Reclaiming Relevance: A New Agenda for Business Anthropology in the Age of AI
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22439/jba.v15i1.7815Abstract
Anthropology faces a dual challenge in the age of artificial intelligence (AI): integrating computation while maintaining disciplinary rigor and distinctness, as well as reclaiming public relevance. To situate these challenges, we trace a relevance gap driven by retreat from public storytelling and the rise of AI‑enabled mimicry. We argue that business anthropology offers a key for disciplinary adaptation and a blueprint for public impact. Drawing on documented experiments primarily from the context of the United States such as computational scaffolding, agile ethnography, interpretive “data friction,” and provenance‑tracked AI-ethnographer collaboration, we demonstrate how anthropologists can scale insight while preserving meaning, accountability, and context. We contend that maintaining competency and relevance in increasingly AI‑mediated societies requires not only methodological reallocation, but also accessible public storytelling that make anthropological insights legible to non‑experts.
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