A very interesting thread on anthropology and design.
This spring I read cultural anthropologist Lucy Suchman’s new (2007) 2nd
edition of “Plans and Situated Actions”, with the new title “Human-Machine
Reconfigurations”.
It discusses and partly adopts ANT but criticizes the idea that objects
should be regarded as fully fledged social actors. I hope I reproduce its
ideas correctly in saying that it proposes that humans and objects should
indeed be regarded as co-emergent and co-dependent. However, research should
be directed at precisely the boundaries, the “cuts” which can be made and at
which differences in agency of the different actors can be read.
As in the first edition of Plans and Situated Actions, Suchman is concerned
with the possibilities and limitations of communication between humans, and
between humans and machines. Methodologically, her work proposes to look
closely at the ways interactions unfold.
In the discipline of design, observation has a supporting role to the
assumed main activity, which is to make and communicate design decisions. An
interesting challenge for design is to learn to deal with close observation
of interactions, taking in the social and physical circumstances of people’s
lives with products. This is still very much optional in design practice.
Taken seriously, it poses a lot of problems for design. It is also a
challenge we put to design students and to our own design research.
This is a different matter than the question of design ethnography for
commercial ends, albeit related.
I am writing this on the last day before going away for the summer, but
couldn’t resist responding to the thread. So apologies in advance if I don’t
react to responses to this post.
Suchman, L. (2007) Human-Machine Reconfigurations. Plans and Situated
Actions 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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