The Ethnographer Unbounded: Considering Open Source in Corporate Environments
abernard102@gmail.com 2012-10-19
Summary:
Use the link to access the full text article from the conference proceedings for EPIC 2012 Renewal: Ethnographic praxis in industry conference. The introduction opens as follows: "We are currently working in an era of friction, as information is increasingly unowned and untethered, there are more efforts to control it, and attempts to increase stringent restrictions and laws
trying to curb the right to information. Controversies regarding open access to information have
recently fomented a series of protests, for example, against legislation such as PIPA/SOPA and the Research Works Act. Even professional organizations, such as the American Anthropological Association, are struggling to decide how open to make information (Boellstorff 2012; Golub 2012). These debates have led us to question how we, as practitioners of ethnography, promulgate information. Ethnographers in both the public and private sector can blog, tweet, pin, comment, bookmark, and share information across a multitude of open (available to all, at no cost) online platforms. These tools help spread ideas, promote ethnography, enhance collaboration, and further one of EPIC's central aims to 'promote public recognition of practicing ethnography as a profession.' We argue that in addition to recognizing the profession in the public sphere, ethnographic research itself should be promoted, as openly sharing content such as interview transcripts, analysis, commentary, applications, and resulting deliverables may also benefit practitioners and the public in surprising ways. With this in mind, we set out to explore how 'openness' of research impacts our own ethnographic work by comparing two distinct professional experiences. The first occurs within a large corporation, in which almost every stage of work is undertaken internally and confidentially. The second is an open source project, funded by a Knight Foundation grant, relying on collaboration across several public institutions. By comparing these projects, the authors explore the benefits and the tensions of working on 'open' projects and seek to learn which elements of open source have beneficial applications for ethnographers working in corporate contexts..."