Dear Jean and Richard,
My questions were more rhetorical than anything else. Jean, I think you are
right on point. What we call expertise has significant discursive and
cultural dimensions-along with many other things. Harry Collins and Robert
Evans have a fascinating book about it, Rethinking Expertise:
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo5485769.html
That's why, trying to define expertise in terms of some static and
essentialistic (is this even a word :) terms, at least to me, seems like a
fruitless exercise. Expertise only gains meaning in a relational sense,
when embedded in a network of relations. That's why there are some superb
product designers who were trained as engineers, and there are some great
engineers who had a "classical" product design education. I would not call
anyone a non designer just because they had social science or engineering
education for 4 to 5 years in college. Of course credentials and formal
schooling is a part of the whole deal, but, again, expertise is not a
static entity (especially in heteronomous and interdisciplinary fields).
You get into many different jobs, and your expertise is typically means
something in so far as it is related to a complex web of many other things.
That is why boundary work is so important. We constantly negotiate and
re-negotiate the boundaries of our "expert" domains. A classic case in
point is "mentally ill" people who commit crimes. Depending on where you
stand, era, culture and etc. these people can be prosecuted as criminals
that need to be sentenced or sick individuals who need to be cured.
Prosecutors, MDs and many other individuals constantly clash in court rooms
about the boundaries of their expertise. In design, since it is a really
interdisciplinary domain, these clashes are typically more harsh and
prolonged. And on top of that, design is a deeply heteronomous, as I said
before.
So my point,again: I don't see any point in trying to solidify/define the
core of design expertise in any static terms whether it be aesthetics,
visuality or something else. We will keep chasing our own tails, and we
have been doing exactly that for a long time
My two cents,
ali
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