Design Anthropology Object Cultures in Transition

Design Anthropology brings together leading international design theorists, design consultants and anthropologists to explore the changing object culture of the 21st century. Decades ago, product designers utilised basic market research to fine-tune their designs for consumer success – today the design process has been radically transformed. The user is now centre-stage in the design process. From design ethnography to cultural probing, innovative designers are employing anthropological methods to elicit the meanings, rather than the mere form and function, of objects. This important volume offers the definitive guide to the issues facing the shapers of our increasingly complex material world.

Alison J. Clarke is professor of design history and theory, and director of the Victor J. Papanek Foundation at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria.

Introduction
Alison J. Clarke – Design Anthropology: The Shape of the Field
Part I DESIGNERS GO NATIVE
1. Jane Fulton Suri
Poetic Observation:
What Designers Make of What They See
2. Keith Murphy
The Anthropology of Designers: Politics and Style
3. Jamer Hunt
Prototyping the Social:
Temporality and the Speculative Futures at the Intersection of Design Culture
4. Rama Gheerawo
Socially Inclusive Design: Designing Ethnography in the Field
Part II People, Objects and Entanglements
5.Alison J. Clarke
The Anthropological Object in Design
6. Daniel Miller
Designing Ourselves
7. Harvey Molotch
Objects In Sociology
8. Diana Young
Coloring Cars: Customizing Motor Vehicles in the East of the Australian
Western Desert
Part III Mutating Forms, Shifting Materialities
9.Susanne Küchler
Materials and Design
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10. Pauline Garvey
Consuming Ikea: Inspiration as Material Form
11. Nicolette Makovicky
'Erotic Needlework”
Vernacular Designs on the 21st century Market
12. Vladimir Arkhipov
Functioning Forms/Anti-Design
Part IV Future Trajectories: Future Users
13. Heather Horst
Digital Design Anthropology
14. Maria Bezaitis & Rick Robinson
Valuable to Values: How 'User Research' Ought to Change
15. Lane Denicola
The Digital as Para-World:
Design, Anthropology and Information Technologies
16. Kathrina Dankl
Design Welfare & the Moral Objects of Design
17. Vinay Venkatraman
Frugal Digital Design: The Underworld of Brand Technologies in India