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Pre-pandemic, I attended an industry learning event where a next gen panellist, clad head-to-toe in red leather and snakeskin, described his offshore cryptocurrency start-up. Another panellist, the head of a single family office, commented in an Old Etonian brogue, sans sarcasm, that this next gen represented 'his worst nightmare.'
Family business is rife with such archetypes, which is part of the reason the topic is so richly mined in literature, TV, film, and theatre. But archetypes lend themselves to caricature, flattening out the complexity of individual lives and relationships. Where does this leave the people who inhabit these life-worlds?
The gaze of this website toward the subject of ownership and specifically family ownership is anthropological.
The primary imperative of anthropological research, per the American Anthropological Association's Code of Conduct is to "do no harm" -- usually, this means towards one's interlocutors, as a corrective to anthropology's history aiding and abetting colonialism and other forms of violence.
Here's where large family businesses become interesting as a subject of anthropological inquiry: they are usually quite wealthy and quite powerful; i.e., if they don't comprise governments then they are often quite close to governments. The classic problematic power dynamic in anthropology is inverted and the anthropologist is arguably the vulnerable party.
While 'doing harm' against a powerful and wealthy actor might not be too likely, what remains critical is an ethic of care -- both toward the individuals who give gifts of their trust, time, and thoughtfulness in their conversations with an anthropologist, as well as toward the world in which I too live, a world in desperate need of care, diminished, on fire, and rendered precarious changing climate, inequality, Covid, and racism.
I hope writings on this website reflect this ethic of care...as well as humility, levity, and joy. Even as the ultimate beneficial owner of the website is choosing to remain anonymous. Thanks for stopping by.
(Video credit: Netflix's 'Dynasty' reboot)