jnd that the discipline might be fraught with ethical the quest for an Ur-type touchstone of culrural complications. The holistic study ofall things human integrity have been elusive disciplinary preoccu­ in comparative perspective by ecumenical method is pations into the present moment. Understanding a fair definition, if not a felicitous description, of the distinctive, irreducible "x-ness" of x is only anthropology. Practitioners use sociocultural, lin­ gradually being tempered by notions of hybridity guistic, biological and archaeological orientations in and creolization that acknowledge the change that their quest for understanding. They track phenom­ is as foundational as stability. ena across time and space. They employ social In the context of consumer culture, these ele­ scientific and humanistic methods to produce idio­ ments give rise to perplexing questions. How do graphic and nomothetic accounts. Hybridity is cultural models of desire become internalized, and hardwired into the enterprise. Given the multidi­ how are they performed by individuals (Shweder, mensional nature of the undertaking, whether you 1991)? Can I speak of "my client," "my company" employ either a CIP spreading activation or CCT and "my segment" as I have of "my people?" How rhizomatic model of meaning management, it is can community-level consumerist commitment (for clear that an ethical nightmare awaits the hermenaut. example, in directed intervention approaches to Headhunting and cannibalism. Cliteridectomy and hypertension, substance abuse, HIV-AIDS and other hymenoplasty. Fraternity and sorority hazing rituals. conventional "targets") be leveraged on a global Insider trading and backdating. Nutraceuticals and scale, and mobilized in the service of other com­ cosmeceuticals. How are we to tell rite from wrong? plications and sequelae ofconsumer culture? What is For brevity's sake, the elements of anthropology the nature of authenticity in a mass- and super­ most linked to ethics can be reduced without great mediated environment? How authority is exercised violence. Anthropologists are consumed with the is­ is anthropology's ethical challenge. At issue is the sue of agency, and driven to consider the degrees of nature and legitimacy of social control. How ought freedom enjoyed by individuals in the face ofcultural power to be wielded? By what right do we intervene ideologies and social institutions. Whether construed in a culture? The sheer writing and publishing of an as free will or behavioral latitude, the relationship analysis is itself an intervention. Who benefits? How between individuals and power structures is a focal are the life chances of "my people" affected by my concern. Advocacy is a second, and related, vital work? I broach the nature of anthropological element. The anthropologist experiences an intense authority momentarily. identification with informants, and speaks, in an ironically proprietary way, of "my village" or "my people." Often, this population is disempowered, Ethnography disenfranchised, marginalized or under threat, and the anthropologist becomes a countervailing force in so­ Ethnography is the deep understanding of the lived cial relations. This imbalance becomes more prob­ experience of people as it unfolds in a particular lematic as we begin to "study up" (Nader, 1972). cultural context, and the representation of that The Ethnographer's Apprentice 87 understanding in ways that are faithful to that of turning now to the cultural consequences experience. An effective ethnographic account of of market-oriented ethnography (Arnould and behavior is not only cognitively enlightening, but Wallendorf, 1994). also viscerally evocative. It is sensual and cerebral. Perhaps most significantly, it is both method and Collision ofprofessional and commercial representation. Insight and understanding inhere in conceptions the actual crafting of the account. The typical eth­ nographic toolkit includes the following methods Commercial iconography invokes images from and techniques: archival analysis, trace analysis, par­ ethology (e.g., Business Week paraphrasing Diane ticipant observation, interview, photography, vide­ Fossey to depict the intrusive capturing of the ography, and projective tasking. As ethnography strange familiar ways of Consumers in the Mist), spreads to the virtual realms of cyberia and cyburbia, colonialism (e.g., Fortune caricaturizing Bill Gates in netnography becomes a favored approach (Sherry a pith helmet suitable for "pygmy hunting" to de­ and Kozinets, 2001). scribe Microsoft's acquisition practices) and voy­ Again, for brevity's sake, the wellsprings of euristic lab science (e.g., Business Week dramatizing ethnography can be located without excessive dis­ the "Science of Desire" with clipboard-wielding placement. Immersion is one fountainhead, and omniscient observers surrounding a cross-sectioned depends for its vitality upon the naturalistic obser­ household) to describe market-oriented ethnogra­ vation of and prolonged engagement with infor­ phy. Consumer ethnographers often describe their mants. Immediacy is a second fountainhead, activity as the innocuous practice of trend spotting, catalyzed by emergent design. hermeneutic or iter­ cool