Hi everyone --
A closing thought:
Robert Parks, a sociologist of some renown, once proposed the concept of "Marginal Man." He described African American men who lived in segregated housing on the south side of Chicago (where I live now) but who also worked in the White business and residential districts of the city. These men did not feel as if they were full members of either community, not those in which they lived, nor those in which they worked. They paid a plethora of costs for straddling these two worlds. However, there was one clear advantage of such a structural position and it was cognitive. Parks's subjects gained an ability to see what was going on inside each community with a clarity of thought and originality of insight that full members of either community usually lacked. Marginality -- really, interstitiality -- led to understanding in remarkable ways.
It is my hope that, if nothing else, this conference has highlighted the extraordinary wealth of insights that are the necessary and consequential outcome of the nexus known as design. I have so much enjoyed thinking with all of you about the interstitial roles of designers, the goals and activities of those of us also on the edges and who like working, learning and creating with them, and the core of knowledge and skills that are embraced by the profession. This ellicitive function is at least part of the value of the remarkable UCI proposal, and of Ken Friedman, himself, of course!
I thank Ken and everyone else for the chance to let the muse (all the Muses?) do her/their thing with us over the last couple of weeks, I look forward to the future of the UCI School-of-Design-To-Be-Maybe, and wish everyone peace in the coming holidays.
Best wishes to all!
Chris
Christena Nippert-Eng, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
Illinois Institute of Technology
312-567-6812 (office)
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