Designs and Anthropologies

Designs and Anthropologies
Author: Keith M. Murphy
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2021-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0826362796

The chapters in this captivating volume demonstrate the importance and power of design and the ubiquitous and forceful effects it has on human life within the study of anthropology. The scholars explore the interactions between anthropology and design through a cross-disciplinary approach, and while their approaches vary in how they specifically consider design, they are all centered around the design-and-anthropology relationship. The chapters look at anthropology for design, in which anthropological methods and concepts are mobilized in the design process; anthropology of design, in which design is positioned as an object of ethnographic inquiry and critique; and design for anthropology, in which anthropologists borrow concepts and practices from design to enhance traditional ethnographic forms. Collectively, the chapters argue that bringing design and anthropology together can transform both fields in more than one way and that to tease out the implications of using design to reimagine ethnography—and of using ethnography to reimagine design—we need to consider the historical specificity of their entanglements.

Design Anthropology

Design Anthropology
Author: Wendy Gunn
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2013-10-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0857853694

Design Anthropology provides the definitive introduction to the field of design anthropology and the concepts, methods, practices and challenges of this exciting and emerging area of study

Design + Anthropology

Design + Anthropology
Author: Christine Miller
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351590456

This book explores the evolution of two disciplines, design and anthropology, and their convergence within commercial and organizational arenas. Focusing on the transdisciplinary field of design anthropology, the chapters cover the global forces and conditions that facilitated its emergence, the people that have contributed to its development and those who are likely to shape its future. Christine Miller touches on the invention and diffusion of new practices, the recontextualization of ethnographic inquiry within design and innovations in applications of anthropological theory and methodology. She considers how encounters between anthropology and ‘designerly’ practice have impacted the evolution of both disciplines. The book provides students, scholars and practitioners with valuable insight into the movement to formalize the nascent field of design anthropology and how the relationship between the two fields might develop in the future given the dynamic global forces that continue to impact them both.

Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary

Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary
Author: Paul Rabinow
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2008-11-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 082239006X

In this compact volume two of anthropology’s most influential theorists, Paul Rabinow and George E. Marcus, engage in a series of conversations about the past, present, and future of anthropological knowledge, pedagogy, and practice. James D. Faubion joins in several exchanges to facilitate and elaborate the dialogue, and Tobias Rees moderates the discussions and contributes an introduction and an afterword to the volume. Most of the conversations are focused on contemporary challenges to how anthropology understands its subject and how ethnographic research projects are designed and carried out. Rabinow and Marcus reflect on what remains distinctly anthropological about the study of contemporary events and processes, and they contemplate productive new directions for the field. The two converge in Marcus’s emphasis on the need to redesign pedagogical practices for training anthropological researchers and in Rabinow’s proposal of collaborative initiatives in which ethnographic research designs could be analyzed, experimented with, and transformed. Both Rabinow and Marcus participated in the milestone collection Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Published in 1986, Writing Culture catalyzed a reassessment of how ethnographers encountered, studied, and wrote about their subjects. In the opening conversations of Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary, Rabinow and Marcus take stock of anthropology’s recent past by discussing the intellectual scene in which Writing Culture intervened, the book’s contributions, and its conceptual limitations. Considering how the field has developed since the publication of that volume, they address topics including ethnography’s self-reflexive turn, scholars’ increased focus on questions of identity, the Public Culture project, science and technology studies, and the changing interests and goals of students. Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary allows readers to eavesdrop on lively conversations between anthropologists who have helped to shape their field’s recent past and are deeply invested in its future.

Design Anthropology

Design Anthropology
Author: Alison J. Clarke
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2017-11-16
Genre: Design
ISBN: 1474259065

Design Anthropology brings together leading international design theorists, consultants and anthropologists to explore the changing object culture of the 21st century. Decades ago, product designers used basic market research to fine-tune their designs for consumer success. Today the design process has been radically transformed, with the user center-stage in the design process. From design ethnography to culture probing, innovative designers are employing anthropological methods to elicit the meanings rather than the mere form and function of objects. This important volume provides a fascinating exploration of the issues facing the shapers of our increasingly complex material world. The text features case studies and investigations covering a diverse range of academic disciplines. From IKEA and anti-design to erotic twenty-first-century needlework and online interior decoration, the book positions itself at the intersections of design, anthropology, material culture, architecture, and sociology.

