Anthropologists at the factory gates

Press, 27 February 1981, Page 12

Anthropologists at the factory gates

By

AILEEN BALLANTYNE

in the “Guardian,” London

Disappearing tribes, so anthropologists have found to their cost, have a nasty habit of disappearing, leaving hundreds of - highly trained men and women in imminent danger of the dole queue. But there remains an untouched civilisation, complete with taboos, rituals and ancient practices: British industry. Some would say the parallels between British business and dying civilisations are only too apparent — but the anthropologists themselves would argue that the techniques for studying the socalled “primitive” societies of the world can easily be applied to industry. An article published in the most recent Royal Anthropological Institutes journal, by. Dr Gerald. Mars, a lecturer in occupational research at Middlesex Polytechnic, argues that industry is “a virgin field” for anthropologists, and offers one of the most promising areas for their employment. As yet, examples of anthropologists saving industry millions are somewhat thin on the ground but the assumption of managers that “workers have no life outside the factory gates,” as

Dr Mars puts it, is enough to ruin the best-laid mitnagement incentive scheme. One study by Dr Dan Gowler of Oxford University at an electronics factory in the North-west, staffed largely by young female school leavers, showed why an expensive and elaborate incentive scheme seemed to have no effect.

Only by living in the area themselves, in the same part of town as the staff, did Dr Gowler and his researchers find out that there, as in other traditional workingclass areas, the parents control the earnings of workers living at home. A daughter living at home gave in all her earnings, and was given a fixed sum of spending money by her mother each week. This pattern only changed when the daughter began saving to get married, then she went “on board” and co-operated with the incentive scheme.

Such examples emphasise the growing remoteness of managers, anthropologists would argue, as they move from town to town for work, living totally separate lives from those whose

working lives they attempt to manage.

Managers are often “ethnocentric,” Dr Mars would argue — they see their values and attitudes as “God-given.” In general terms this means they expect neighbours, extended family and locality to play a less important part in people’s lives than work — and they expect economic motivation to be the driving force of most actions.

Because of these deepening differences in attitude, Dr Mars argues the need for a “broker” between management and the shop floor who should be an anthropologist. The only way to understand people, an anthropologist would argue, is to live with them.

As yet only a handful of Britain’s 700 anthropologists work in industry but the Royal Anthropological Institute hopes this will change. “In Sweden,, when there is a recession and problems in industry, the first thing they do is put money into the social sciences and consultation” said Mr Benthall. “Here this type of study is starved of money.”