Overview

The chapters in this captivating volume demonstrate the importance and power of design and the ubiquitous and forceful effects it has on human life within the study of anthropology. The scholars explore the interactions between anthropology and design through a cross-disciplinary approach, and while their approaches vary in how they specifically consider design, they are all centered around the design-and-anthropology relationship. The chapters look at anthropology for design, in which anthropological methods and concepts are mobilized in the design process; anthropology of design, in which design is positioned as an object of ethnographic inquiry and critique; and design for anthropology, in which anthropologists borrow concepts and practices from design to enhance traditional ethnographic forms. Collectively, the chapters argue that bringing design and anthropology together can transform both fields in more than one way and that to tease out the implications of using design to reimagine ethnography--and of using ethnography to reimagine design--we need to consider the historical specificity of their entanglements.

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9780826362780

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Reviews

"""Designs and Anthropologies provides an essential field guide to the twin terms of its title, along with the now fevered zone of exchange between them. Richly varied and always insightful, its chapters combine into a plural account of aspiration and critique, with an occasional dash of disagreement to keep things lively. Or as the Post-it Note would read: must read!""--Peter Redfield, author of Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders"

Designs and Anthropologies provides an essential field guide to the twin terms of its title, along with the now fevered zone of exchange between them. Richly varied and always insightful, its chapters combine into a plural account of aspiration and critique, with an occasional dash of disagreement to keep things lively. Or as the Post-it Note would read: must read!--Peter Redfield, author of Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders

Author Information

Keith M. Murphy is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include design, letterforms, language, and politics. Eitan Y. Wilf is an associate professor of anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He studies the institutional transformations of creativity in the United States.

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