hunting, code busting, and shadowing. Aca­ ative analysis and progressive contextualization. demic critics describe the iniquitous consequences of Intimacy is a third fountainhead, which gives rise these practices variously as Coca-colonization, Dis­ both to maximized comparisons and sensitized neyfication and McDonaldization (Flusty, 2004; concepts, and allows intraceptive intuition to thrive; Ritzer, 1995; Sherry, 2005). They fmd the spectre of the ethnographer is in effect the research instrument. the swooshtika to haunt the global marketplace, Finally, insight is the fountainhead that gives eth­ which promises to metastasize into a homogeneous nography its distinctive pay-off. Understanding is brandscape. Internet bulletin boards find novice privileged over explanation in this regard, and gen­ anthropologists conflating the work of the intelli­ eralization takes a back seat. A grounded theory is gence community with that of marketing firms and offered in interpretation of a phenomenon (Sherry departments, and questioning the ethics of market­ and Kozinets, 2001). oriented ethnography. I have found two notions developed by the poet Popular and professional images of market-ori­ Gerard Manley Hopkins - inscape and instress - to ented ethnography emphasize the outsized out­ be of particular efficacy in describing the nature of comes, whether commercial or cultural, of mundane ethnography. Inscape is the essence of an entity methodology; the killer app of apparently retro re­ sensually apprehended and rendered in description search results in abidingly right responses to con­ (Everett, n.d.); it is the unique, differentiated quality sumer wants, and dysfunctional adjustments to of that entity. Instress is the ineffable experience of cultural life. Magic, both benevolent and malevo­ the beholder occasioned by the inscape that flouts lent, is attributed to the method by its champions description (peters, 1948); it is the resonance we feel and critics alike. This attribution nicely anticipates a in contemplation of inscape. Effective ethnography discussion of marketing as a bridging mechanism rigorously captures the former and authentically between ethnography and consumer culture. approximates the latter in representation. In ethnographic inquiry, ethics and epistemology are thoroughly and consequentially imbricated Marketing (Caplan, 2003), as I hope my drive-by summary has suggested. I leave the exploration of the workbench In 2005, the American Marketing Association Board level of the enterprise for another occasion, in favor proposed a current definition: "Marketing is an 88 John F. Sherry Jr. organizational function and a set of processes for level of energy consumption (Bodley 1985). Within creating, communicating, and delivering value to this culture, individuals are encouraged to interpret customers and for managing customer relationships their needs exclusively as needs for commodities, in ways that benefit the organization and its stake­ which fosters the dynamic between expanding grati­ holders." This is a profoundly disappointing fication and frustration that infuses everyday life with meaning (Leiss, 1976). Consumer culture has been definition, anthropologically speaking, as my entire characterized as an ethic, a standard of living, and a preceding discussion would suggest. power structure, each of which encourages individuals Marketing is understood clinically to include to equate commodities with personal welfare and, the strategy and tactics involved in creating and ultimately, to conceive of themselves as corrunodities sustaining the variables that have traditionally (Fox and Lears, 1983). Consumerism, viewed here as a comprised its mix: product, promotion, price and social pathology which has become the dominant place. Periodically, the number of variables has been worldview, is an improvised alternative to other tra­ adjusted upward (to include, for example, politics and ditional cultural forms that imparted aesthetic and public relations, etc.), but the core four remain moral meaning to everyday life (Bellah et a!., 1985). foundational. Marketing's theatres of operation have The social construction of scarcity produces some usefully been described by three dichotomies (Hunt, profound dilemmas for individuals and societies guided 1977): positive, profit and micro, versus normative, by an ideology of insatiable want and unlimited growth (Leiss, 1976). The modern social idiom (Fox nonprofit and macro. The former cluster has been and Lears, 1983) is corporate and therapeutic: social most scrutinized and pursued, the latter relatively control is achieved by an elite able to subordinate neglected. notions of "transcendence" to those of personal ful­ Anthropologically, marketing is more compre­ fillment and immediate gratification (Sherry, 1987). hensively understood as an exercise in behavioral engineering, insofar as it involves the shaping of the Encouraging us to imagine ever fewer opportunities experience of others (Levy, 1978). Marketing is a to escape the market, producing local cultural dis­ semiotic enterprise (of the firm and the culture) that location in the wake of its adoption, and inviting deals in the currency of meaning. It invests all that it marketers, consumers