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What is it about the term ‘design’ that facilitates the emergence of interdisciplinary interactions even though the term may hold different meanings for those involved? To address this question, we analyzed the vocabularies, practices and orders of worth  proposed by the members of an interdisciplinary Center for Design. Our analysis revealed similarities and differences in the meanings accorded by these individuals to the term design. The analysis also revealed an awareness on their part that their notions of design were incomplete, and that they had to rely on the inputs of others. Such reflexivity was an important factor in fostering meaningful interactions between these individuals. Based on these findings, we argue that design is an interactive boundary object, which enables different meaning structures to co-exist and co-inform actors from multiple disciplines and domains. Within such a view, the emergence of interactions occurs not despite but because of the diversity of views about the notion of design itself.

Adopting a place-based approach to categorization, we explore how and why institutional actors in the US and the UK have categorized e-cigarettes differently, namely as tobacco products in the US and as non-tobacco consumer products in the UK. Our inquiry identified the historical contingencies generating two different perspectives informing these differential categorizations—precautionary in the US and harm-reduction in the UK. Embedded in these two perspectives are different future imaginaries to address the harm from cigarettes and e-cigarettes to the different population groups at risk (i.e., smokers versus youth and non-smokers). Data also show institutional actors across the two countries offering justifications for or against e-cigarettes by deploying facts from different scientific research. We theorize these findings and conclude the paper by discussing the importance of adopting a place-based approach to categorization.

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