Over the last decade anthropological methods of research and analysis have gained increasing visibility and currency in contexts outside academia. Corporations such as Philips, Pitney Bowes, Hewlitt Packard, Microsoft and many others recognise that the qualitative data gathering techniques of anthropology are of benefit in understanding markets and consumers in new ways. Further, the discipline’s attention to cultural differences has promised to generate tailored innovation in product and service design. Finally, recent developments in the discipline of Anthropology which have brought sustained attention to technology, to architecture, to materials and objects, and to knowledge production and exchange offer opportunities for engagement with external partners and users.
These developments have made it pertinent to question how Social and Cultural Anthropology can best interface with ‘industry’ and stimulate further questions about how anthropology can contribute to novelty, consider utility in new ways, and investigate the potential impact the discipline can have through direct engagements. One key aspect to be explored in this emerging field of Design Anthropology will be methodological innovations that might facilitate or even participate in this potential.
The research project has explored the emerging field of Design Anthropology through various channels: drawing on years of foundational research in the areas of innovation and creativity; knowledge exchange; emerging digital technology; the aesthetics of everyday life; participation in non-academic projects; a panel at the 2009 ASA conference in Bristol; a series of exchanges in Portland and Seattle in May 2009; a workshop held in September 2009 at the University of Aberdeen; and a two-part course held jointly by the University of Aberdeen and the newly founded Participatory Innovation Research Centre, Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark.
MSc Design Anthropology has been launched - first intake September 2010
Design Anthropology Workshop 7-9th September 2009
ASA Panel 2009
Contact: James.Leach@abdn.ac.uk
