Construction and Change of Identity of an In-House Ethnographer: A Case of an Anthropologist Working in Japanese Industrial Laboratory

Abstract

In recent years, ethnography, which is a concept and methodology grounded in cultural anthropology, has spread in various business fields. However, the practice of ethnography in the business fields often confuses academic trained anthropologists, destabilizes identities and force changes. Japanese companies employ very few anthropologists as “anthropologist”, thus the world is unaware of the difficulties faced by anthropologists employed in Japanese business fields. This paper is auto-ethnography of my experience of working at an industrial laboratory in Japan. This paper gives an account of the issues faced by anthropologists working in Japanese companies by the virtue of my experience.