Ethnographer diasporas and emergent communities of practice: the place for a 21st century ethics in business ethnography today

A diaspora of practice appears to have formed over the last 20 years across institutions employing ethnographers.  Ethnographers in industry, we learn through a series of guided conversations, reveal a sense of a practice poised to return to its too often occluded foundations as an ethical endeavor.  The adaptive nature of our diasporic communities of practice is the ideal locus for developing communication modes and ethical dispositions that by returning us to our earliest roots allow us to respond to our new times of crisis, the downsizing of corporations, and the shrinking budgets for our work.  In the same breath we find opportunities to open conversations with employers and clients about the place of products and consumption in a world in which BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) nations and Bottom of Pyramid economies stand to gain significant influence over the shape of business to come.