#15, Jess Halley, What can anthropology teach us about startups?

In this episode, we chat with Jessica Halley.

Jessica is a Wellington-born social anthropologist. Her PhD research focuses on the intersection between precarious labour, entrepreneurialism, and identity across Wellington’s digital workforce.

As an anthropologist, Jessica collects human stories.

She tells us that ethnographic research allows us to mine everyday stories.

Bringing these stories into a startup context will enable us to build the next generation of technologies in a way that counts.

We discuss many topics including Jessica's current research, which focuses on Wellington startups, social enterprises and software development.

Additionally, her experiences conducting ethnographic research amongst Bhutanese refugee women and what this taught her about Facebook, selfies and user experience.

Jessica says that gone are the simple days of broad-based solutions to user experiences. Instead, future technologies will demand a specific, localised and culturally-relative approach to problem-solving.

Qualitative research, specifically ethnography, can provide methodological tools for startups seeking to solve the problems of the future.

You can read about her research on "Young Bhutanese women becoming 'Kiwi'" here

Here are the references focusing on Wellington as a digital city. And below is the quote from PM Tony Blair about creative labour, along with a link to a journal article that examines his legacy in the digital workforce.

• Norman, R. (2015). Wellington’s Digital Sector - Growing under the Radar. Victoria University of Wellington: Wellington. https://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/Documents/2021/12/Vic-Uni-Digital-Sector-Report.pdf
• Brabazon, T. (2009). Brand Wellington: When city imaging is GLAM’ed: A personal view. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 5(4), 260–275. https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2009.22
• Bonelli, D., Jutel, T., & Leotta, A. (2019). ‘Selling the creative city’: Wellington tourism film in the neoliberal era. Studies in Australasian Cinema, 13(2-3), 32-50. https://doi-org.ezproxy.massey.ac.nz/10.1080/17503175.2019.1693149

'Our aim must be to create a nation where the creative talents of all the people are used to build a true enterprise economy for the twenty-first century – where we compete on brains, not brawn' (Blair, 1999: 3).

https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/42872_Flew.pdf

We really enjoyed this chat with Jess and hope you do also.

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