and activists alike to conflate touches with significance, provides a projective field consumption, politics and identity, consumer culture that encourages consumers to become co-creators, is alleged to efface anything that stands in its path. and promotes a particular construction of reality that complements and contradicts those of other social Ethical milestones and millstones institutions. It functions both as a panacea and a pan­ demic. As a font of material and metaphysical provi­ Anthropology has been rocked by a reflexive revo­ sioning, it solves problems. As the principal cultural lution that has unmoored its identity. The discipline fan that inflames desire, marketing increases dissatis­ has grappled with a colonial past for which it has had faction and arouses anxiety, thereby creating prob­ to assume a righteous share of culpability (Marcus lems. Marketing giveth, and marketing taketh away. and Fischer, 1986). It has sought to redress its colonial shortcomings in its activist engagement of an imperial present (Caplan, 2003). As an intellectual Ethical challenges posed by consumer tradition, the discipline faces an uncertain future. culture Over 50% of anthropologists are now employed outside the academy (Hill and Baba, 2006). This Critics contend that marketing (and, of late, ethnog­ makes for a provocative and ironic trajectory: half raphy, as a willing co-conspirator) has culminated in the field is enmeshed in understanding and criticiz­ an ethos best construed as a culture ofconsumption. I ing a world the other half is actively creating, the have described consumer culture in this fashion: latter employing knowledge generated by the former to effect cultural change. This culture is characterized by a high-intensity market A chorus of critical voices has arisen to goad the mechanism (Leiss, 1976) and an insupportably high discipline into a more activist posture. The indigenous The Ethnographer's Apprentice 89 outcry of aboriginal commentators has reverberated 2005). Spectacle fosters distraction and complacency, on the global stage. The minority backlash ofethnic, encouraging a compliant citizenry (DeZengotita, feminist, and other coalitions has chided the discipline 2005). Consumer debt arises through and reinforces at home (Caplan, 2003). An ascending punditocracy dysfunctional socialization and promotes a kind of of poorly informed celebrities (the Huntingtons, indentured servitude (Williams, 2004). And so forth. Friedmans, Kaplans, D'Souzas and others) poaching Marvin Zonis (a University of Chicago econo­ on well-defined but ill-defended anthropological turf mist) has quipped, "The good news is, the market draws attention to the absence of a public anthro­ has won. The bad news is, we don't have the faintest pology capable ofpromoting civic debate ofintegrity grasp of a social philosophy to animate, monitor or and rigor (Bestemen and Gusterson, 2005). Given the inspire this market" (Marty, 1999). His use of the current vitality of public theology (Heyer, 2006), a pontifical "we" is both refreshing and disturbing; it public anthropology should surely flourish. underscores the limits of economics as a moral Finally, the postmodern moment that has moved vision. It also highlights the need for comprehensive through the discipline has wreaked havoc on con­ anthropological understanding of consumer culture ventional ontology, epistemology, and axiology. that is as long on empirics as it is on criticism. With the exaltation of skepticism, the foundation of Another quick visit to the web site of the anthropology has changed utterly, and its core tenets American Anthropological Association reveals the are being renegotiated. Positive and normative discipline's historical commitment to and careful directions of individuals, as well as those of the dis­ consideration of ethics. Anthropologists recognize a cipline, seem up for grabs (Marcus and Fischer, 1986). responsibility to those studied (people, animals, and Nowhere is this ambivalence felt more forcefully than materials), the public, the discipline, scholarship and in our assessment of consumer culture. science, students and trainees, sponsors, and home Space limitations preclude an exhaustive inventory and host governments. In an attempt to ameliorate of the criticisms anthropological critics have leveled unintended or unanticipated consequences of their against consumer culture. They recognize that most of work, they propose, insofar as is humanly possible, the regnant economic literature on consumption is to inform people fully of the positive and negative long on creative destruction, but short on destructive consequences of their research involvement, to se­ creation (Nelson, 2006). Economists generally con­ cure and renew their consent and constantly remind tend that economic development occasions some them of the voluntary nature of their participation, undesirable side effects, but they accept the enlight­ to preserve their anonymity and debrief them enment mantra that material progress breeds moral effectively. Transparency of findings is mandatory. progress (Friedman, 2005). A short laundry list of And, above all else, anthropologists propose to do no grievances would include the following indictments. harm, in perpetuity. They commit to an autocratic Contemporary capitalisms are hegemonic in nature, IRE's fondest dream, in principle, but negotiate and promote cultural homogenization (Greider, ethical execution on the ground. 