Dear Pradeep,
Please permit me to second your comments. There is an immense
published design discourse visible in nations that Kati labels
non-Western.
Outside the language groups and geographical regions where this
literature is normally accessible, we do not know enough about it and
we do not have ready access to it.
The language barrier is one reason. Geographic access and restricted
participation in scholarly networks is another reason. Cultural
communication barriers are a third.
This discourse barrier reminds me of the barrier between Anglophone
and Francophone research communities in many fields. Both research
communities have large literatures, but neither community seems to
use the literature of other community extensively.
In one sense, it is correct in saying that the published design
discourse of some nations and cultures excludes the design discourse
of the nations Kati labels as non-Western. In exactly the same sense,
those nations and cultures exclude us from their design discourse.
The discourse itself is huge. My last post gave a few examples of
Anglophone research publications that offer an opening to that
literature. You have offered added examples. What we eventually
require is a good multi-language research tool that allows us to find
out what is available. This is why the literature search in doctoral
research is so important, and this is why such tools as annotated
bibliographies are so vital to the field of design research.
You also mention literature that has become accessible through
scholarly translation in different fields. This literature also
deserves to be better known. While I do not Japanese, Chinese, or
Korean, for example, I have been able to make good use of
translations in some of my research (see, f.ex., Friedman 1997, or
1998).
Our field will make a great step forward when we begin to make
doctoral dissertations and literature reviews more widely accessible
from the web site of the universities where they are completed. We
also need more annotated bibliographies and other research tools.
Best regards,
Ken Friedman
References
Friedman, Ken. 1997. "Design Science and Design Education." In The
Challenge of Complexity. Peter McGrory, ed. Helsinki: University of
Art and Design Helsinki, 54-72.
Friedman, Ken. 1998. "Information, Place and Policy." Built
Environment. 24: 2/3, 83-103.
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