> On 26 Aug 2018, at 4:19 pm, Ali Ilhan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Finally, David especially, I know you sent couple things about appreciative
> inquiry but can you direct me to more sources when you have time? (I am
> pretty ignorant about what AI is and how it has been utilized)
There are a number of good starting points. Philosophically AI emerged out of a constructionist view of the world.
Put simply, it is a view that begins with the proposition that our world—how we perceive it and understand it—is socially constructed. It emerges out of works such as Berger and Luckmann’s 1966 book, The Social Construction of Reality. But there are many other strands, such as the writing of Martin Buber, a Jewish theologian, Lackoff and Johnson’s Metaphors we live by, In literary criticism, the Russian critic Bakhtin in the early Soviet era had an important set of ideas often called ‘diologic’ which captured (according to his later western fans) the idea that ideas were generated, spoken about and written between people. I could go on at some length, but most of these strands are readily available to follow on-line.
For me there are some special strands that may not seem obvious at first sight but are critical to a deeper understanding. The late writing of Ludwig Wittgenstein are extremely important as are the works of Gadamer, a German Philosopher. Karl Marx prompted many European thinkers, particularly what was known as the Frankfurt School to analyse the way in which dominating social groups try to construct a plausible rationality and ’naturalness’ justifying their power, often referred to as the dominant ideology thesis.
Once the ground was laid, people began to explore the domain, or if you like what goes on BETWEEN people. One of the strands to emerge was concerned with reshaping, redesigning how we constructed this social reality. How do we intervene to change and make the conversation between people more productive, more open ended, and in the end more appreciative of each other? This, for me, is where it gets very interesting, and you can perhaps see the importance of these ideas in design. One of the great champions in the communication and design fields is Klaus Krippendorff on this list.
There are three or four strands worth exploring if you are new to this. All have a bearing on design. One strand comes from family therapy. The second comes from participative social processes, such as resolving neighbourhood disputes, participative and co-designing provide a third strand, and finally, peace negotiations between waring parties.
These are ambitious social construction projects and there is a mounting body of good practice yielding positive results. Above all it is about changing our social realities in positive ways, both practical and moral.
I hope this serves to point you in some interesting directions.
David
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|