Government pays anthropologist to study passengers and staff
25.01.10
An anthropologist is begin paid £30,000 (or £40,000, depending on which paper you read!) of public money to spend up to 18 hours a day at Manchester Airport for a next year observing passengers and workers. University lecturer Dr Damian O'Doherty will focus the ‘kinetic elite’ who pass through the airport, which he described as those who are ‘always on the go, fixing business deals on their laptops, at the same time talking on their iPhone and perhaps posting a Twitter to friends and family’. The project is being funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and has been criticised by a campaign group..
The aim of the research is to understand how airports affect people with a view to making their environment a better place to live and work. Dr O'Doherty, a lecturer at Manchester Business School (part of Manchester University), said: ‘I've been researching airports for 5 years. I thought this would be the opportunity to experience airport life for myself. It is very unusual for an anthropologist to do this, but this place is a vibrant hotbed of change and fascinates me.'
'People have their own languages, customs, dress codes and conduct – they behave in particular ways and that’s what catches anthropologists. People associate the airport with going on holiday but when you’ve been there more than a week the glamour fades away. There’s much more than the travel aspect.’
However, lobby group the TaxPayers' Alliance has deemed the project ‘a complete waste of money’. Matthew Elliott, its chief executive, said: ‘This shows how out of touch the Government is with the views of taxpayers. If the department wanted to find out how people interact in an airport, all they had to do was to rent the Tom Hanks' film The Terminal.’
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