Design Anthropological Futures
Last week diverse communities and stakeholders of anthropology and design gathered to explore the emerging field of design anthropology. At first sight the disciplines of design and anthropology might seem an odd pair, with its different perspectives on temporality, society, poetics and politics, but as proved at the Design Anthropological Futures conference, the pairing of these makes possible a third space. According to the conference the design anthropological third space is all about future-making; the creation of visions and practices of the possible through transformative processes of anthropology and design. With a starting point in previous seminars hosted by the Research Network for Design Anthropology (2013-2015), the conference addressed future concerns in design anthropology through four thematic discussions:
Ethnographies of the Possible
Interventionist Speculations
Collaborative Formations of Issues
From a design perspective, I was eager to see what hide beneath these poetic titles. Where does it leave us when combining design with anthropology? Is design anthropology an increasing focus on fieldwork and user needs, an extension of the already popular user-centred design tradition? Or might we when combining design and anthropology as designers be able to reflect and tap into the complexities anthropologists highlight out there? Whereas the first suggest, that we move anthropology into the design process, the last suggest a larger focus on the potential of the designer in the field. For me, the most interesting question is what role the designer has in a societal, even political context?
Already at the opening keynote, I was about to find out, that design history offered answers to my speculations. The anthropological turn, which I knew was dominant in the 70’s move from a technocratic to a user-centred HCI model, proved to be just as dominant in the contemporary Scandinavian design scene. With the keynote title “The new Ethnographers: Design Activism 1968-1974” design historian Alison Clarke revisited the design history’s relations between design and anthropology, highlighting the Italian Avant-gardist and Russian Constructivist as historian role models of what we today term design anthropology. Also Victor Papanek, the writer of “Design for the real world; human ecology and social change” (1972), has been one of the early adopters of a design anthropological method. Already in the 70’s he emphasised the power of design and it’s social and political responsibility; a design philosophy he put into practice by abandoning the formal structure in design school, and moving to a non-hierarchical, interdisciplinary one, where co-design political aspects of design were valued over style and function. An example of this is Papanak’s project “Batta-Koya”, where he co-designed customized cassette players with African countries to raise discussion and critique of neo-colonial conditions. By pointing to the archive, Alison Clarke wished to raise awareness of the historical foundation design anthropology is build on, and to the materialism and methodology that design history can provide design research.
As the conference progressed it became clearer how much design anthropology today have in common with the utopian visions of the 70’s design activism, but also how much has changed in today’s highly interconnected world. Let us try to pinpoint some of the speculations, frustrations, and arguments from the four discussions.
Ethnographies of the Possible
“Ethnographies of the Possible” is about imagining, discovering, and conquering possible futures. The temporal orientation towards futures is a political act, where the temporal form overshadows the material and spatial form. It’s a move beyond the object, what allows us to think the possible: How could things be different? As Ramia Mazé presented her speculations on the politics of “futurity”, she asked us to remember questioning, “Whose future do I imagine?”. For her, critical and political futures is about allowing indeterminate and risky futures, where we leave the future open, rather than planning it, in order to leave spaces for different voices. As such, ethnographies of the possible is about designing for differences, and navigating a broad and inclusive version of the possible future.
“Designers engage with a narrow version of the future!” – Mike Anusas
But actually doing this, and not just theorizing it, is rather fuzzy. One dominant example of “doing it” is Rachel Smith’s design anthropological work with “digital natives”, which she based on anthropology and participatory design methods. Combining these seems to be the prevailing method as explained under the headlines: Scaffolding (staging situations for narratives to expand), Co-creation (the process of developing cultural stuff), and Prototyping (as tool for engaging with the possible future).
Interventionist Speculation
Methodology was further discussed under the terms Open-Ended Experiments, Co-Interventions, and Activism, in the next session, which Carl DiSalvo, the author of Adversarial Design (2012), chaired. The session tried to make it clearer how we materialize our speculations in the world, and which kinds of speculative interventions we are talking about under the broad term ‘design anthropology’.
“It’s not out imaginations that’s the problem – it’s our actions” – Alex Galloway
The keywords for the session became “knowledge production” and “responsibility”. When we do speculative interventions, when whom are we designing for? And whom do we produce knowledge for? As design interventions are not necessarily done to improve the design, then what value and knowledge do we gain? Under the term “speculative privilege” Anne Galloway presented her project about an Internet of Sheeps. As part of her design research she used sheep to question the phenomenon Internet of Things, but she found that she had difficulties communicating the project, since people misunderstood the aim and value of it. As privileged designers, she proposed we have a responsibility to make our research valuable, but if not in a design context then where? Several projects, including Lana Z Porter’s algorithmic paradises, Carl DiSalvo’s drones, and my internet-connected menstruation cup, all suggest there is a responsibility of questioning and exploring the algorithmic futures. By speculating on future uses of digital technology, the projects do not suggest better and faster gadgets, but rather explore what design is outside the field which gave birth to it, namely industry. So to answer the question “Who do we produce knowledge for?” I suggest, that we produce knowledge for the anthropological context we intervene. In my situation, that is myself as a design researcher, the industry, other designers, menstruating women, pre-teen girls, nurses and the health sector, and schoolteachers. Do I then act responsible as a (speculative) design researcher? If you, as I just tried, elaborate and reflect on your praxis of speculative interventions, I would say yes. But as we still try to find terms for this praxis we keep on struggling with the aim and outcome, and for this discipline really to settle, we need to engage more with the methodology of more speculative approaches to design anthropology.
Collaborative Formations of Issues
One of the main aspects of design anthropology is the collaborative formation of issues. Whereas there is a collaborative nature to anthropology, design is only a collaborative activity in certain fields, such as participatory design and co-design. Collaboration is important, as it not only points to the social values of design, but also the sited and contextual aspects in which issues are found. Third session, chaired by Adam Drazin, questioned the “status” of issues in design anthropology. As collaboration is settled and concepts are developed, you might wonder “what was the issue?”. But instead of seeing issues and outcomes as discrete, as industry often does, we should embrace problem solving as a framing and re-framing process as Donald Schön once proposed. As in “the story in a story”, a design anthropological process is not linear. Rather it is an iterative process, where we take on different perspectives and taps into possible alternatives in the large, complex societal story. In this way, design issues are always sited and contextual, since the naming, framing and re-framing of the world always have a perspective, which is contextualized in the unique situation.
Design Anthropological Futures
Where does it leave us as a discipline? As the great George E. Marcus started the closing keynote, it became evident that he did not plan to answer that question. Instead of highlighting important values for the future of design anthropology, he defamiliarised the field and left it open for re-interpretation. But what we as a field concluded was among other things that design anthropology…
allows us to ask “better” questions
creates more attentive design and productive anthropology
creates a tension between otherness and the ordinary
uses “the future mundane” as a tactic - should be seen as social dreaming rather than a way of “knowing”
fosters a sensitivity for the cultural context
uses interventions as a way to rethink what ethnographic fieldwork can be
uses design interventions to experience new things and produce new knowledge