1997; Wallace, 2005); this massive reduction of Practitioners of market-oriented ethnography diversity is considered both morally reprehensible and have aided in the development of an adapted evolutionarily maladaptive. Globalization constitutes anthropological ethical code that actually makes the enrichment of the core and the immiseration of their managerial practice possible. The National the periphery (Kinzer, 2006; Sherry, 1983). Ethno­ Association for the Practice of Anthropology cide is waged via systematic cultural dislocation, and (n.d.), whose rise reflects both the flight to the the spread of iatrogenic diseases integral to develop­ private sector of the academically disenfranchised ment (Appadurai, 2006). Ecocide is perpetuated and the growing recognition of the paucity of through pollution and climate change (Ridgeway, anthropological inquiry into production, let alone 2004). Materialism elevates acquisitiveness to a cul­ consumption, has labored for years to create such a tural syndrome, and the continued democratization of hybrid position. In so doing, the group demon­ luxury promotes the endless escalation of insatiable strates just how inextricably bound up with epis­ want (Farrell, 2003; Rosenblatt, 1999; Whybrow, temology and politics ethics is. The NAPA 90 John F. Sherry Jr. guidelines have not been incorporated into the An alternative take on consumer culture AAA's code of ethics, despite much debate in the home association. This bellwether activity suggests Let's widen the aperture of our critical lens to cap­ that an alternative view of consumer culture is ture the full range of social mechanisms of thought emerging, and that it requires ethical anthropo­ control in the postmodern era. Consumption then logical engagement. assumes a different shape:

Consumers build material and symbolic environments Interpretive summary with marketplace products, images and messages. They invest these environments with local meaning. The Applbaum (2004, 2006) has made a cogent critique fetishistic and totemic significance of these environ­ of the role of market-oriented ethnography in ments largely shapes the adaptation consumers make to determining the limits of marketing action, which I the modern world. These phenomenological realms summarize brutally in this paragraph. Applbaum are brandscapes. This investment process is innate to our species, and is no more (if no less) ideologically mounts a critique of the theory of latent needs, freighted than any other of our socializing institutions. denying that unarticulated needs exist beneath It is the very stuff of cultural stability and cultural conscious awareness and claiming that research change (Sherry, 2005). techniques function merely to construct an abstrac­ tion of needs. While market-oriented ethnography Consumption thus becomes another vehicle of may be less hubristic (but more fraught with ethical immanence and transcendence, a different but no complications) than other techniques, it still simply less viable route than those offered by religion, art, reinforces the fetishism of needs. He discerns an politics, or science, another door of perception apparatus of "marketing capitalism" driving the thrown open in pursuit of apotheosis. system, such that remedial or enlightened education Consumers are neither cultural dopes nor cultural fails to impact firms, consumer culture gets exported dupes. They are not passive recipients of the mar­ around the globe, and the apotheosis of marketing keter's offerings (Zukin, 2004). Consumers actively brooks no competing ethos. Marketing promotes a co-create; they help produce consumption (Myers, totalizing view of humans as consumers with limit­ 2001). They transmute shopping into a devotional less insatiable wants, reduces satisfaction to the ritual, a labor oflove (Miller, 1998). They appropriate exercise of choice in the free market, and touts from the market, ripping and riffing like innovative unfettered market competition as the royal road to bricoleurs. Marketers in turn re-appropriate these innovation. From this energetically implemented authentic or populist innovations, sending the wheel worldview arises my cursorily culled catalogue of around again. Far from being mere victims (which, of shocks that flesh is heir to. course, they sometimes are), consumers engage in a Net net, Applbaum advises the anthropologist not range of resistance against the market. A brief inven­ to yoke the ethnographic imagination to the jug­ tory is telling. Perhaps the most basic manifestation gernaut of marketing. His judgment captures comprises information-seeking, -exchange and -use, academic anthropology's majority view. While he its most current incarnations visible in the spread of states these opinions authoritatively, assertions they brand communities and the growth ofsocial investing. remain, in face of existing research and in the vac­ Conventional consumerist activism continues apace, uum of additional research desperately in need of in such forms as protests, boycotts and buycotts, and undertaking. His stance on the manifestness ofneeds, the proliferation of ngos, igos and their hybrids the intractability of corporations, and the moral (Princen et al., 2002; Tarrow, 2005). Participating or complexity status ascribed to ethnography, as well as guerrilla consumerism is rampant as well, and is his elision of equally totalizing and perilous institu­ reflected in such phenomena as monkey-wrenching tions, prematurely discourages consideration of a and culture-jamming, and in temporary autonomous strong rival hypothesis. zones such as the Burning Man Project, Rainbow The Ethnographer's Apprentice 91

