Beginning in 1991, cultural anthropologist Jan English-Lueck studied the broad, diverse culture and life in the high technological region – the Silicon Valley.
“There’s something special happening here, but we need to know what it is culturally,” said English-Lueck.
Now as an anthropology professor, English-Lueck has started work on the Silicon Valley Cultures Project with now-retired professors Jim Freeman and Chuck Darrah at San Jose State.
Recently she was honored with a San Jose State Faculty Award as the President’s Scholar of 2018-19.
“At the time [1991], no one was interested in looking at Silicon Valley as sort of a unique cultural phenomena, and so it was quite intriguing,” English-Lueck said.
The project has been continuously developed for nearly three decades. English-Lueck said that the project is not just one study, rather a series of studies completed by a collaborative effort.
“We’re seeing how people live, trying to document how people live and understand the larger cultural principles behind it. Silicon Valley is deeply multicultural, that is beyond the obvious,” said English-Lueck.
She was able to publish four books, two of which involved research findings in the Silicon Valley. The first book is titled “Cultures@SiliconValley.” The second edition of the book followed shortly after and has the same title.
“Here it runs a little differently because everyone works together, there’s no need to separate into different communities,” said English-Lueck.
She and her students are now doing research and working on another book. The upcoming work will entail studying the development of the particular cultural values in Silicon Valley.
“People have to learn how to be culturally agile and that’s a really interesting social experiment,” she said.
English-Lueck said they discovered that 40 percent of the population in Silicon Valley is foreign-born, which makes it a very ethnically diverse place.
Andrew Marley, a second-year student in the master’s of applied anthropology program, is the research assistant for the Silicon Valley Cultures Project.
“I came out here to understand why Silicon Valley works and what contributed to the specialty about Silicon Valley that may or may not even be real, but they are at least real in the perception of the wider business world outside of this area,” Marley said.
The team received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
English-Lueck also spent 1,400 hours observing a family and their everyday life at work, home and school.
Along with curiosity, her passion includes taking students on the journey with her.
“I think part of my excitement is listening to my students experiences, especially when they’re doing their research on Silicon Valley, things I never would’ve thought of. I get to play with really bright people,” she said.
Jasmine Low, a student in the master’s applied anthropology program, joined the project because of her interest in learning about the topic and the mentorship with English-Lueck.
“She’s been doing this for decades and it’s an interesting opportunity to learn how she approaches research, not just by how we learn about research in our textbooks,” said Low.
A variety of partners joined the Silicon Valley Cultures Project, including the Santa Clara County Office of Education and CommUniverCity San Jose, an SJSU-based nonprofit organization which partners with the city of San Jose.
Along the way, English-Lueck became affiliated with the Palo Alto-based organization, Institute for the Future.
The organization does forecasting work and features ideas about what happens next in society, especially with the impact in today’s technology.
English-Lueck and her students have also done different projects with many other organizations, including a Google food lab.
“I had a group of students that worked with me with the Google food lab, in the anthropology of food. It’s kind of like a think tank to think about the future of food and how you develop sustainable agriculture and bring it into communities,” said English-Lueck.
She believes there is always something to learn and she will continue to work with students and help them make connections that could possibly land them a job.
“I may stop studying Silicon Valley, but I don’t have any intention on stopping anthropology in my life. I will continue to do that as long as I can,” said English-Lueck.
