TIG on Business Anthropology

Meeting Minutes 3/20/14

The first meeting of the TIG on Business Anthropology was held at the SfAA Meeting in Albuquerque, March 20, 2014. Attendees were enthusiastic about having the TIG and discussed objectives for the TIG, means of communication among members, and structure for the next meeting.

Attending: Jo Aiken, Sasijumar Balasundaran, Jeanette Blomberg, Elizabeth Briody, Bryan Dennis, Hsain Ilahiane, Gitti Jordan, Jen Cardew Kersey, Kathi Kitner, Maryann McCabe, Kevin Newton and Angela Ramer.

Objectives

1. Networking is a key purpose of the TIG -- getting to know each other, sharing scholarly resources and work experiences, posting job opportunities and being able to recommend each other.

2. There was discussion about our commitment to anthropology and the importance of giving back to the anthropological community. Returning to one’s place of academic training to speak with students and publishing in academic journals were mentioned as ways of staying connected with the discipline. We recommend publishing in journals devoted to business anthropology (Journal of Business Anthropology, International Journal of Business Anthropology) as well as more general anthropological journals in order to let other applied and academic anthropologists know of our work doing anthropology in business. We want to inform each other of our publications and list scholarly resources on the TIG website (to be developed with the SfAA Office).

Communications

3. We discussed setting up a community board for the TIG on the new SfAA website once it is launched later in the month and creating a listserv for TIG members as well as other means of communication. Maryann McCabe will take responsibility for developing an email distribution list and space on the SfAA website.

Next Meeting

4. A plan for the next TIG meeting at the SfAA Meeting in Pittsburgh, March 24-28, 2015 was hatched. We like the idea of open discussion with topics emerging from people who attend and small group interactions. Kevin Newton volunteered to work on planning the event. 5. There is interest in organizing workshops and roundtables on business anthropology for the SfAA Meeting in Pittsburgh to build on the significant number of business anthropology offerings at the Albuquerque Meeting. We want to publicize these events to make sure interested people know about them.

6. There is interest in joining with other business anthropology groups such as NAPA and EPIC.

Respectfully submitted, Maryann McCabe