Dear Colleagues,
On the heteronomy-autonomy scale, design disciplines/professions –and when
I say design, I am excluding engineering– are close to the heteronomy side
(needless to say these are ideal types, and empirically speaking, there is
no pure heteronomy or autonomy in the "real" world). The symbolic and real
boundaries around design professions/disciplines are much more permeable
than many other professions/disciplines. Recent discussions in the list
about who is a designer and who is not and the boundary work that occurs
within these discussions promoted me to write this email.
Some scholars argue that this is so because these professions are
relatively new, but this is not correct. They have been around for much
longer than two generations and we still do not see a movement toward more
autonomy - and I doubt that we will. Some scholars connect this to the
interdisciplinary character of design (both in discourse and conduct), but
I also doubt that this is the case. There are many other professions, which
are highly interdisciplinary in conduct, but much more autonomous. In fact,
interdisciplinarity is embedded in almost every discipline (see Jerry
Jacob’s excellent *In Defense of Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity and
Specialization in the Research University *on this topic). In other words,
there is no single field that is not interdisciplinary in conduct (and
praxis).
I have been wondering and writing about the reasons behind this high
heteronomy, and I would like to hear what you think about this phenomenon.
Any thoughts?
Best regards,
Ali O. Ilhan, PhD
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