As our lives become exposed to more and more technology, and companies become more and more interested in how technology affects us and how we interface with it, anthropologists have found themselves in increasing demand. Ken Banks of Kiwanja.net provides some context:
“The explosive growth of mobile-phone ownership in the developing world is largely down to a vibrant recycling market and the arrival of cheap US$20 phones, but is also down, in part, to the efforts of forward-thinking mobile-phone manufacturers. Anthropologists working for companies such as Nokia spend increasing amounts of time trying to understand what people living at the so-called “bottom of the pyramid” might want from a phone.”
(via textually.org)