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Extraordinary as it may seem, the big green push button to operate copiers and printers was designed by an anthropologist studying human-machine interactions.

UWA anthropologists preparing for what could be the biggest gathering of anthropological practitioners in the southern hemisphere are happy to point out how important their discipline is, in all walks of life.

Dr Greg Acciaioli said that technology companies including Intel and IBM employed anthropologists. "Unless you see how people are reacting to machines, all the technological development in the world will be for nought," he said. "When photocopiers were new technology, the engineers who built them found that people didn't know how to turn them on. It took an anthropologist to come up with the internationally recognised green button."

Dr Acciaioli is organising the conference Knowledge and Value in a Globalising World: Disentangling Dichotomies, Querying Unities along with Associate Professor Katie Glaskin, Dr Catie Gressier, Dr Rita Armstrong, and Cassamarca Professor Nick Harney.

Professor Harney pointed out that the story of the global financial crisis, from the perspective of the bankers involved, was told by an anthropologist, The Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett in her book Fool's Gold.

Anthropologists work with lawyers, economists, engineers and practitioners from many other disciplines. UWA has had joint honours students in Anthropology and Engineering, and currently Dr Armstrong is working with Professor Caroline Baillie to teach the new unit Engineering and Social Justice. "We are getting more requests now from environmental engineers, asking for anthropologists to work with them on the social impacts of engineering," Dr Acciaioli said.

"Carbon trading is another good example of where anthropologists are needed. What's going to happen at the local level? How is the money from the scheme going to affect local people? How are these local people working with NGOs and donor organisations to protect the forests? Without looking at how actions at the local level adjust to and affect global forces, it's just not going to work. And that's what we as anthropologists do."

Dr Acciaioli said Australian anthropology grew mainly out of British traditions of social anthropology and he hoped more international connections made through the conference in July would expand the discipline's Australian horizons.

"Different countries have different approaches," he said. "Ours has focused on fine-grained ethnographic data. We emphasise the nitty gritty form of anthropology, where you have to get past the formality of language and structure to understand people and how they operate in the interstices between the formal and legal frameworks of their society.

Professor Harney said he expected the conference would be "spectacularly enriching" because of its international scope. UWA will host this joint conference of the Australian Anthropological Society, the Association of Social Anthropologist of Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Science, whose membership spans the globe.

Participants are coming from 18 different countries, with keynote and plenary speakers from Australia, Brazil, India, New Zealand, and the USA.

Up to 700 people are expected to attend the conference from 5 to 8 July. More information is at www.sscs.arts.uwa.edu.au/ home/anthrop-soc

A delegation of 20 anthropologists from China will be attending to observe. More than 500 abstracts have been received and 60 panels accepted.

The Perth Convention Bureau is contributing $20,000 and the Vice-Chancellor has matched that and added in-kind support. The Wenner Gren Foundation is helping scholars from developing countries to attend, and an application to AusAID has been sent to fund a further 27 scholars.

Published in UWA News , 2 May 2011