My research over the years has focused on the social processes surrounding the production, marketing, appraisal and consumption of products subsumed under the heading of cultural production or, these days, "creative industries" (for example, advertising, arts and crafts, fashion magazines, media and publishing). As a social anthropologist, I have made consistent use of long-term participant observation as my primary methodology, although I also bring in content analysis, surveys and in-depth interviews as appropriate. My current interests are, firstly, a comparative study of the publishing industries in the UK and Japan; and, secondly, in how people talk about and use fragrances in marketing different products - from incense to whiskey, by way of air conditioning systems, stationery, and clothing materials. My work has been published in such journals as Current Sociology, Design History, Ethnos, Fashion Theory, Human Organization, Human Relations, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Journal of Japanese Studies, Journal of Modern Crafts, Theory, Culture & Society, and others. I have also written and/or edited a dozen books.

Research Director of ©reative Encounters, the Socio-Economic Organization of Creative Industries: Research Projects Link: Creative Encounters homepage

Founder, member, and former director of Imagine .. Creative Industries Research

1. A Japanese Advertising Agency: An Anthropology of Media and Markets. Curzon/Hawaii University Press, 1996. pp. 322.

2. Folk Art Potters of Japan: Beyond an Anthropology of Aesthetics, Curzon Press, January 1997. pp. 272.

3. The Business of Ethnography: Strategic Alliances, People and Organizations, Oxford: Berg, January 2005. pp. 225.

4. Ethnography at Work. Oxford: Berg, October 2006. pp. 152.

5. “Celebrities and the name economy”, Research in Economic Anthropology Volume 22: 291-321, December 2003.

6. “Tricks of the trade: The performance and interpretation of authenticity,” Journal of Management Studies, Volume 42, Number 5: 901-922, July 2005.

7. “More than just a fashion magazine,” Current Sociology 54 (5): 725-744, September 2006.

8. “A dedicated storytelling organization: advertising talk in Japan,” Human Organization, Volume 66, Number 2: 160-170, September 2007.

9. “Marketing scents and the anthropology of smell,” Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale 15 (2): 153-168, November 2007.

10. “The organization of creativity in Japanese advertising production,” Human Relations, Special Issue: “Managing in the creative industries: Managing the motley crew,” Volume 23: 1-23, forthcoming, summer 2009.

11. “The book fair as a tournament of values,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, forthcoming, March 2010.