Next article FreeCorporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 3Leslie C. Aiello and James F. BrooksLeslie C. Aiello Search for more articles by this author and James F. Brooks Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreCorporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form is the third Wenner-Gren Symposium to be published as an open-access supplement of Current Anthropology (CA). This supplementary issue is based on a symposium of the same name that was jointly sponsored by the foundation and the School for Advanced Research (SAR) and was held on the SAR campus in Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 21–27, 2008 (fig. 1). The symposium was organized by Damani J. Partridge (University of Michigan), Marina Welker (Cornell University), and Rebecca Hardin (University of Michigan), who are also the guest editors for this issue. All three are younger scholars who are at the forefront of the emerging field of corporate anthropology.Figure 1. Participants in the symposium “Corporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form.” Seated from left: Leslie Aiello, Catherine Coumans, Gabriela Vargas-Cetina, Sally Engle Merry, Marina Welker, Damani Partridge, Rebecca Hardin. Standing from left: James Brooks, Laurie Obbink, Michael Woodard, Thabo Mokgatlha, Robert Monks, John Conley, Krista Gullo, Jessica Cattalino, Sue Cook, Steve Bohlin, Jane Lynch, Bená Burda, Jane Guyer, David Wood. Not pictured: S. Locklann Jain.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointCorporations are described in the guest editors’ introduction to this supplementary issue (Welker, Partridge, and Hardin 2011) as one of the dominant institutions of our time. Corporations simultaneously shape and are shaped by humans at all levels of society and in sometimes surprising contexts. The relevance of corporations to modern life was accentuated for the symposium participants by the economic crisis that unfolded in 2008 at the time of the “Corporate Lives” meeting. Although the symposium was planned well in advance of this crisis, this serendipitous convergence brought home to all participants the relevance of the meeting and the importance of anthropology to the study and analysis of all aspects of the corporate experience. As a major result of the meeting, the guest editors advocate for “fresh anthropological research into the nature of the corporate form and the experiments in social organization it opens up, the material and symbolic power of corporations over human and environmental life, how countermovements to capitalism are reshaping the corporate ethics and governance, and the contested internal nature of corporations” (Welker, Partridge, and Hardin 2011).The “Corporative Lives” symposium was an innovative meeting in bringing together not only academic anthropologists but also environmental and social activists, investment specialists, and corporate executives to discuss and debate all aspects of corporations, including the growth of corporate forms and their occasional reinvention, corporate volatility, and long-range governance. Participants came from North and Central America and from South Africa and are involved as anthropologists or corporate practitioners in many other areas of the world and with many corporate forms. This provided richness to the discussions at the symposium and to the papers in this supplementary issue. The CA treatment of comments on papers also provides a unique opportunity for the nonacademic symposium participants to continue their discussions of the papers and to be heard in print by the academy.Both the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the SAR are particularly interested in promoting the relevance of anthropology in the modern world and in the importance of the anthropological perspective for major issues that confront society today. “Corporate Lives” is an excellent example of this relevance. Likewise, the fact that many of the participants are at the beginning of their careers bodes well for the future of the discipline.The “Corporate Lives” symposium was a unique collaboration between Wenner-Gren and the SAR. However, both organizations are looking for innovative topics for their respective symposium and workshop programs. We encourage anthropologists to be in contact with their ideas and symposium proposals. Information about the Wenner-Gren Foundation and its Symposium and Workshop program can be found on the Wenner-Gren Web site (http://www.wennergren.org/). Information about the SAR and its various symposia programs can be found on the SAR Web site (http://sarweb.org/).Reference CitedWelker, Marina, Damani J. Partridge, and Rebecca Hardin. 2011. Corporate lives: new perspectives on the social life of the corporate form: an introduction to supplement 3. Current Anthropology 51(suppl. 3):S3–S16.First citation in articleLinkGoogle ScholarNotesLeslie C. Aiello is President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor North, New York, New York 10016, U.S.A.). James F. Brooks is President and Chief Executive Officer of the School for Advanced Research (P.O. Box 2188, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-2188, U.S.A.). Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 52, Number S3Supplement to April 2011Corporate Lives: New Perspectives on the Social Life of the Corporate Form: Edited by Damani J. Partridge, Marina Welker, and Rebecca Hardin Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/657908 Views: 420Total views on this site © 2011 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.
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