Dear Ken, David and others

 

I guess the point of the knowing the knowledge of others questions is that the way to solve this issues and related problems is to approach and engage with others on their own terms. If the other teaches you their knowing then they will tell you when you understand it! This is an immersion approach because at the same time as coming to know you are trained in that particular culture's methodologies and hence come into contact with another's ethics concerning knowledge. This is a deeper challenge because such concerns reveal the great variety of ontological positions possible in this world. It is also a very difficult design problem ... how does one position a study so that it will engage with others in a way that cedes ownership of knowing to this research 'subject' (given that you do not know the knowing of this other). 

 

The great advantage of design is that it is visual (sometimes) and when it is it easily and effectively accommodates cultural, social and linguistic difference -  John Bradley has done exceptional (design/anthropology) work in this area with Yanuwya people in the Northern Territory Australia. 

 

Anthropology is directly related to design because just as designs are social things many social things are designs. We play out our humanness through objects/artefacts - we also humanize the abstract by socially addressing abstract things as if they were object/artefacts. Ken's analysis is sublime in this regard because the definition "[devise] courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones" also applies to research design ... devising research methodologies in ways that limit or erase dominance with the aim of fostering the voice -and therefore the knowing of the other is one aspect of this work. But I would also like to address another aspect that I feel is crucial for design research. 

 

Anthropology is entangled with design through the many material and social ways that different cultures employ design and devise the social meanings of objects. Integral to this is the ways some social ideas come to be addressed, expressed and protected as if they were objects. In anthropological terms each object has an abstract "being" which is evident in some contexts because it attracts social agency that often defines the object/abstract in ways that deviate greatly from appearances, utility and design intention. Design is therefore a relational and social practice - anthropology/social science addresses these areas and provides some directions that greatly interest me as a designer.

 

Bhaskar critically analysed the predominance of science as a social investigation method in modern society. He put forward the view that what was needed for science to come to terms with understanding the social was a deeper and more layered ontology. In this view the materialism, empiricism and positivism inherent in this science are problematic because while they do have a methodological integrity they enforce a single level ontology. According to Bhaskar the desire to adhere to this ontological deficiency was evidence of social understandings operating in a relational manner ... i.e. a theory of explanation for being is introduced to a society which is intelligent and comes to believe in it. This belief skews social being and the society begins to operate in ways that generate information which supports the theory of explanation. Scientism is presented in this view as a similar social operation to that at work in evangelicalism or any other belief system - except that such a social belief in epistemology has deep dangers (epistemology presented as ontology - social presented as objective etc.). 

 

The point made by Bhaskar is that, because society is a grouping of alive and active agents who believe, inquiry will always be subverted unless the theory of explanation has a rich and layered ontological basis. A layered ontology accommodates investigations that reveal and analyse patterns of movement and change at multiple layers in attitudes and responses rather than delimiting to observables and proposing overarching explanations.  I remember a similar excellent analysis from a basis in Greek philosophy made by David Sless in 1991.

 

Scientific inquiry is incredibly effective but ontological deficiencies both socially and methodologically preclude understandings that are necessary in complex social and environmental contexts. Indeed the ontological shallowness of science serves material production schemas very well and the huge moral and material investments that social groups have made to this shallow ontology can be seen as significant factors in generating and perpetuating the socio/environmental problems that science has identified and attempts to address. 

 

The key observation from this approach is that scientific investigations in these contexts are recursive because when science successfully addresses a social/environmental problem it is also in a social sense verifying the shallow ontological perspective - which impinges upon and may be a causal factor in the problem space. In this way solution spaces are auto-contaminated and skewed in directions aligned with social investment - so only some (or someone's) problems are actually seen. So social or environmental disasters suddenly appear.

 

In this way the design of research processes that are multi-layered in problem identification may be more significant than research focused on problem solution. This is due to science and its' society lacking the ontological depth to identify and include their own methodological processes as integral to problem trajectories (a postmodern version of Cartesian anxiety & perhaps one best expressed by Heidegger in his focus on what is not happening).

