A Step to Ecology of Industry : An Essay on the Anthropology of Industrial Organization

Abstract

There are some difficulties in anthropological studies concerning contemporary social issues such as industry. This is because most anthropologists conceptualize modern societies to be completely different from traditional ones. In this paper, I argue that the same methods of studying traditional livelihoods, such as agriculture, are also applicable to the study of industry. In the first section of the paper, I will review the history of anthropological studies on industry. Anthropologists played an important role in the birth of industry studies in the 1920s by introducing fieldwork methodology and functionalist theory to this field. This school focused on the study of informal relationships on the shop floor and analyzed these relationships to be a small social system called on "informal organization". In the early 1960s, another group influenced by modernization theory started studying the industrialization of developing countries. Then, in the '70s, Marxist approaches that focused on native laborers' xperiences of subordination and exploitation became popular in place of modernization theory. After the '80s, some Marxist studies were combined with postmodernism to from what was called the "cultural critique" school. Studies from this school interpreted cultural representations of industrialization as resistance to capitalist domination. As we have seen above, anthropological studies in industry were conducted from various ideological standpoints. Almost all researchers thought that industrial work would be de-socialized as a consequence of mechanization and rationalization. They separated the technical system of factories from social relations and felt that industrial work would be so de-socialized that social factors would only have a peripheral influence. In contrast with traditional livelihoods, anthropologists considered industrial work a totally de-socialized activity. Although mainstream literature takes such a view point, there are still some minority groups which explore the relationship between social relations and technology. In the influential book titled "Situated Learning", Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger claimed that the social structure of the workplace has a profound influence on the learning process at work. They argued that learning how to work is a part of daily work practice and that this practice is embedded in social relations in the workplace. They claimed that knowledge and skill were not abstract entities independent from human actors but properties of the social structure of the workplace. After Lave and Wenger presented this learning theory, several anthropologists conducted detailed studies about knowledge and skills in industrial work. These studies clarified fundamental roles of social relations in industrial work. First, they argue that the work environment in industry is sometimes highly uncertain so that workers have to cope with unexpected events instead of merely repeating routine work. Secondly, the workers depend mainly on their own experiences in order to cope with uncertainties and these experiences are shared through social relations between colleagues. This shows industrial work is embedded in networks of social relationships as it also is in traditional livelihoods. Based on these facts, I introduce a new approach to the study of industry named "Ecology of Industry". Ecology of industry focuses on the relationships among actors, activities and an industries organizational environment. The primal unit of analysis is a "task". Sometimes people have to cope with uncertainties in their tasks so that they collaborate with colleagues in the workplace. I call this network of collaboration a "unit of coordination". This is formed by various workers usually within but sometimes beyond the formal boundaries of the divisions of labor. The unit of coordination is an ad

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