Design and Anthropology

Dr Jared Donovan · Dr Wendy Gunn · Professor Tim Ingold

Jan 2013 · Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

About this ebook

Design and Anthropology challenges conventional thinking regarding the nature of design and creativity, in a way that acknowledges the improvisatory skills and perceptual acuity of people. Combining theoretical investigations and documentation of practice based experiments, it addresses methodological questions concerning the re-conceptualisation of the relation between design and use from both theoretical and practice-based positions.

Concerned with what it means to draw 'users' into processes of designing and producing this book emphasises the creativity of design and the emergence of objects in social situations and collaborative endeavours.

Organised around the themes of perception and the user-producer, skilled practices of designing and using, and the relation between people and things, the book contains the latest work of researchers from academia and industry, to enhance our understanding of ethnographic practice and develop a research agenda for the emergent field of design anthropology.

Drawing together work from anthropologists, philosophers, designers, engineers, scholars of innovation and theatre practitioners, Design and Anthropology will appeal to anthropologists and to those working in the fields of design and innovation, and the philosophy of technology and engineering.

About the author

Wendy Gunn is Associate Professor of Design Anthropology at the University of Southern Denmark.

Jared Donovan is Lecturer in Interaction Design at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

Wendy Gunn, Jared Donovan, Tim Ingold, Kyle Kilbourn, Dennis Day, Griet Scheldeman, Max Rolfstam, Jacob Buur, Johan Redström, Lesley McFadyen, Henry Larsen, Claus Have, Benedicte Brøgger, Peter-Paul Verbeek, Mette Kjærsgaard, Ton Otto, Nynke Tromp, Paul Hekkert, Jamie Wallace, Steven Dorrestijn, Pelle Ehn.