Anthropology and Entrepreneurship: The Current State of Research and Practice

Full book is available for download, free of charge, on the AAA website: https: //entrepreneur.americananthro.org/

An excerpt from the book's introduction: "The field of anthropology emerged in the nineteenth century as part of a broader critique of the Industrial Revolution and colonial expansion, seeking to make sense of the ways in which economic and technological changes had fundamentally altered livelihoods, family arrangements, communities, political institutions, and the patterns of values and beliefs that reinforce and perpetuate the social and geopolitical order. Anthropological research and its applications have largely been motivated by underlying interests in calling out the root causes of social injustice and unsustainable resource use.

One consistent and timely research thread in anthropology's intellectual history is the examination of entrepreneurship, especially in industrial and post-colonial economies. Thanks to the generous support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) has been able to recognize some exemplary scholarship on anthropology and entrepreneurship through a series Annual Meeting symposia held in 2020 and 2021.

For this symposium series, AAA has sought a mix of papers based on research from around the world, not just North America. AAA has been especially interested in highlighting research that has direct practical application in business and entrepreneurship and that addresses solutions to pressing environmental, economic and social problems. Among the research areas of particular interest are: (1) entrepreneurial behavior and the social, cultural, and economic institutions that facilitate the emergence and ongoing support of such behavior; (2) innovative approaches to entrepreneurship training and development; (3) partnerships and financial instruments that support new enterprises; and (4) innovative approaches to enterprises that explicitly aim to serve public interests and/or urgent social needs."