Gatherings, and Mountain Man Rendezvouses Political consumerism is defined as the actions a person (Sherry, 2005). Lifestyle, subculture and affinity group performs when he/she shows substantial value consid­ formation is yet another form ofresistance, as witness erations in connection with deliberately choosing or the rise of cultural creatives, voluntary simplicity avoiding goods in order to promote a political goal. According to this definition green or ethical communes, bioregionalists, ecofeminists, and pro­ consumption is not necessarily political consumer­ sumers. Whether unmaking marketing through ism. What motivates consumer behaviour IS hyperconsumption or remaking it via conscientious cruciaL.Political consumerism is a result of strong consumption, consumers push back at every political interest and trust which means that the market opportunity. mechanism is considered as a supplement to and not a downright replacement ofthe institutionalized political system (Andersen and Tobiasen, 2001: 12,64). Ifthis is The Scandinavian suggestion true, it does not support Beck's (1997: 98) implicit hypothesis that political consumerism is a kind of sub­ and counter-politics based on a critical attitude towards New hope for the ethnographic inquiry into the modernity, the consequences ofindustrialization, man­ ethical nature ofconsumer culture is emerging in the made risks, and the role ofthe State. Apparently, political Nordic countries, which have forged a distinctive consumers are very interested in politics, and they want type of capitalism over the decades. First, let's reset to support and not to counteract the institutionalized our understanding: political system. Political consumerism may therefore reflect the endeavours of post-modern citizens to re­ Existing research on consumption fails to register the capture the "ecclesia" by rebuilding the "agora" which full complexity of the practices, motivations, and is the third and intermediate sphere between the public mechanisms through which the working up of moral and private spheres where communication between the selves is undertaken in relation to consumption prac­ two takes place (Bauman, 1999: 107) Uensen, 2005]. tices. Academics, policy-makers, and campaigning or­ ganisations understand ethical decision-making in Jensen's observations illustrate the ways in which particular, often highly rationalistic ways. This is the interpenetrating social institutions can be employed case even when understandings are broadened out to help transform consumer culture in an emanci­ from narrow economic rationalities to consider the patory fashion. This is perhaps nowhere more relationships between consumption and identity, "visible" than in the blogosphere and in brand where one still finds strong presumptions of the rela­ community chat rooms, where data and sentiment tionship between consumption, knowledge, and an actively reflexive self (Barnett et a!., 2005). commingle, cross cultures and catalyze behavior, both despite and because of the marketer's ability to The moral geography of consumption remains to be harness discussion. explored in as rigorous a fashion as any other subject At the risk of citation overkill, I offer Jensen's ofsocial scientific or humanistic inquiry. Our ethical (2005) insight into the pragmatics of ethical con­ pronouncements may coincide with our active and sumption as a bridge to my concluding comments on vigorous empirical inquiry, but they should not the use of ethnography in facilitating transformation: occur in the absence of such inquiry, and certainly should be subject to revision as our empirical Rather than assuming that ethical consumption is a understanding improves (Lieven and Hulsman, self-reflexively conscious practice set off against non­ ethical consumption, we start by assuming that 2006). everyday consumption practices are always already Further, our growing understanding of con­ shaped by and help shape certain sorts of ethical dis­ sumer culture can be harnessed in a revitalization positions. Thus, we propose that everyday consump­ movement that encourages the active re-appro­ tion is ordinarily ethical, in two senses. Firstly, if 'ethical' priation of culture through the use of the very is taken in a Foucauldian sense to refer to the activity stuff of the marketplace. The political consumerism of constructing a life by negotiating practical choices movement emerging in Scandinavia proposes just about personal conduct, then the very basics ofroutine such a course: consumption - a concern for value for money, quality, 92 John F. Sherry Jr.

