Hi, Pedro,
Saw your note and visited your web site. You are working with some of the issues that we address in our design anthropology program. You might want to contact Dori Tunstall about this.
I don't see what the problem would be with undertaking and communicating research to non-academic audiences. If the research is sound, the communication can be tailored to the audience. Some of the great anthropologists of the past were as well known for their work as public intellectuals as for their technical scholarly work.
Take a look at Clifford Geertz's book, Works and Lives
http://www.amazon.com/Works-Lives-Anthropologist-as-Author/dp/0804717478
You'll find the book at Amazon UK, but the "look inside" feature for this book only works on the US web site.
Your question isn't quite the same -- that is, you're speaking about different kinds of communication -- but the issues are related.
You might also take a look at the chapter titled "The Making of a Scientist" in Richard Feynman's book, What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/0393320928/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305511672&sr=1-1
A PhD is a research degree. We train people for research careers in academic institutions, mainly research universities. This doesn't mean that the only communication that concerns us is academic. While some of the subscribers to this list are PhD students, this is a list "created to discuss, and exchange information about PhDs in design." Many of us are doctoral supervisors or people responsible for research training, including deans and heads of school. Because the PhD degree is a research degree, we also discuss a wide range of issues here -- including the nature of research, design research, research training in design, research methods, comparative research methodology, as well as the nature of design and questions in philosophy of science and pedagogy.
Everyone who works seriously in the design field works with clients, end-users, and many kinds of non-academic audiences, as well as government people, professional designers, and many more. We're all used to communicating with non-academic audiences. I would argue, in fact, that any researcher who really understands research should be able to explain what he or she is doing to a non-academic, and in some cases, I'd say that many who can't manage to do this may not understand their subject as well as they think they do. Doing the work of research often requires a technical vocabulary: communicating about the research rarely does.
Given this, I'm not sure why anyone should engage in "fierce critiques [about] communicating to non-academic audiences." Some people might disagree with your specific approach or methods, but that's another issue.
Yours,
Ken
Pedro Oliveira wrote:
--snip--
I am trying to start a discussion on design ethnography/Intel's anthropology work in bars around the Lisbon, while writing about it in a blog for an audience of non-designers & non-anthropologists. It would be interesting to me to know what you think about this project. I am here:
http://appliedbusinessanthropology.blogspot.com/
As people doing academic PhD's I can foresee fierce critiques to the way I am communicating to non-academic audiences, but any input is valuable at this stage.
--snip--
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design
Conference Co-Chair: Doctoral Education in Design - Practice, Knowledge, Vision | Hong Kong Polytechnic University | May 22-25, 2011 | www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/DocEduDesign2011
Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life | University of Chicago Press | http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?isbn=9780226033594
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