Browsing by Author "Moeran, Brian"
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advertising social organisation in JapanMoeran, Brian (København, 2002)[More information][Less information]
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Moeran, Brian (, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Fragrance and perfume connect with our most basic and primitive window on the world – our sense of smell. Animals use their sense of smell to find food, sense danger and mate. So, too, do human beings. Mothers and their babies bond through smell. Smell triggers memories buried long in our unconscious, probably because our sense of smell is linked directly to the limbic system, the oldest part of the brain, which is the seat of emotion and memory. Throughout the ages in Western civilization, fragrance has been used to communicate spirituality, passion, and both masculinity and femininity. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7772 Files in this item: 1
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Anthropology, Fieldwork and Organizational EthnographyMoeran, Brian (København, 2007)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper looks at the relationship between anthropology, fieldwork and what is referred to as ‘organizational ethnography’. It starts by distinguishing between fieldwork, which is a method of conducting qualitative research, initially in the discipline of anthropology, and ethnography, which is the writing up of that research. The paper makes use of the author’s fieldwork experiences in a Japanese advertising agency to illustrate a number of features that define fieldwork as a methodology. It argues that it is the shift from participant observation to observant participation that enables the fieldworker to move from front stage to back stage in the study of an organization, and thereby to gain information and knowledge that is otherwise available only to insiders. Fieldwork, Anthropology, Organizational Ethnography, Observant Participation URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7038 Files in this item: 1
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reconsidering Japanese Business OrganisationMoeran, Brian (København, 2001)[More information][Less information]
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An Ethnography of a Juried Ceramic Art Exhibition in JapanMoeran, Brian (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This article discusses the social processes among members of a panel of jurors required to award a major prize to one of the submissions to a national ceramics exhibition in Japan. Uniquely based on participant observation-style fieldwork, the article details the voting procedures and (inconclusive) results, before analysing why one particular potter’s submission was selected for the Princess Chichibu Cup. It shows how social relations, rather than aesthetic taste, influenced the final choice, since jury members operated according to an informal pecking order that depended on pre-existing networks and reputations, themselves determined by seniority and age. The fact that judges did not overtly resort to aesthetic criteria when making their evaluations meant that they considered each submission in relation to other submissions, rather than on their own particular merits. They thus ended up comparing ‘incommensurate flaws’, rather than making a selection according to agreed ‘merit’. And yet ‘meritocratic principles’ seem to prevail in the longer term cumulative recognition of potters who are awarded prizes at such exhibitions. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8510 Files in this item: 1
Brian_Moeran_2012.pdf (266.7Kb) -
the corporation, the agency, the anthropologist, and their friendsMoeran, Brian (København, 2001)[More information][Less information]
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A view from the edgeMoeran, Brian (Frederiksberg, 2010)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This working paper reflects upon the difficulties of being interdisciplinary when studying the creative industries. After outlining the basic premises behind the ©reative Encounters research programme, it brings into play two editing activities in which the author has been involved over the past six months. One of these is a four volume set of readings in the creative industries which shows that, even though most writing on ‘creative’ industries stem from various governments’ national policies promulgated from the end of the 1990s, there is plenty of material ‘out there’ from the late 1940s onwards. The other is an edited book on the role of fairs, festivals and competitive events in the creative industries which also revealed the extent to which history tended to be overlooked in a specific context by contemporary scholars in different disciplines. The paper concludes by asking what enables and what hinders interdisciplinarity, suggesting that institutional structures and the publishing industry in many ways are designed to prevent innovation in intellectual fields. It is these, therefore, that need to be reconsidered if we are to be successful in crossing over from one discipline to another. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8175 Files in this item: 1
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Some Preliminary Thoughts on Entering the FieldMoeran, Brian (København, 2004)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The theoretical discourses devoted to smell reflect a maze of fascinating taboos and mysterious attractions. In present-day Western societies, the sense of smell is undervalued. Scents are highly elusive and often cannot be directly named. Many languages have virtually no vocabulary to describe them, except in terms of the other senses of sight, sound, touch and taste. Scents are communicated primarily through metaphors. What are these linguistic and visual metaphors, and what do they tell us about the societies and cultures in which they are used? How do we know what scents ‘mean’? Is smell a universal form of semiotic communication (as global advertising campaigns suggest), or does it vary in different social and cultural contexts (as anthropological and other literature asserts)? Are there specific ‘scent cultures’? If so, in what do they consist? And how do these affect the creation, appraisal and use of fragrances in the three countries – Japan, France and the USA – in which I intend to conduct my research? URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6973 Files in this item: 1
