BOOK GROUP: ‘A Travel Guide to Connection’ by Jonathan Newman
02 Dec @ 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm
This Book Group will be run by the book’s author – and ICG member! – Dr Jonathan Newman.
You don’t have to have read the book but we encourage you to do so.
A relaxed 45-minute session designed to spark your thinking and join in discussions.
A Travel Guide to Connection is an introduction to conducting ethnography and a way to see your own life with new perspectives.
It shows routes and strategies to explore what it means to be a relational human being in a profoundly interconnected world.
Chapters consider: who we are as we meet and live among others; how bodies and senses inform our understanding of ourselves and each other; how we live together with other species and technologies or objects; and how we form relationships with time, space and transcendent experiences. It also asks readers to explore the ethical dimensions of their research journeys and the value of looking into the discomforts of their own position.
The book serves as a methodological toolkit, an unorthodox introduction to anthropology, stimuli for creatives and a hammer to break you out of your bubble.
Dr. Jonathan Newman is a social anthropologist, researcher, author and podcaster dedicated to uncovering the hidden human layers of our world. As the Director of Deep Research, he has spent years helping companies – including Amazon, TikTok, YouTube, Uber, and Adobe – connect to human lives and needs.
Jonathan’s research is as diverse as it is profound, taking him into the cultural trenches of everything from global coffee and the cannabis industry to the inner workings of education and the international arms trade.
His insights are across academic journals, trade publications and international media, and he is a speaker at global conferences, industry trade shows and festivals.
Whether navigating a corporate culture or a remote community, Jonathan lives by the core philosophy of his latest book: to let go of preconceptions, embrace the unknown with continuous empathetic curiosity and allow deep listening and kindness to lead the way.
“Newman’s brilliant book is a fun, engaging invitation to see the world afresh. With clarity and wit, it shows how an anthropological sensibility – meeting difference with curiosity rather than judgment – is exactly what we need in a time of disconnection and division.
“This exceptional book fundamentally shifts how we experience the ordinary.
It takes us on a journey of connection with what we thought we knew. This changes everything. Few books so powerfully transform how we perceive the world around us. It is a must read.”
‘This book is brilliant: humorous, thought-provoking, sensitive and surprising. It makes you think differently and challenges prejudices you may not even have realised you held. It invites you to imagine how the dragonfly perceives the world, the messages a chair sends out and what it must be like to exist using only a sense of smell. Once read it will never leave you and you will see the world differently” Katherine Richards, Designer
The Book | Jonathan Newman – A Travel Guide to Connection