About the Book
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.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures
Contributors
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Design Anthropological Futures Mette Gislev Kjaersgaard (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark), Joachim Halse (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark), Rachel Charlotte Smith (Aarhus University, Denmark), Kasper Tang Vangkilde (Aarhus University, Denmark), Thomas Binder (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark), and Ton Otto (Aarhus University, Denmark)
Section I: Ethnographies of the Possible
2. Cultures of the Future: Emergence and Intervention in Design Anthropology Rachel Charlotte Smith (Aarhus University, Denmark) and Ton Otto (Aarhus University, Denmark)
3. Design and the Future: Temporal Politics of 'Making a Difference' Ramia Mazé (Konstfak University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden and KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden)
4. Different Presents in the Making
Mike Anusas (University of Strathclyde, UK) and Rachel Harkness (University of Aberdeen, UK)
5. The New Design Ethnographers 1968-1974: Towards a Critical Historiography of Design Anthropology Alison J. Clarke, University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria
Section II: Interventionist Speculations
6. Design Interventions as a Form of Inquiry Joachim Halse (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark) and Laura Boffi (Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, Denmark)
7. Jostling Ethnography Between Design and Participatory Art Practices and the Collaborative Relations it Engenders George E. Marcus (University of California, Irvine, USA)
8. Conversation Dispositifs: Towards a Transdisciplinary Design Anthropological Approach Zoy Anastassakis (University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Barbara Szaniecki (State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
9. The Irony of Drones for Foraging: Exploring the Work of Speculative Interventions Carl DiSalvo (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
Section III: Collaborative Formations of Issues
10. Para-Ethnography 2.0: An Experiment in Design Anthropological Collaboration Kasper Tang Vangkilde (Aarhus University, Denmark) and Morten Hulvej Rod (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
11. Design Anthropology On the Fly: Performative Spontaneity in Commercial Ethnographic Research Brendon Clark (Interactive Institute Stockholm, Sweden) and Melissa L. Caldwell (University of California, Santa Cruz, USA)
12. Politics of Inviting: Co-Articulations of Issues in Designerly Public Engagement
Kristina Lindström (Umeå University, Sweden) and Åsa Ståhl (Umeå University, Sweden)
13. Collaboratively Cleaning, Archiving and Curating the Heritage of the Future Adam Drazin, Robert Knowles, Isabel Bredenbroeker, Anais Bloch, (University College London, UK)
Section IV: Engaging Things
14. Design Anthropological Frictions – Mundane Practices meet Speculative Critique Mette Kjærsgaard (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark) and Laurens Boer (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
15. Things as Co-ethnographers: Implications of a Thing Perspective for Design and Anthropology Elisa Giaccardi (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands), Chris Speed (University of Edinburgh, UK), Nazli Cila (Applied University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) and Melissa L. Caldwell (University of California, Santa Cruz, USA)
16. Design Anthropology as Ontological Exploration and Inter-Species Engagement Tau Ulv Lenskjold (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark) and Sissel Olander (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark)
17. The Things We Do: Encountering the Possible Thomas Binder (Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark)
Index
About the Author :
Rachel Charlotte Smith is Assistant Professor of Design Anthropology at the Centre for Participatory Information Technology (PIT), Aarhus University, Denmark
Kasper Tang Vangkilde is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark
Mette Gislev Kjærsgaard is Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Ton Otto is Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark and at James Cook University, Australia
Joachim Halse is Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark
Thomas Binder is Professor of CoDesign at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Denmark
Review :
This immensely rich anthology brings together three terms that have traditionally been kept apart. In so doing it enriches all three, highlighting in particular how design and anthropology can conjoin in the active and collaborative unfolding of social possibilities.
This unique collection serves as an invitation to anyone interested in the intersection between design and social sciences to move beyond jargon and hype and equip themselves with a critical approach to conceptualising futures. Drawing on canonical anthropology as well as more experimental design anthropology, it is relevant for those who are interested in design thinking, service, social, sustainable, speculative, contestable and propositional practices… in short, in design and research for, with and by people.
With Design Anthropological Futures, we see the emergent paradigm of a robust, design anthropology as a field in its own right that is beginning to generate its own theoretical insights. The chapters act as case studies for undergraduate courses, as contributions to an anthropology that looks beyond “applied” and “public” to making material differences in communities, and as a provocation to imagine anthropology not only as the study of alterity, but as productive of difference.
This book should be of interest to those engaged in theorizing the entangled temporalities of past, present, and future, and to those concerned with the practical, political, and economic conditions in which professional design assumes its place in practices of future making. Most importantly, the futures imagined here are those in which the figure of design itself is subject to radical anthropological transformation.
