Design + Anthropology

Christine Miller is Clinical Associate Professor of Innovation in the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology, USA. Her research interests incorporate how sociality and culture influence the design and diffusion of new products, processes, and technologies. She studies technology-mediated communication and knowledge work flows within multiple discipline groups, teams, and networks and the emergence of collaborative innovation networks (COINs).

• IntroductionChaos, Purity and DangerWhat this book is aboutWho this book is forStructure of the book Chapter One: Making the Strange Familiar, and the Familiar StrangeIntroduction The anthropological roots of design anthropology Tracing the threads Anthropology and business Anthropology: Its Achievements and Future The way we were: The legacy of 1960s through the 1980s Designs for an Anthropology of the Contemporary Dialogue 1: Writing CultureDialogue 2: In the wake of Writing Culture: new projectsWe will not regret the past nor wish to close the door on itDialogue 3: An anthropology of the ContemporaryDialogue 4: Bridging the traditional, the modern, and the contemporaryDialogue 5: Introducing the design studioDialogue 6: Adaptive strategiesDialogue 7: Deparochializing anthropologyAnthropological relocations and the limits of design Design: Anthropology’s future or problematic object?Chapter Two: Roots in DesignIntroduction Significance for anthropology The Sciences of the Artificial: Rationality and the science of design Herbert Simon in contextWhat implications for anthropology?Understanding artifacts and systems: the dichotomy of inner and outer environmentsthe Emergence of Professional Design politics of the artificial: Design at the end of the millennium Unraveling the politics: a critique of the artificial Challenges to scientific "truth": blurring the boundaries of natural and artificial contemporary Critiques of design The social turn: Design for the Other 90% Is humanitarian design the new imperialism? Branzi’s Dilemma: Design Consciousness in Contemporary Culture 21st Century design: An integrative discipline The design education manifesto Designing with, not designing for: the influence of participatory designEthnography in the field of designthe design education manifesto Designing with, not designing for: the influence of Participatory design Ethnography in the field of design Chapter three: OPERATIONALIZING DESIGN ANTHROPOLOGY: How we know it when we see itIntroduction Disciplinary evolution: adaptive strategies Disruptive change demands pluridisciplinary collaboration Design anthropology: "Ethnographies of the Possible" Events and situated practiceThe significance of events and situations in anthropological practiceFrameworksan Emerging set of principles toward future-making: Vignettes of cultural production and changeVignette 1: Design Anthropological Futures ConferenceDesign Anthropological Futures: Ethnographies of the PossibleAnalysis and outcomesVignette 2: BarnRaisePre-event: registration and team assignmentsSetting the stage: opening receptionThe design workshop: a "future-in-the-making" eventAnalysis and outcomesChapter four: MAPPING DESIGN ANTHROPOLOGYIntroduction Design anthropology: discipline, subject area, or research strategy? Basic web search: Google NgramGoogle Scholar and ProQuestSocial Network analysis of Design anthropology Events and Contributors Data Description Social Network Analysis Google Site search Discussion of findings Design Anthropology’s COINs and CoPs Tracking the diffusion of innovation Homophily and heterophilyAttributes of innovationConclusionChapter five: epilogueFinal thoughts A field in its own right Not to be confused with design ethnography Technological challenges

"Design + Anthropology represents an important milestone in the creation of a new and important field of artistic and intellectual inquiry. Drawing on both leading anthropological theorists and designers, it presents a unique synthesis of the importance of design in creating order out of chaos and thus creating tomorrow’s world. Both anthropologists and designers will read this book with great advantage."Allen W. Batteau, Wayne State University, USA“Miller masterfully illuminates the territory between anthropology and design by weaving together a wide range of voices into a rich narrative. She has a great sense of what authors and events are particularly revealing, and includes important debates that have not been covered in other reviews of the field. This work stands out through its original, creative and highly rewarding approach. An essential read for anyone interested in the intersection of anthropology and design.”Christina Wasson, University of North Texas, USA“In this highly relevant book Christine Miller bridges the gap between designers and anthropologists, describing how to create collaborative innovation networks to build interdisciplinary pathways between the yin and yang of innovation."Peter A. Gloor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USAThis book expertly accomplishes its ambitious aim “… to contribute to a vision of design anthropology as an emerging transdisciplinary field and global community of practice comprised of regionalized collaborative innovation networks.” This is a classic diffusion of innovations story with insights about the emergence and expansion of design anthropology and what it means for all of us.Julia Gluesing, Wayne State University, USADesign + Anthropology is the perfect book for those on a career path that twists and turns through multiple disciplines and practices. Miller traces the intersecting intellectual histories of both anthropology and design in a way that feels to me as though I am exploring a long-lost lineage. With one foot in, and one foot wandering out, of both of anthropology and design, this book helped me to see how we have arrived at design anthropology, and why it speaks to me as a practitioner of infrastructure and futures design. Emilie Hitch, Thinkers & MakersChristine Miller’s book is a fascinating account of the birth of a new field: Design Anthropology. In the early chapters, she tells the story of the field’s evolution from two separate disciplinary traditions. In later chapters, she demonstrates the field’s rapid growth and diffusion, as well as its distinctive character on each side of the Atlantic. Chapter 3 on “Operationalizing Design Anthropology” is particularly compelling. I was struck by two general points Miller made related to the concepts of role and time.Role: Design anthropologists are no longer “observers, analysts, and interpreters” of culture, but rather, “participants and agents in the processes of social and cultural transformation (57).” For anthropologists, this shift in role represents a shift in focus, purpose, and identity as they take on an “intentionally interventionist and transformative perspective (3).” Time: Design anthropologists look to the future, asking questions such as “what if and what might be” (65). Their orientation to future-making entails working proactively and in collaboration with others. Opportunities to imagine something new and different (e.g., an approach, framework, product) typically involve developing, testing, and refining with input from collaborators – including those who might be direct beneficiaries.I also appreciated the way in which Miller articulated eight principles or elements of design anthropology: “future orientation, iterative, critical, holistic, collaborative, transdisciplinary, performative, [and] emergent potentiality (67).” Both designers and anthropologists will be able to identify the principles that are part of their particular disciplinary background. Design anthropologists, on the other hand, will recognize the incorporation of all eight principles in this new transdisciplinary field.Elizabeth Briody, Cultural Keys LLC