Inculture» What’s up

Landet Brunsås

graffman — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:20:57 +0000

Learn a little bit from our anthropological studies in Swedish kitchens by looking at Landet Brunsås, programme number 7. The rest of the programme mainly deals with food and media.

The reality of ethnography

graffman — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 06:42:27 +0000

Me and Kristina Börjesson have written a text that will be published in the Ethnologia Europaea Journal this autumn (41:1). The reality facing applied ethnography today is one of popularisation at the cost of content. There is a potent risk of ethnography being replaced by less professional methods marketed under similar headings. The article therefore explores ways to develop the discipline further as well as the instruments necessary to improve application and communication. It goes on to argue that ethnography is a discipline that records and analyses human behaviour and should consequently be informed by other disciplines with a similar focus. We also actualise the necessity of ethnographers improving their knowledge about business administration as the studies they execute are increasingly in demand for informing long term product and business strategies.

The Conference

graffman — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:59:11 +0000

Tomorrow I will curate a session on youth and media behavior at The Conference in Malmö. In the session me, Dr Martin Berg and Professor Thomas Johansson will discuss the practical meaning of iDentity, the definition of entertainment and knowledge as well as the differentiation between: does there have to be one? If we want to develop successful tools for future media creation, we must have a much more profound knowledge about human ways of being and which behavioural changes and value adjustments new media opportunities give rise to. See you there!

In August

graffman — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 05:45:03 +0000

The 24th of August I will curate a session at The Conference (Malmö). This is what we will talk about:

Our social relationships are increasingly sustained and nourished by our digitally extended selves rather than by personal encounters. Social media platforms make the creation of a virtual self possible by manifesting a chosen identity through the pictures we post and the stories we write about our lives, including social as well as personal experiences. It is primarily younger people who have quite an intimate relationship with their digital devices. Are the media industries developing their products with this reality in mind? Current days social critique is arguing that the social media is enhancing a culture of narcissim. Are we in fact returning to the days of the old masters painting when the duty of every portrait artist was to beautify rather than to render a true picture? Is an ‘iDentity’ nothing but an old masters painting where the young person is his or her own portrait artist? Isn’t time to break this superficiality and inspire young users to find new routes rather than to re-enter those worn routes of ’self-fiction’ and ‘who cares’ attitude. Young people do not have a free choice: they will take what we give them.

Inculture Media Insight

graffman — Mon, 02 May 2011 15:00:17 +0000

Mobile phones and laptops are today the everyday essentials we do not want to leave home without. Compressing time and space has become an un-reflected act. The resulting transparency and accessibility dissolves the boundaries between public and private domains and constantly integrates new realms of discourse. A workspace is no longer necessarily a designated place in an office, a school or at a university but a comfortable sofa at home, a table in a café or a bench in a park. Airplanes and trains are equipped to allow us to work and be connected while travelling. We pass through landscapes and fly over mountains and cities but perceive and navigate the world through our technological devices rather than our senses. Our social relationships are increasingly sustained and nourished by our digitally extended selves rather than by personal encounters. Social media platforms allow virtual but dynamic social structures to overlap corresponding real life structures and arrangements. These structures are reciprocally influenced and influence. Social life becomes hence increasingly virtual, accessible and updated. Social media platforms also make the creation of a virtual self possible by manifesting a chosen identity through the pictures we post and the stories we write about our lives, including social as well as personal experiences. Inculture Media Insight is an ethnographic project which aims to increase the understanding of how we view the world and our social relationships through the lens of digital technology: to extend our knowledge about the impact of continued, advanced and refined digitalization on functional, social and symbolic values and concepts like time, space, distance, identity, friendship, social intimacy, education and learning.

People and brands

graffman — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:43:49 +0000

Read my new blog text about people and brands written together with Jacob Östberg at The Brand-Man.

Anthropology and brands

graffman — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:08:28 +0000

Read my blog texts about anthropology in a brand context at The Brand-Man.

Social Media Week NYC

graffman — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:48:47 +0000

Inculture will participate in Social Media Week New York on Wednesday 9th february, 9 AM (New York time). The session is named “Social media around the world“. Freddie Laker will moderate a roster of on-stage and videocast social media enthusiasts. Through first-hand storytelling and demos, these panelists will discuss how they incorporate social media into their daily lives; introduce us to social media sites, apps, and trends that are popular in their home countries, and discuss the impact that these tools are having on culture. You can see the session by clicking here!

The perfect home or the perfect me?

graffman — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:11:28 +0000

If I buy that new remodeled kitchen aid, I´m sure I´ll bake more bread. And if I move to that area close to the art museum I´m sure I´ll go there much more often. And if I get that pituresque little house I´ll finally be truly happy! Recognize these thoughts? Striving for something better is a human quality, which constantly helps to improve and reinvent oneself. But what if you suddenly only start to reinvent your surroundings instead of yourself? In the play ”Ljust och fräscht” (Lindström & Schyffert) those topics are discussed and they couldn’t be more accurate. In an ongoing study Inculture is analyzing this strive and longing for a perfect home, including the perfect you. See for example IKEA’s kitchen report.

A new year – time for CCOs?

graffman — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:49:47 +0000

Grant McCracken suggests that every company in the future will need a Chief Culture Officer, someone who carries the ethnographic way of thinking straight into the heart of the company: makes it part of its strategic thinking. To make this happen is not solely up to the companies, it is up to us as ethnographers to communicate our theoretical and methodological professionalism and their relevance for business development.