Design Anthropology in Context

Design Anthropology in Context
Author: Adam Drazin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2020-12-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317422023

This book explores the broad territory of design anthropology, covering key approaches, ways of working and areas of debate and tension. It understands design as fundamentally human centred and argues for a design anthropology based primarily on collaboration and communication. Adam Drazin suggests the most important collaborative knowledges which design anthropology develops are heuristic, emerging as engagements between fieldwork sites and design studios. The chapters draw on material culture literature and include a wide range of examples of different projects and outputs. Highlighting the importance of design as a topic in the study of contemporary culture, this is valuable reading for students and scholars of anthropology and design as well as practitioners.

Digital Materialities

Digital Materialities
Author: Sarah Pink
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2016-02-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 147259259X

As the distinction between the digital and the material world becomes increasingly blurred, the ways in which we think about design are also shifting and evolving. How can the human, digital and material be brought together to intervene in the world? What constitutes our digital-material environments? How can we engage with digital technologies to make sustainable, healthy and meaningful decisions, both now and in the future? Digital Materialities presents twelve chapters by scholars and practitioners working at the intersection between design and digital research in the UK, Spain, Australia and the USA. By incorporating in-depth understandings of the digital-material world from both the social sciences and design, the book considers how this combined knowledge might advance our capacity to design for the future. Divided into three parts, the focus of the book moves from the theoretical to the practical: how different digital materialities are imagined and emerge, through software emulation, urban sensors and smart homes; how new digital designs are sparked through collaborations between social scientists and designers; and finally, how digital design emerges from the insider work of everyday designers. A fascinating, ground-breaking book for students and scholars of digital anthropology, media and communication, and anyone interested in the future of digital design.

Uncertainty and Possibility

Uncertainty and Possibility
Author: Yoko Akama
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2020-06-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000184293

Uncertainty and possibility are emerging as both theoretical concepts and fields of empirical investigation, as scholars and practitioners seek new creative, hopeful and speculative modes of understanding and intervening in a world of crisis.This book offers new perspectives on the central issues of uncertainty and possibility, and identifies new research methods which take advantage of disruptive and experimental techniques. Advancing a practical agenda for future making, it reveals how uncertainty can be engaged as a generative ‘technology’ for understanding, researching and intervening in the world. Drawing on key themes in creative methodologies, such as making, essaying, inhabiting and attuning, chapters explore contemporary sites of practice. The book looks at maker spaces and technology design, the imaginaries of architectural design, the temporalities of built cultural heritage, and interdisciplinary making and performing. Based on the authors' own academic work and their applied research with a range of different organizations, Uncertainty and Possibility outlines new opportunities for research and intervention. It is essential reading for students, scholars and practitioners in design anthropology and human-centred design.

Design Innovations for Contemporary Interiors and Civic Art

Design Innovations for Contemporary Interiors and Civic Art
Author: Crespi, Luciano
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 455
Release: 2016-09-08
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1522506675

In some post-industrial areas, re-designing structural interiors in an attractive way is becoming increasingly important to community members, as it helps promote local pride and a higher quality of life. Design Innovations for Contemporary Interiors and Civic Art examines novel techniques in structural designs in various cultural and social scenarios. Featuring innovative application methods, emergent trends, and research on tools being utilized in the field, this publication is a pivotal reference source for designers, researchers, practitioners, and professionals interested in interior design, urban culture, and structural aesthetics.

Design Anthropological Futures

Design Anthropological Futures
Author: Rachel Charlotte Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2020-05-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000180530

A major contribution to the field, this ground-breaking book explores design anthropology’s focus on futures and future-making. Examining what design anthropology is and what it is becoming, the authors push the frontiers of the discipline and reveal both the challenges for and the potential of this rapidly growing transdisciplinary field.Divided into four sections – Ethnographies of the Possible, Interventionist Speculation, Collaborative Formation of Issues, and Engaging Things – the book develops readers’ understanding of the central theoretical and methodological aspects of future knowledge production in design anthropology. Bringing together renowned scholars such as George Marcus and Alison Clarke with young experimental design anthropologists from countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Brazil, the UK, and the United States, the sixteen chapters offer an unparalleled breadth of theoretical reflections and rich empirical case studies.Written by those at the forefront of the field, Design Anthropological Futures is destined to become a defining text for this growing discipline. A unique resource for students, scholars, and practitioners in design anthropology, design, architecture, material culture studies, and related fields.