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Abstract: This paper focuses on a hitherto unremarked aspect of cultural production – smell. It first outlines the historical background of Japanese scent culture, before moving on to describe in detail the processes by which incense is produced in Japan, and the various challenges facing a manufacturer with regard to consistency of raw materials, kneading blended materials, and drying formed incense sticks. It then concentrates on a group of incense manufacturers located on the western coast of Awaji Island in the Inland Sea of Japan, and suggests that it is access to, and successful management of, olfactory knowledge that enables a sub-contracted supplier to become independent by producing his own incense brands. The paper concludes by drawing a series of parallels betweenthe symbolic and social uses of incense in contemporary Japanese society, and thus underscores the connection between olfaction and transition noted for many other societies. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/6945 Files in this item: 1
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Moeran, Brian (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This paper starts from the premise that all forms of socio-economic behaviour are motivated and underpinned by values of one kind or another. The study of culture is thus a study of the values that constitute that culture. In their plural form, values constitute our socio-cultural beliefs and moral principles. However, in its singular form, value relates to economic utility, price and worth. The aim of this working paper is to examine the relation between economic and cultural values which, it is argued, constitute a field of values that are (re)produced, negotiated and transacted in the context of creative products. This field consists of technical, affective, social, situational, appreciative and functional values. Together these create a qualitative symbolic exchange value which is often then exchanged for a quantitative economic value. The paper outlines how each of these values works and interacts with other values in the context of creative industries. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7971 Files in this item: 1
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a cross-cultural comparison of Elle and Marie ClaireMoeran, Brian (København, 2001)[More information][Less information]
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Moeran, Brian (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This working paper, delivered at the ©reative Encounters workshop on the Business of Ethnography in June 2012, and in part (the sections on advertising and anthropology) at the American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco in November the same year, recounts the author’s personal experiences as a fieldworker to consider what it is that defines the newly emergent sub-discipline of business anthropology. The underlying argument is that all kinds of ethnographic research not overtly conducted on ‘business organizations’ may be counted as an anthropology of business, which itself is not strictly defined by the word ‘business’ per se, but includes such features as kinship and household organization, creative and craft practices, community structures, and so on. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8511 Files in this item: 1
Brian_Moeran_2012_2.pdf (201.0Kb) -
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Abstract: This working paper – written for inclusion as a chapter on Japanese society, to be published in Chinese by the Beijing University of Foreign Studies later in 2011 – looks at popular culture as a form of cultural production. It argues for the need to study popular cultural forms like advertisements, ceramics, fashion magazines and folk art as both products and as processes of design, manufacture, distribution, appreciation and use, which must all be taken into account. Precisely because popular cultural forms are both cultural products and commodities, they reveal the complementary nature of the two categories of culture and the economy. The paper outlines and analyses the different ways in which social, cultural, symbolic and economic capital are converted by those participating in advertising, ceramic, fashion magazine and folk art worlds, and suggests that popular culture may best be seen as a name economy. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8252 Files in this item: 1
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Abstract: This working paper takes as its starting point the work of the German economic sociologist, Jens Beckert, and his call for empirical investigations into how intentionally rational actors reach decisions under conditions when they do not know what is best to do. It describes how trade fairs act as a framing mechanism that enables participants to come together for the exchange of goods and services and to perceive themselves as acting in a social field. Fairs frame the contacts people make and sustain as networks; the institutional rules and social norms guiding their behaviour there; and the values and cognitive frames that they bring to bear and negotiate with other participants. They make actors aware of a ‘mutual correspondence’ in their interpretation of the goods in which they deal and of the social situations in which engage for the sake of such trade. Trade fairs both configure fields and make markets possible. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8293 Files in this item: 1
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Moeran, Brian (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This working paper is a case study about the development of a faience product line in Royal Copenhagen and illustrates several aspects of how, at what stages of development, and by whom, cultural products in general are evaluated. Three theoretical issues emerge. One concerns the constraints imposed upon design and production by the use of materials and, to a lesser extent, technology. Another argues that product development has to take place within a particular brand and genre – in this case, those of Royal Copenhagen. A third reveals the way in which the design and manufacture of a particular cultural product had to be negotiated within a particular organizational world embracing both management and workers, with differentiated skills. These issues lead to a more general discussion of craftsmanship and storytelling. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8338 Files in this item: 1
62 - BM Royal Copenhagen.pdf (341.7Kb)
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