Gunn Wendy, Donovan Jared (eds.) Design and Anthropology

Burlington: Ashgate, 2012. — 285 p.Design and Anthropology challenges conventional thinking regarding the nature of design and creativity, in a way that acknowledges the improvisatory skills and perceptual acuity of people. Combining theoretical investigations and documentation of practice based experiments, it addresses methodological questions concerning the re-conceptualisation of the relation between design and use from both theoretical and practice-based positions. Concerned with what it means to draw 'users' into processes of designing and producing this book emphasises the creativity of design and the emergence of objects in social situations and collaborative endeavours. Organised around the themes of perception and the user-producer, skilled practices of designing and using, and the relation between people and things, the book contains the latest work of researchers from academia and industry, to enhance our understanding of ethnographic practice and develop a research agenda for the emergent field of design anthropology. Drawing together work from anthropologists, philosophers, designers, engineers, scholars of innovation and theatre practitioners, Design and Anthropology will appeal to anthropologists and to those working in the fields of design and innovation, and the philosophy of technology and engineering.Design Anthropology: An Introduction
Using and Producing
Introduction: The Perception of the User-Producer
The Patient as Skilled Practitioner
Hearing Poorly with Skill
Gliding Effortlessly Through Life? Surfaces and Friction
An Institutional View on User Improvisation and DesignDesigning and Using
Introduction: Defining Moments
The Time It Takes to Make: Design and Use in Architecture and Archaeology
Moving from Objects to Possibilities
Emergence of User Identity in Social Interaction
The Role of Supply Chains in Product DesignPeople and Things
Introduction: Humanity in Design
Anthropological Fieldwork and Designing Potentials
Designing Behaviour
Emergent Artefacts of Ethnography and Processual Engagements of Design
Theories and Figures of Technical MediationEpilogue.
Utopian Things