Brigitte Jordan

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Brigitte Jordan (* 1937 in Passau ; † May 24, 2016 in La Honda , California ) was a German -American anthropologist and university professor.

Life

Jordan was born in Passau in 1937 and moved to the USA after marrying the American soldier Richard Jordan stationed in Germany. They had three children, divorced, and she married Robert Irwin. When she decided to study, she picked up a university course catalog and, starting with the A, came across anthropology. She studied at Sacramento State College , where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees, and received her PhD from the University of California at Irvine . She worked intensively on developments in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, the emerging thinking in cognition (now known as situated and distributed cognition) and learning theory.

For a period of 13 years she visited the Yucatan Islands regularly and lived in Michigan , where she worked as a professor at Michigan State University . She did research in the fields of obstetric anthropology and intercultural childbirth practice. Prior to opening her own consulting practice, she was a Principal Scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Research on Learning .

In numerous research and intervention projects in the USA, Europe, Latin America and Africa, she adapted ethnographic methods to the requirements of complex, technology-intensive companies. Her research and consulting projects dealt with "Workscapes and Lifescapes of the Future", which thematized the influence of the new communication and information technologies on work and leisure as well as the extensive changes in the "ways of life" of social institutions and the global economy. She is the author of more than 100 scientific and technical publications.

Awards

  • 1980: Margaret Mead Award for her 1978 book: Birth in Four Cultures: A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden and the United States
  • 2015: Admission to the Distinguished Member Program of the American Anthropological Association (AAA)
  • Excellence in Science and Technology Award from Xerox Corporation

Works (selection)

  • Advancing Ethnography in Corporate Environments , 2012, ISBN 978-1611322200
  • Birth in four Cultures. A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatàn, Holland, Sweden and the US , 1978, ISBN 978-0920792278

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jordan, Brigitte
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American anthropologist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Passau
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 2016
Place of death La Honda , California