In Harmonium

Much of my work in the past has concentrated on how humans construct symbol systems to meet their needs. Rather than examining the “everyday” use of symbols, I decided to concentrate on symbol systems that developed to meet specific “breaches” in consensual reality. This has meant that I have tended to study symbol systems that are “unusual” – modern Witchcraft, the Charismatic movement in Pentecostal Christianity, corporate rituals of resructuring and alliances, and the creation of online personas and communities. To my mind, we can learn more about the nature of symbol system creation, maintenance and use from an examination of these systems as they emerge.

The emergence of symbol systems happens at the boundaries of previously existing systems – at those places were consensual reality is thin. It is in these holes in the “sacred canopy”, to borrow a phrase from Peter Berger, that we can see new “weavings” appear. Life is a series of adaptions from one environment to another. In the long run, it does not matter if these environmental changes are caused by human modification or by ecological modifications. Changes in the social system lead to changes in the ecological environment and vice versa. How we, as humans, meet, understand, and construct these changes is what to me is fascinating.

The major focus of my research since 1993 has been an examination of the outplacement, or career counselling, industry in Canada. My interest in the area came from working as an recruiter and finding that many people were treating me like a parish priest. I wanted to know why, and my research was an attempt to answer that question. This research has drawn me into an examination of emergent social structures resulting from an increased use of computer mediated communications (CMC) in both job and candidate search activities. I have presented a number of papers and organized sessions on these topics at various conferences.

The topic of job search has led me to examine organizational cultures and, most recently, the construction of organizational alliances. Both of these areas impact on job searching and vice versa. Indeed, the current trend towards alliances and away from verically integrated organizations appears to have excellerated as a result of changes in both the job market and corporate cultures.

In 2003, I returned to singing Baroque music after a 19 year hiatus. I have been lucky in that, when I started singing again, I joined the Ottawa Bach Choir, probably the best choral group in Ottawa. This has sparked an interest in examining music as both a series of formal, non-linguistic symbol systems and, also, as a way of “programming” consciousness.

In 2004, I started working as a Consulting Anthropologist (apologies to Sherlock Holmes) with Insignia Research in Toronto. In many ways, this is a bit of a family tradition – my father was a consultant with Stevenson & Kellogg (later KPMG International) for 30 years and I grew up surrounded by consultants. I think that it is really useful for academics to get out of the Ivory Tower and live in the “real world” for a while, and working with Insignia has certainly done that.