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Article
Prototyping Self in Silicon Valley, Deep Diversity as a Framework for Anthropological Inquiry
Anthropological Theory (2011)
  • Jan English-Lueck, San Jose State University
Abstract
High-technology work fuels a dynamic global exchange from technopoles throughout the world, but especially between East and South Asia and the northern Californian region of Silicon Valley. This migration drives an expanded number of ancestral identities. Professional and activity-based identities flourish as Silicon Valley’s strong narrative of meritocracy loosens the grip of birth ascription on the creation of identities. These achieved identities proliferate as people experiment on their own sense of self. Traditional conceptual tools related to immigration, and even such contemporary approaches as Appadurai’s ethnoscapes, do not adequately illuminate the ethnographic data on Silicon Valley workers, families, and especially youth. The concept of deep diversity, first posed by philosopher Charles Taylor and reified by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, reinterprets the interactions of traditional ethnic identity categories, providing a powerful framework with which to think.
Disciplines
Publication Date
March, 2011
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2011 SAGE Publications. The published version of the article may be found online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1463499610397115.
Citation Information
Jan English-Lueck. "Prototyping Self in Silicon Valley, Deep Diversity as a Framework for Anthropological Inquiry" Anthropological Theory Vol. 11 Iss. 1 (2011)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jan_english-lueck/10/