and so on - can be understood to presuppose a set of ysis (Sahlins, 2002). Neither of these relativisms specific learned ethical competencies. Secondly, and amounts to advocacy, and neither demands that following from this, consumption is ordinarily ethical ethics be based on cultural universals. Each re­ in so far as it is a set of institutionally and technolog­ quires careful empirical inquiry to support sub­ ically mediated activities that practically implicate sequent judgment. In practice, a consumer selves and others in ethical relations prior to any ethnographer may accept consulting assignments conscious reflection (O'Neill, 105-106: 2000). from the pharmaceutical industry, but decline of­ If, as Ted Levitt has claimed, the job of the marketer fers from the alcohol and tobacco industries; she is to give consumers not what they say they want, might enthusiastically assist in the development of but what they really want, I can imagine no more an export platform for the work of indigenous effective or ethical tool of empirical discovery, artisans while resisting the intrusion of ecotourism managerial insight, consumer satisfaction and public into her peoples' world. Either of these choices is policy import, than ethnography. We might strive best facilitated in a disciplinary climate of to create a more satisfYing culture in our drive to committed inquiry, where a holistic understanding understand it. of consumer behavior as it actually -occurs and ramifies is rigorously pursued.

Conclusion Cultural ecology oj marketing Can the dirt anthropologist and the consumer eth­ There is a foundational need for a thorough nographer be reconciled? What can the apprentice understanding, achieved through meticulous eth­ recommend as far as either the diagnosis and treat­ nography, of marketing, that analyzes each of its ment of consumer culture syndrome andlor the material, organizational, and semiotic ramifications guidance of a consumer culture revitalization throughout cultures. A cognate call must also be movement is concerned? How best can he advise launched for basic and applied research into stake­ both sides of the aisle in his role of scholar-practi­ holding. Our insight into marketing requires tioner? I have a handful of suggestions. broadening beyond the focus on buyers, sellers and public policy makers to the entire range of actors affected by marketing transactions. Levy (1976) has Anthropology as Advocatus Diaboli long called for the creation of a discipline he calls marcology, that would undertake this heroic task, In its questioning of the consequences of applied and which would contrast with marketing the way research, anthropology must be reflective, not just that biology contrasts with medicine. Such an reflexive. Criticism should incorporate close read­ intellectual inquiry could be housed in anthropol­ ing into evaluation and judgment. Thick descrip­ ogy, whose ecological habit of mind (if not its tion and deep interpretation should accompany prejudicial predisposition against business) is better critique. To play devil's advocate for economics suited to such comprehensive coverage than its and marketing is necessary but not sufficient; the commercial cousin, whose principal concern tradi­ home discipline must be carefully scrutinized as tionally has been clinical practice. well. Here I'm stumping for a judicious exercise of cultural and ethical relativism. Cultural relativism posits a kind of incommensurability between cul­ Diversified dissemination tures that demands engagement and dialogue in the crafting of interpretations (Rosalso, 2000). The era of disciplinary silos has persisted fur beyond Ethical relativism entails a conditional suspension its usefulness. Consumption is such a pervasive part of judgment, so that the sociocultural and histor­ of culture, and marketing such a powerful engine, ical context of a phenomenon's origins can be that the understanding and shaping of consumer accounted for, appreciated and factored into anal­ behavior is best not delegated to any sole field. The The Ethnographer's Apprentice 93 culture of consumption is best unpacked in inter­ Applbaum, K.: 2006, 'Pharmaceutical Marketing and the disciplinary, multimodal fashion. Proprietary, aca­ Invention of the Medical Consumer', PLOS Medicine demic and popular constituents should each be 3(4), 0445-0447. http://www.plosmedicine.org. addressed in our ongoing scholarly efforts to Arnould, E. J. and M. Wallendorf: 1994, 'Market Ori­ interpret and direct consumer culture. Careful ented Ethnography: Interpretation Building and Mar­ keting Strategy Formulation', Journal of Marketing ethnographies, radical