Full Circle Associates

Dan Bruner, Doxus, LLC
Social relationships in the modern tribe: product selection as symbolic markers

Manufacturer of work clothes wanted to know how workers use and experience its products
Different work crews used different social practices with their products
Objectives: Better understand workers activities and activity level
Layering, modifications, unmet needs, to personify the users and workers and inform new product design.
A dozen occupations, on construction sites and ranches, four regions with different environments over four seasons. Returned to work sites when we could. This allowed for consistency and follow up with questions. And a rapport building that went beyond ethnographer to family. 141 encounters.
Expectations –
- Choice on clothing dependent on job requirements
- - Forman or company dictate or individual choice
- Had to understand group patterns of work crews and social relations. Sociality trumped function, hierarchy and individuality

Findings
- Social practices and social relationships drove product selection
- Selection less about quality and more about practices as symbolic markers of group identity
- Work wear was a marker of group identity
- Group was not cohesive on all issues, clothing was not entirely standardized, but different choices might get hazed
- Two crews – one crew chose Levis. They fit better. They weren’t tight, cost less, work better. The crotch won’t blow out.
- The crew that chose Wrangler said similar benefits. The zipper lasted longer
- Large construction site with multiple crews. Rod busters tying rebar with wire. All same work. Boots, jeans, t-shirt, work gloves, hardhat, tool belts. One pulled his gloves off, hole cut on them, hung on his pliers on his tool built. He modified all of his gloves so he could hang them. He had learned from an experienced guy 5 years ago and he taught it to his crew. 6 of 8 adopted.
- One crew wore red-hooded sweatshirts. All others gray or blue. Symbolic, not functional identity
- Clothes as tools on the job. Like power drill or sawzall. Buying a high quality tool is a symbol of knowing what you are doing. Craftsmanship and occupational identity, legitimacy were reflected in the tool they purchased. More than just something to wear. Took on a symbolic overload. A mark of identity of experience, competent and member of a certain tribe or crew.
- Purchase process is left to others, typically a wife, mom or girlfriend. They knew what the men wanted . They articulated brand, model, and size. So they replaced. We learned by watching this happen.
- Suggested new lines of ethnographic inquiry from individual, to persona, to sociality.
- Some members set the tone of the group – influencers. Could market to them.
- Because sociality was recognized towards the end, left with unanswered questions. Wanted to know more about influencers and social processes
- Social pressure to conform to tribal practice and a permitted expression of creativity, heterogeneity and individuality.

I’m Dan Bruner, I’m a practicing ethnographer and yes, my mother knows what I do. (laughter from the audience)

Categories: EPIC2005