Intelligence as Situated, Ethical, and Attentive: Ethnographic Refusal as a Perennial Frontier

Abstract Across industries, intelligence is defined narrowly as algorithmic prediction, optimization, and control. Through a strategic design research project for a multinational company, this paper redefines intelligences to include the relational, embodied intelligence cultivated by sales agents through years of practice. Drawing on Actor‐Network Theory and Tim Ingold's concept of meshwork, the analysis reveals how predictive systems operationalize intelligence as categorical and closed, while human actors navigate contexts that are relational and open‐ended. The paper positions ethnography as a practice of ethical and political refusal—one that resists flattening lived complexity into totalizing logics. It argues that redefining intelligence matters not only operationally but ethically and politically, as AI increasingly shapes organizational governance and social life. The paper concludes with practical takeaways for practitioners working at the perennial frontiers where competing regimes of intelligence meet.