manifestoes, artistic treat­ Research 3l(November), 484-504, ments and other vessels of understanding should be Barnett, c., N. Clarke, P. Cloke and A. Malpass: 2005, employed to fullest effect. Each of us might com­ 'Articulating Ethics and Consumption', 111 M. mit to the seminar as a way of life, so that teaching Bostrom, A. Follesdal, M. KJintman, M. Micheletti moments do not go unrealized, and proselytize for and M. Sorenson (eds.), Political COflsumerism: Its the engaged, organic intellectual apprehension of Motivation, Power and COI·tditioflS in the Nordic Countries the culture around us. A periodic and public and Elsewhere (Norden, Copenhagen), pp. 99-112. reflective unpacking of my own ambivalence as a Bauman, Z.: 1999, In Search of Politics (Polity Press, consumer (or as a marketer) is usually all 1 need to Cambridge) . get the ball rolling. Beck, U.: 1997, The Reinvention of Politics: Rethinking In Centesimus Annus, John Paul II reminded us of Modernity in the Global Social Order (Polity Press, the urgency for a deeper inquiry into consumer Cambridge, UK). Bellah, R., R. Madsen, W. Sullivan, A. Swidler and S. culture that might direct us from a lifestyle devoted Tipton: 1985, Habits oj the Heart: Individualism and to having to one devoted to being, and emphasized Commitment in American Life (University of California the cultural grounding of ethics (Marty, 1999). Press, Berkeley). Understanding this having/being dialectic is a prior­ Besteman, C. and H. Gusterson (eds.): 2005, Why America's ity for market-oriented ethnography. Especially, Top Pundits Are Wrong: Anthropologists Talk Back whether as an article of faith or as a consequence of (University ofCalifornia Press, Berkeley, CA). economic process, we find that the poor will always Bodley, J.: 1985, Victims ifProgress (Westview Press, Palo be with us, since, pace Hill (2007), some modicum Alto, CA). of having is essential to a dignified being. Whose Caplan, P. (ed.): 2003, The Ethics of Anthropology: Debates modicum is an anthropological assay. Like a doctor and Dilemmas (Routledge, New York). who must incorporate diagnosis into the treatment Grazia, V. : 2006, Irresistible Empire: America's Advance plan, consumer ethnographers intervene as they through 20th Century Europe (Belknap Press, Cam­ bridge, MA). understand, and understand as they intervene. Crit­ DeZengotita, T.: 2005, Mediated: How the Media Shapes icism and conscientious consumption are each best Your World and the Way You Live In It (Bloomsbury, served in this simultaneity of practices. New York). Edel, M. and E. Abraham: 1968, Anthropology and Ethics (The Press of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH). References Everett, G.: n.d., 'Hopkins on 'lnscape' and 'lnstress', in G. Landow (ed.), The Victorian Web: Literature, History Andersen, J. G. and M. Tobiasen: 2001, Politiskforbrug og & Culture in the Age of Victoria, http://www.victori­ politiske forbmgere. Globalisering og politisk forb rug i hver­ anweb.org/authors/hopkins/hopkinsl.html. dagslivet, (Political Consumerism and Political Consumers. FalTell, J.: 2003, One Nation, Under Goods: Malls and the Globalization and Political Consumption in Everyday Life) Seductions if American Shopping (Smithsonian Books, (Institut for Statskundskab, Aarhus). Washington, DC). American Anthropological Association: n.d., 'What is Flusty, S.: 2004, De-Cola-Colonization: Making the Globe Anthropology?', http://www.aaanet.org/anthbroc.htm. Jrom the Inside Out (Routledge, New York). Appadurai, A.: 2006, Fear ifSmall Numbers: An Essay on the Fox, R. and L. Jackson (eds.): 1983, The Culture of Con­ Geography ifAnger (Duke U niveroi ty Press, Durham, N C) . sumption: Critical Essays in American History: 1880-1980 Applbaum, K.: 2004, The Marketing Era: From Profes­ (Pantheon, New York). sional Practice to Global Provisioning (Routledge, New Friedman, B.: 2005, The Moral Consequences of Economic York). Growth (Alfred A. Knopf, New York). ------

The Ethnographer's Apprentice 95

Tarrow, S.: 2005, The New Transnational Activism (Cam­ Zukin, S.: 2004, Point of Purchase: HOllJ Shopping Changed bridge University Press, New York). American Culture (Routledge, New York). Wallace, T. (ed.): 2005, Tourism and Applied Anthro­ pology: Linking Theory and Practice, NAPA Bulletin Mendoza College of Business, 23 (University of California Press, Berkeley, CAl. University of Notre Dame, Whybrow, P.: 2005, American Mania: When More Is Not Notre Dame, IN, 46556, U.S.A. Enough (W.W. Norton, New York). E-mail: [email protected] Williams, B.: 2004, Debt for Sale: A Social History of the Credit Trap (University of Pennsylvania Press, Phila­ delphia).