Consulting Podcasters: Prototyping a Democratic Tool for Multiple Voices, Storytelling and Solution Finding

Thanks to the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) for having Adam Gamwell and Matt Artz of This Anthro Life present at the annual meeting in Philadelphia. We presented as part of the New Methods, Interventions And Approaches session.

Our paper title was Consulting Podcasters: Prototyping a Democratic Tool for Multiple Voices, Storytelling and Solution Finding. You can read it here. 

The session was recorded for the SfAA Podcasting project.

The simple idea behind the notion of consulting podcasting is that we  are using the podcast format to intentionally bring together  professionals to co-create meaningful conversations that provides expert  advice through the anthropological paradigm of the emic and etic.  Consulting podcasting applies the flexible, digital recording techniques  of podcasting with a process of in-the-moment of real-time discovery.  To that end we askew rigid preconfigured narratives or storyboards in  favor of an open-format conversation that mimic the methods of  semi-structured interviews. We allow room for the conversation to  breathe.

With openness we let guest stories speak and allow them to unfold  along their own path, on their own terms, without imposing our own  worldviews or narratives. In the process, we learn of a speaker’s  insider perspective, their motivations, and methods. We then compliment  the insider perspective with our outsider perspectives – as voices that  encourage deeper reflection and context building around issues of key  importance to the guest, to co-create a larger meta-narrative that makes  up the consultative engagement.

Check out Adam's and Matt's Creative Consulting and Production work at Missing Link Studios