design anthropology

Talks

Design Anthropology and Design Culture: In Pursuit of a Well-Thought World

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Learn about new concepts and practices in the evolving intersections of ethnography and design. An EPIC Talk with , University College London Overview This talk explores the role of ethnographers when collaborating with designers, and especially about how material culture can play a part in this collaboration. There is no longer a clear distinction between…

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Intelligences

Physicalizations of Big Data in Ethnographic Context

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JACOB BUUR Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark SARA SAID MOSLEH Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark CHRISTINA FYHN NIELSEN Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark With the Big Data hype, making digital data accessible and relatable for non-data experts is becoming an increasing challenge. In this paper we suggest Data Physicalization as a novel approach to facilitate conversations with collaborators about the meaning of data. While this challenge has been approached with data visualizations before, we propose that Data Physicalizations can bring stronger engagement and even more depth to the data than visualizations can offer. Based on four design examples, we investigate how data, when made physical, can be used to instigate valuable reflections between field researchers and non-data experts, and can serve as a platform for design. In all cases we worked with Data Physicalization to enhance our own understanding of the field, to engage collaborators in sense-making, and to...

Perspectives

Design as a Cultural System

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by KEITH M. MURPHY, University of California Irvine I don’t think I’m supposed to admit this, at least not publicly, but it’s true: talking about design drives me to drink. Not literally of course (I’m a teetotaler!), but metaphorically. Why? Because design itself isn’t really a single term, but a collection of homonyms, each of which bears some semantic resemblance to the others, but all of which cover rather different terrain. When we talk about design, we tend to assume we’re all really talking about The Same Thing, even if we’re not, and this contributes to a fair amount of cross-talk when we collectively think hard about design and its possibilities. I care about this because I wandered to design from other places, and when I landed there, the situation was confusing to me. Design was about things to some people, and practices to others. Or forms and aesthetics. Or systems engineering. Or capitalism. Or collaboration and creativity. Or “what it means to be human.” And so on. All of these perspectives make...