
a book review by SIMON ROBERTS, Stripe Partners
Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life
Gillian Tett
2021, 304 pp, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
→ Watch Simon Roberts in conversation with Gillian Tett & Donna Flynn
Ulf Hannerz once proposed that “common sense is cultural ‘business as usual’; standard operating procedure, one’s perspective at rest” (127). Gillian Tett’s journalism unsettles perspectives at rest. If there’s one simple message for the general reader in her new book Anthro-Vision it is this: the promise and value of anthropology lies in making visible that which is close to hand but ignored. It offers a means to see the world differently.
There’s also a message for those whose work involves the application of anthropological thinking or ethnography: we should revisit our own assumptions about how we conceive of and communicate our value. The book is a resounding call to arms in a world beset by a ‘tunnel vision’.
What is the basis for Tett’s faith...