Special issue of IJBA on collaboration
I will guest edit the Spring 2013 issue of International Journal of Business Anthropology
and invite you to submit an article for publication.
The issue will focus on collaboration as a negotiated process in business anthropology. In
comparison to the enduring image of the anthropologist as lone wolf in the field, business
anthropologists conduct ethnography with a network of people – clients, stakeholders and
researchers as well as informants and respondents. In such a network, there is negotiation
of meaning and use of power in designing, producing and marketing products. How does
collaboration affect the ethnographic process and its outcome?
We welcome academic papers that address aspects of collaborative work:

Cultural forms in which collaboration occurs (e.g., team, partnership, committee),
social relations among people connected through the ethnographic endeavor, use of
power, and impact of the larger field in which the collaborative context is embedded.

Decision-making processes among the actors, how voices are articulated, heard and
realized in the design, implementation and analysis of the ethnographic project and
the end product and, therefore, how meaning is negotiated.

Construction of knowledge, how it is situated in time and space, and how gaining
greater insight and deeper understanding of lived experience is constrained and/or
enhanced through the collaborative process.
Papers are welcome from all subfields of praxis including design anthropology, consumer
behavior, and organizational culture. The aim of the special issue is to expand theoretical
perspectives on collaboration and social exchange by looking at processes in which
business products (plans, reports, commodities, ads, websites, etc.) are created.
Deadline for submission: September 30, 2012.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact me. For details on formatting papers for
submission, check the IJBA website, www.na-businesspress.com/ijbaopen.html. There
will be a blind peer review process. Please send papers to:
Maryann McCabe, Ph.D.
Cultural Connections LLC, and
Department of Anthropology, University of Rochester
mm@cultureconnex.com