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Karen Ho
Anthropology
PHOTO BY PETER S. WELLS
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As Karen
Ho developed her interests in anthropology during the early years
of her graduate study, she became intrigued by the idea of applying
the perspectives and methods developed for investigating non-industrialized
societies to complex institutions in modern America. In 1995, AT&T
announced the largest downsizing in American corporate history.
This event and its ramifications led Professor Ho to her dissertation
topic.
Communities in northern New Jersey not far from where Karen Ho was
studying were devastated by the layoffs. Yet shortly after the downsizing
was announced, AT&T stock rallied, and at
the same time, the stocks of major investment banks in New York
also rose. Why, Professor Ho wondered, did a change that proved
so devastating for thousands of AT&T workers lead to sudden
large gains, albeit short-term, in value for both AT&T shareholders
and the banks?
To address this question, she developed a research project that
employed the perspectives and research techniques of anthropology
to study Wall Street. Viewing Wall Street investment bankers as
members of an ethnographic group,
she could ask, what was their culture, what were their values, how
did they make sense of and negotiate their practices which seemed
to be heightening socio-economic inequalities and worker trauma?
After several years of field experience on Wall Street, first as
an employee at an investment bank and then as an ethnographer, Ho
presented her results in her dissertation, Liquefying Corporations
and Communities: Wall Street World Views and Socioeconomic Transformations
in the Post-Industrial US (2003).
One of the innovationsof Professor Ho’s work was to ask, what
do we find when we apply anthropological concepts to the study of
a local site (Wall Street) that is imagined as a global place? Ho’s
research shows that much about the way global capitalism works has
more to do with the values and culture of the bankers— especially
with respect to the way that bonuses are paid and the strong emphasis
placed on shareholder value—rather than what are often understood
as impersonal and autonomous market forces.
Professor Ho’s new project focuses on the subject of microfinance,
the providing of small loans by a variety of bank and non-bank organizations
with the stated aim of improving the circumstances of disadvantaged
groups, both in the United States and in the developing world. This
subject has only recently received attention from major financial
institutions (the United Nations designated 2005 as the Year of
Microcredit). Ho is applying the ethnographic techniques she honed
in her dissertation research to address the question, what happens
when large commercial interests become involved in microfinance?
What are the tensions involved in negotiating “social capitalism?”
Also, a significant disparity exists in the approaches of financial
institutions toward providing microfinancing in domestic and foreign
contexts. In the United States, Ho notes that financial institutions
tend to pursue a less
active strategy toward microfinance, for example, through placing
ATMs in disadvantaged neighborhoods and offering high-interest credit
cards. In developing countries, more active approaches often involve
providing small loans to entrepreneurs starting businesses. One
of Ho’s main interests in microfinance is in investigating
the reasons for this disparity.
Professor Ho is currently preparing and expanding her dissertation
for publication, at the same time that she is beginning work on
this new project. Her research is paving the way for other anthropologists
to apply ethnographic techniques to exploring such dynamic issues
in the modern world.
By Peter S. Wells
Reprinted with permission from the Fall 2006 edition of World
Views, a publication of the Department of Anthropology. |
