In connection with the Institute's study of technical women in Silicon Valley, we are pleased to welcome Jan English-Lueck to discuss the interface of family life and corporate culture in the Silicon Valley setting.
In the nineteenth century, company workers' community lives were recrafted to fit the needs of the industry, be it mining or logging. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Silicon Valley cultures demonstrate that the influence of high technology industry is more subtle, but nonetheless workers must refashion their lives in order to be productive and competitive. Families are reorganized to make the members of the household more productive. The very way people approach health, think of themselves, and engage with each other is consistently tinged with the need to engineer and perform.
Professor English-Lueck has been working in anthropology for two decades, first with alternative health practitioners, then Chinese intellectuals. In 1991, she co-founded the Silicon Valley Cultures Project. Her book Cultures@SiliconValley, explores the impact of high tech work on the community. She is Chair and Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University.