Dear all,

Three brief points.

1) There are many valuable threads to pick up from Norm's post but  
I'd just like to just generally affirm the value of his insights for  
the practice of design, specifically with respect to standpoints on  
knowledge/experience. If design (as distinguished from engineering)  
is characterised by its critical approach to "sufficient data" and  
engagement with the cultural/aesthetic, the assembling of evidence  
toward a solution has to be supplemented by an imaginative capacity  
which can intuit the affects which might be created in a very  
different kind of user than one is oneself. In other words, I'm  
positioning empathy and affective literacy as a critical skill. The  
debate on anthropological methods is particularly valuable for this  
reason. In anthropology there is a long tradition attempting to  
justify extractive knowledge gathering practices on the basis of  
their contribution to an abstract (and strangely disembodied) "body  
of knowledge". This justification is deployed against the claims of  
those for whom such "knowledge-gathering" practices have resulted in  
the alienation of lands and the imposition of unwanted policies  
affecting their rights to self-determination (or survival). My  
interest as an educator is be to ensure my students value experience- 
centred claims from marginalised social groups seriously in  
critically assessing the real value of projects undertaken for an  
abstract "humanity". This would be central to their ability to design  
outcomes which are truly global in effectiveness. (For a similar  
reason, feminist work is crucial, but another time...)

2) The recent work on qualitative methods would move our  
understanding of the value of ethnography closer to the kind of  
affective practices we are used to in design. Here are the criteria  
Laurel Richardson uses in "Evaluating Ethnography", which have helped  
my teaching and research enormously:

"i. Substantive contribution: Does this piece contribute to our  
understanding of social-life? Does the writer demonstrate a deeply  
grounded (if embedded) human-world understanding and perspective? How  
has this perspective informed the construction of the text?

ii. Aesthetic merit: Does this piece succeed aesthetically? Does the  
use of creative analytical practices open up the text, invite  
interpretive responses? Is the text artistically shaped, satisfying,  
complex, and not boring?

iii. Reflexivity: How did the author come to write this text? How was  
the information gathered? Ethical issues How has the author's  
subjectivity been both a producer and a product of this text? Is  
there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to  
make judgements about the point of view? Do authors hold themselves  
accountable to the standards of knowing and telling of the people  
they have studied?

iv. Impact: Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?  
Generate new questions? Move me to write? Move me to try new research  
practices?Move me to action?

v. Expresses a reality: Does this text embody a fleshed out, embodied  
sense of lived-experience? Does it seem "true"—a credible account of  
a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of the "real"?"

3) I sympathise with David's substantive questions on the nature of  
problem ownership, and offer another extended quote, this time from  
Linda Smith's Decolonising Methodologies, a book I like much more  
than Ken :). I think the questions she asks can be applied very  
helpfully outside of the indigenous context:

"In contemporary indigneous contexts there are some major research  
issues which continue to be debated quite vigorously. These can be  
summarized best by the critical questions that communities and  
indigenous activists often ask, in a variety of ways: Whose research  
is it? Who owns it? Whose interests does it serve? Who will benefit  
from it? Who has designed its questions and framed its scope? Who  
will carry it out? Who will write it up? How will its results be  
disseminated? While there are many resarchers who can handle such  
questions with integrity, there are many more who cannot, or who  
approach these questions with some cynicism, as if they are a test  
merely of political correctness. What may surprise many people is  
that what may appear as the "right" answer can still be judged  
incorrect. These questions are simply part of a larger set of  
judgements on criteria that a researcher cannot prepare for, such as:  
Is her spirit clear? Does he have a good heart? What other baggage  
are they carrying? Are they useful to us? Can they fix up our  
generator? Can they actually do anything?" (p9-10)

Refs:
Richardson, Laurel (2000) Evaluating Ethnography. Qualitative Inquiry  
6(2) 253-255

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies : Research  
and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedin: University of Otago Press,.

Regards,

Danny

--
http://www.dannybutt.net




On 31/07/2007, at 4:42 PM, Norm Sheehan wrote:

> Dear Ken and Lubomir,
>
>
>
> Dear Lubomir & Ken
>
>
> Please remember in my post I was addressing Mead's work with the  
> title:-
> Coming of age in Samoa: a psychological study of primitive youth for
> Western civilization - as a value neutral scientific study this does
> seem a slightly prejudicial title even for the early 20th century?
>
> I apologise for my flippancy in referring to this work on the  
> discussion
> list - I trust that you may understand that this attitude of mine  
> arises
> from being a member of a community that has often been subject to such
> 'scientific' investigation. We share a lot of stories about the
> stupidity of anthropologists mainly to make us feel good. In this  
> regard
> I speak to the context of this study which occurred in colonized  
> space,
> a place that I know well.
>