Advancing the Value of Ethnography

EPIC2024 Los Angeles | Twenty

The 20th EPIC conference took place in Los Angeles from August 18-21, 2024. It marked a pivotal moment when society, industry, and ethnography need to achieve profound transitions to create livable futures. We reexamined foundations, reckon with displacement, and craft new capacities for generation.

Conference Proceedings and video will be available here in November 2024!

Past Conferences

The EPIC conference is the premier international gathering on ethnography in business and organizations. Browse video presentations and published proceedings by year below, or search our complete Library.

EPIC2023 Chicago | Friction

At EPIC2023 we grappled with and harnessed friction for all its complex and productive powers.

EPIC2022 Amsterdam | Resilience

Who should flex, resist, or adapt? What should be restored, abandoned, or reinvented?

EPIC2021 San Jose | Anticipation

How do people, practitioners, and organizations document, anticipate, and craft potential futures?

Image of Australia with the word "scale" superimposed

EPIC2020 Melbourne | Scale

How does scale define the scopes, contexts, and impacts of business value and our own work?

EPIC2019 Providence | Agency

What does it mean to have agency in an increasingly automated world?

Evidence: Honolulu Hawaii 2018

EPIC2018 Honolulu | Evidence

How is evidence created, used, and abused?

EPIC2017 Perspectives, Montreal, with a blue background

EPIC2017 Montreal | Perspective

What comes of changing scope; shifting positions; subverting norms?

EPIC2016

EPIC2016 Minneapolis | Pathmaking

What are the pathways to transformative innovation and value for organizations and communities?

EPIC2015

EPIC2015 Brazil | Building Bridges

How do we create value by connecting diverse people, places, and disciplines?

epic2014

EPIC2014 New York

What are the positive values and relations that can lead to new value?

epic2013

EPIC2013 London

What are the evolving challenges and opportunities for ethnography in industry, policy, and design?

epic2012

EPIC2012 Savannah | Renewal

What is the relationship between change, stability, and stasis?

epic2011

EPIC2011 Boulder | Evolution/Revolution

Explore dynamics and practices of change, from continuous adaptation to sharp discontinuities.

epic2010

EPIC2010 Tokyo | 道 Dō

道 Dō captures the sense of individual mastery that is achieved only through community.

epic2009

EPIC2009 Chicago|Taking Care of Business

How can we be effective and relevant in today’s challenging economic climate?

epic2008

EPIC2008 Copenhagen | Being Seen

How might practices and paradoxes of (in)visibility and advance our work?

epic2007

EPIC2007 Keystone | Being Heard

What does it mean to have voice, to represent, to be represented, to express, to be heard?

epic2006

EPIC2006 Portland | Transitions

How do connect macro- and micro-level change, and organizational to cultural and social transformation?

epic2005

EPIC2005 Redmond | Sociality

What do social theory and methods bring to industry’s focus on individualization?