 |
 |
Dear Ken, I was following the discussion briefly and stumbled upon your words in your second last post, which, I think, contains an important point about wicked problems. Sadly I just saw you dismissed the thread already, but maybe you’ll still read it. You wrote: ——snip I simply wanted to respond here to say that the issue is significant, and not only for designers. ——snip What I see in the discussion about wicked problems is that the significance of wicked problems is being discussed as inherent (or embodied) in wicked problems. That would mean wicked problems automatically become significant to those who suffer from these problems (thinking of a problem as sth. that is generally negative). I believe that significance itself is somewhat significant to wicked problems. Significance of wicked problems to humans (automatically?) leads to actions, descriptions and so on. One could argue that these human actions actually confirm and create problems (wether wicked or tame) and that we could not talk about them if they were not significant to anybody. What I personally find more interesting than deciding wether problems are wicked or not, is to take a look at who is taking actions in relation to problems, how and why. Talking about problems creates the idea that an essence of a problem exists, like it was a person or a thing. This means talking about problems distances the talker from the problem, it’s somehow getting less important what is significant to the talker, than what the problem essentially is. I believe this is a social phenomena which is used to hide or nobilitize personal claims and rights of those who take action against problems that are significant to them. Talking about problems allows to talk about problems in general and to address ›the overall problems‹ they cause. Wicked problems, then, are wicked because they affect many people, who might attach very different significances to the problems. Wicked problems cannot be defined in one way since they mean different things to different people. Maybe it helps to understand problems as things in the way Latour does: he refers to them in their etymological sense: ——quote from www.etymonline.com---- Old English žing "meeting, assembly, council, discussion," later "entity, being, matter" (subject of deliberation in an assembly), also "act, deed, event, material object, body, being, creature," from Proto-Germanic *thingam "assembly" (cf. Old Frisian thing "assembly, council, suit, matter, thing," Middle Dutch dinc "court-day, suit, plea, concern, affair, thing," Dutch ding "thing," Old High German ding "public assembly for judgment and business, lawsuit," German ding "affair, matter, thing," Old Norse žing "public assembly"). The Germanic word is perhaps literally "appointed time," from a PIE *tenk- (1), from root *ten- "stretch," perhaps on notion of "stretch of time for a meeting or assembly.“ —— So if we accept that wicked problems can’t be properly defined by one person – one might get back to what one used to do with things: Assemble all the people who are concerned by a problematic thing for some time being in order to settle an agreement on what is the case – finally to come to a decision. I would suggest to start talking about personal concerns, claims or rights in relation to problems. Looking forward to your feedback! Best, Daniel -- short intro to me as this is my very first contribution to this list: Daniel Klapsing, Ph.D. candidate at Bauhaus-Universitiy Weimar, Germany (topic: research through redesign in furniture design), industrial design practitioner, born 1982, based in Berlin. [log in to unmask] ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 -----------------------------------------------------------------