 

So the opportunity for design I see is that in an adjustment from the normative process where anthropology inquires into socio-cultural understanding through the medium of design ... design may be repositioned as a medium for developing co-participatory methods for the understanding of social understandings ...projects that foster the development of ontological depth through/for research. 

 

This is essentially the issue in Indigenous rights courses that I teach using Indigenous Knowledge methods because design is in an Indigenous Knowledge perspective a deeper science (science with a layered and complex ontology).  

 

This is the approach I am working towards in my current research practice with a few postgraduate students and a very small budget. I believe these areas would be a great basis for some sharing, debate and discussion - and more importantly some methodological development. I trust that these potentialities will strike a chord with some on the list.

 

Norm


________________________________

From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design on behalf of David Sless
Sent: Mon 6/08/2007 12:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: a question



On 04/08/2007, at 3:08 AM, Victor Margolin wrote:
> Why is so much research attention given to the process of design 
> and so little to its results - the products that are the outcomes 
> of designing, their value and social consequences.

Victor,
While we can point to a lack of attention in almost every area of 
design research--that being the nature of research in general--I 
don't think the area of social consequences is an area where there is 
no attention, and it may be, as others have suggested,  that you are 
looking in some of the wrong places. The areas outside design are 
obvious, but the areas inside may be less so.

Here are a few thoughts.
1. By its nature design is interventionist. It takes place in the 
social world and acts on and within that world. Even our definition 
of what constitutes a design 'problem' is socially constructed and as 
a consequence is both an implicit and explicit critique of the the 
current social world. So questions of value and social consequence 
are already there within design activity.
2. The central point at issue in your question is whether or not 
designers are themselves aware of the social nature of what they do 
and the fact that what they do has social consequences.
3. I cannot speak for all design areas, only my own small area of 
information design. In that area I can point to a significant 
historical and ongoing concern for and engagement with social issues 
and consequences. Sometimes this concern and engagement takes on an 
almost invisible aspect. For example, Ken Garland, in his lovely book 
on the designer of the London underground Map, Harry Beck, quotes Mr 
Beck as follows:
> I tried to imagine that I was using a convex lens or mirror, so as 
> to present the central area on a large scale. This, I thought, 
> would give a needed clarity to interchange information. (Garland 
> 1994, page 17)

That concern for 'clarity' on behalf of others is a central 
preoccupation of information design. It may be a minor aspect of 
social life, one of the small social areas of concern, but it is 
profoundly social and Beck, along with many others was concerned with 
social consequences. Of course, Mr Beck's little diagram has had 
considerable social consequences when it comes to travelling in 
London, not all of them good. For example, a friend of mine recently 
suggested that the journey from Leicester Square to Covent Garden was 
the most expensive journey per mile of any on earth--even more 
expensive than Concord. The distortion of Mr Beck's 'lens', distorts 
aspects of human behaviour, social action.

4. There are many descriptions of the design process. Our own 
involves 7 stages: Scoping, benchmarking, prototype development, 
testing, refining, implementing and monitoring. I would suggest that 
there is quite explicit concern for social consequences at the 
scoping and monitoring stages. But it is also there implicitly in all 
the other stages. Thus I would suggest that at least some design 
processes are suffused with a concern for the social.

5. Many designers and related professionals give freely of their time 
to help in the development of standards. Done well, standardising in 
design institutionalises good design practice. For example, look at 
ISO 13407: HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN PROCESS FOR INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS. Many 
of us working in this area draw heavily on this type of document.  
Much of my own research is concerned with the development of this 
type of document and is about institutionalising good design 
practice. Again, I would suggest that this is concerned with the 
social aspects of design, not just critiquing existing practices--
that is implicit in this type of work--but also, and more 
importantly, CHANGING social practices to bring about changes in 
society.

So, as well as the areas mentioned by others, there is a wealth of 
activity in and through design practice that is concerned with the 
social , but I agree, never enough.

David
--

blog: www.communication.org.au/dsblog
web: http://www.communication.org.au <http://www.communication.org.au/>