Matt Artz and Lora Koycheva, eds.
EmTech Anthropology: Careers at the Frontier
New York and London: Routledge, 2025. 213 pages. Hardcover, $136.00; paperback, $34.39; ebook, $34.39. ISBN 9781032603025 (hardcover), 9781032602998 (paperback), 9781003458555 (ebook).
The worsening dearth of academic jobs has compelled greater numbers of anthropologist and other social science PhD graduates to explore careers outside of academia. This has led to the proliferation of a community interested in alternative academic (“alt-ac”) careers. While applied anthropology has always been focused on work outside of the academy, since 2010 or so alt-ac has truly taken on new meanings as such careers have become an increasing necessity for many newly minted doctorates. Many such anthropologists and ethnographers are finding themselves working at the forefront of novel and emerging industries in roles such as cross-cultural strategists, user researchers, and market researchers, among others. Matt Artz and Lora Koycheva’s edited volume EmTech Anthropology: Careers at the Frontier offers a practical and academic look into some of the ways trained anthropologists are finding work in emerging technology fields. The book’s chapters are filled with the personal experiences and insights anthropologists have gleaned from working in emerging tech (“EmTech”), and the book offers a wide range of experiences from anthropologists working in cybersecurity, space exploration, AI, and more.
All of the chapters read as both academic anthropological contributions and practical examples of how anthropologists are applying their knowledge in diverse fields in industry settings. The book’s focus on emerging technology offers a unique contribution to applied anthropology because of the rapidly changing nature of these fields and their growing pervasiveness in everyday life. In the introduction, the editors explain that anthropologists have “missed too many opportunities to get ahead of the changes brought forth” (2) by emerging trends. The chapters argue that anthropologists working on technology teams can make important contributions to product development, equity, and sustainability, among other areas.
Each chapter follows a similar structure. The chapter opens with a description of the industry the contributor is working in, followed by a personal vignette of how the author became involved in this work. These vignettes are particularly interesting in that they show the often nonlinear and haphazard ways the contributors became involved in tech after pursuing graduate studies. The chapters then explain how anthropological perspectives contribute to insights in these fields and how anthropologists are addressing blind spots in these industries. The chapters end with general prescriptions for readers to become involved in technology fields. In doing so, the contributors connect their work and approaches to ethnographic and anthropological theory, demonstrating how their work is both informed by and contributes to discussions in academic anthropology.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is the breadth of the industries covered by the contributors. Topics broached in the book include AI and data privacy (Musgrave, chapter 2), recommendation systems (Artz, chapter 3), cybersecurity (Potter, chapter 4), web3 (McKay, chapter 5), robotics (Koycheva, chapter 6), space exploration in Latin America (Johnson, chapter 7), commercial genetic engineering (Hameed, chapter 8), and biotech (Hughes, chapter 9). The book also includes an introduction that contextualizes the subsequent chapters (Artz and Koycheva, chapter 1) and a summarizing chapter positing steps forward (Sieck, chapter 10). Each chapter demonstrates how trained anthropologists contribute to these emerging sectors by showing how existing approaches fall short of their potential and fail to address persistent challenges—gaps that anthropological perspectives are well positioned to fill.
Another strength of the book is its contribution to theoretical discussions. While naturally limited by space, each chapter does its best to connect the ways contributors are applying their anthropological approaches to industry settings in ways that are informed by and contribute to theoretical discussions in anthropology and ethnography. The chapters relate their discussions back to classical anthropological theories as well as to more recent conceptual trends. Some also offer interesting contributions to ethnographic theory and argue for novel approaches and perspectives to data collection to better adapt to changing environments. Almost all of the chapters explicitly call on anthropologists to broaden their perspectives and use their in-depth ethnographic training to explore ways to enhance these emerging areas.
There are two aspects of the book that I believe could have been stronger. First, I wish the book had dedicated more attention to the transitioning process for people seeking alt-ac careers. My initial draw to the book was in these perspectives, as I have been exploring alt-ac careers since 2017 and have taken on several alt-ac roles. I know many sharp anthropologists are struggling in the current job market, and more insights on how these people could make this jump would have been insightful. While the personal vignettes provide some advice, more space dedicated to these issues would have been helpful. Second, the potential value of anthropological contributions is not always clearly articulated; specifically, some chapters present this value somewhat prima facie, without fully unpacking it for skeptical or interdisciplinary audiences. Although some chapters do a good job of showing anthropology’s value, others could have expounded more on what anthropology can do for businesses. Thus, one of book’s greatest contributions—rich descriptions of how anthropologists can meaningfully engage with emerging tech fields and how anthropologists in emerging tech can contribute to conceptual debates—may fail to convince skeptics that anthropology can bring value to their fields.
Shortcomings notwithstanding, EmTech Anthropology provides an important contribution to applied anthropological approaches in emerging technology fields. As technology continues to shape more aspects of everyday life, these anthropological contributions will become increasingly important. Accordingly, the book is laudable for its effort to connect these seemingly disparate fields. EmTech Anthropology is of greatest interest to theoretically inclined anthropologists interested in seeing how anthropological theories are being applied to emerging tech fields, and some chapters would make interesting readings for upper-level or graduate applied anthropology classes.
Paul Capobianco
Nanzan University, Anthropological Institute
State University of New York at Buffalo