Ken Anderson

Biography
As a manager of People and Practices Research at Intel, Ken oversees the development of innovative research of human cultures and social practices to inform technology strategy. His current foci is on social relationships, identity, and trust. In work and play, groups small and large are using technologies for weaving representations of their identities, connections and interactions. Ken is a symbolic anthropologist by training, his dissertation topic was on intertextuality and Azorean identity, which explored the space of media, identity and culture. Prior to coming to Intel Ken was at AT&T | Broadband, MediaOne, and US West where he worked to bring a better understanding of people’s everyday lives into corporate product and strategy development. He has also played the role of itinerate academic by being research faculty at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Bethel College and Seminary, University of Minnesota and Brown University As a graduate student, Anderson lead ethnographic efforts of Brown University’s Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) around people’s practices, education and technology in a hypermedia world.

Position Paper
How is social-technical life lived in urban environments? I’m concerned with the emic experience of social collectives, as well as, how these collectives come together, are sustained, and break apart as they adopt, co-opt and abandon technologies. The social fabric of many countries is changing from a mechanical social organization, ala Durkheim, to a new type organic sociality. A sociality where groups are formed on basis other than mere geography and shared histories. It is a sociality that is dependent on interactions, performances and connections. Technology has created new kinds of interactions and ways that support sociality. Sociality relies on everyday experiences to hold the collective together. With this shift social to sociality there is also swing from a focus on individual to notions of persons or personhood (Maffesoli or Strathern). To pursue this interests, we explored how ICT devices in London, Tokyo and LA were used by 20somethings to interface with information, urban infrastructures and people. We explored how these 20somethings managed their social identity and affiliations with these devices and services. In another project, we examined how Ghanaian transnational’s in Accra and in London used ICTs to create and maintain various forms of sociality.

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