Design and Anthropology

Murphy, Keith M.

doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-102215-100224

Cited by 99 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 105 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Designed objects, spaces, or technological interventions, writes Keith Murphy, are subject to assessment by both designers and consumers as “good” or “bad” (2016, 3–4). In this commonsense schema, “good” design is “presumed to be beneficial to both users and society,” while “bad” design “an intrinsically wasteful endeavor” that squanders time and resources, creates unnecessary goods, and stimulates empty consumerism (Murphy , 4). Secondary to this judgment is the problem of bad implementation of “good” design.…”

Section: Good Ramps Bad Rampsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good ramps, bad ramps: Centralized design standards and disability access in urban Russian infrastructure

Hartblay

2017

American Ethnologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Good ramps, bad ramps:Centralized design standards and disability access in urban Russian infrastructure A B S T R A C TAccessible design seeks to reconfigure the social by restructuring the material. As the idea moves globally, it becomes entwined in local logics of moral obligations between citizens and the state. Wheelchair users in the city of Petrozavodsk, in northwestern Russia, talk about inaccessible infrastructure as being embedded in moral relationships. In their stories, hierarchies of expertise diffuse responsibility for outcomes and devalue user knowledge. When accessible design elements are installed to meet minimum standards, they are "just for the check mark" and often do not "work." Wheelchair ramps produce value for businesses or

show abstract

Section: Good Ramps Bad Rampsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good ramps, bad ramps: Centralized design standards and disability access in urban Russian infrastructure

Hartblay

2017

American Ethnologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Materiality and material culture, as Keith Murphy () elaborates in his discussion of design and anthropology, have allowed for bridges beyond anthropological subfields to architects and creators of things. Studies of design in anthropology apply an ethnographic lens to analyzing processes and outcomes of design work, and can take a moral view that accounts for the impact humans have on one another (see Murphy ).…”

Section: Epistemologies Of Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic Anthropology in 2016: Now What?

Shankar

2017

American Anthropologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this review, I extend the ideological and discursive insights on prejudice and racism offered by Jane Hill in her work The Everyday Language of White Racism to consider the potential of linguistic anthropology to address social injustice. In a year marked by the global rise of right-wing politics, 2016 cannot simply be viewed as business as usual, but rather calls for a reevaluation of the potential of linguistic anthropology in light of what it can do now. The essay is thematically organized to focus on the production of value and the reproduction of inequality over a wide range of modalities and research contexts. I begin with the "Metrics of Analysis" to review conceptual frameworks through which ethnographic analysis has been undertaken, such as temporality, scale, multimodality, technology, discourse studies, and others. The sections that follow expand upon these themes across three broad headings. The first, "Participation and Social (In)Justice," addresses the complex agendas and institutional processes that mediate linguistic struggles for equality in settler colonial and indigenous contexts, political language, racism and social justice, and the affordances and limitations of language for young people. The second, "Global Ethnonationalism," builds on a language ideology framework to examine the study of minority languages, the language of right-wing religiosity, and the contradictions of national branding. The third explores "Epistemologies of Value" via performativity, embodiment, sound, materiality, ontology, and media. The essay concludes with potential directions for linguistic anthropologists to address the worldwide "alt-" realities that have come into clearer view. [ethnonationalism, language ideology, race, semiotics, social justice] RESUMEN En esta revisión extiendo el conocimiento ideológico y discursivo sobre prejuicio y racismo ofrecido por Jane Hill en su trabajo El lenguaje diario del racismo blanco para considerar el potencial de la antropología lingüística en el abordaje de la injusticia social. En un año marcado por el crecimiento global de las políticas de derecha, 2016 no puede simplemente ser visto de manera habitual, sino en cambio requiere una revaluación del potencial de la antropología lingüística a la luz de lo que puede hacer ahora. El ensayo está temáticamente organizado, concentrándose en la producción de valor y la reproducción de desigualdad sobre un amplio rango de modalidades y contextos de investigación. Empiezo con "Métricas de Análisis" para revisar marcos conceptuales a través de los cuales el análisis etnográfico ha sido emprendido, tales como temporalidad, escala, multimodalidad, tecnología, estudios discursivos, y otros. Las tres secciones siguientes expanden estos temas a través de tres líneas generales. La primera, "Participación e (In)Justicia Social", aborda las agendas complejas y los procesos institucionales que median las luchas lingüísticas por la igualdad en contextos de pobladores coloniales e indígenas, lenguaje político, racismo y justicia social, y l...

show abstract

“…Similarly then, the act of intervention into peoples lives is a political one, in the sense that designed technologies, infrastructures (Le Dantec 2013), and institutions, all shape the very relations of everyday lives in not so subtle of ways. From traffic jams, to waste, to government corruption (Lampland and Leigh Star 2009), to addiction (Schüll 2012), the actions of designers in molding the world around us to their visions, shape and channel people's behaviors and lives in nearly every way in our built environment (Murphy 2016;Norman 2013).…”

Section: Opening Up Ethnographymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Rise of the User and the Fall of People: Ethnographic Cooptation and a New Language of Globalization

Amirebrahimi

2016

Ethnographic Praxis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines how ethnographic praxis as a means for driving social change via industry, went from a peripheral, experimental field, to a normalized part of innovation and product development – only to be coopted from within by a new language of power. Since the 1980s anthropologists have used their work to “make the world a better place,” by leveraging their tools of thick description and rich contextual knowledge to drive diversity and change within corporations and through their productions. As ethnography‐as‐method became separated from the field of Anthropology, it was opened to new collaborations with adjacent fields (from design, to HCI, to psychology, media studies, and so on). This “opening up” had a twofold effect, on the one hand it enabled greater “impact” (or influence) within institutions, but simultaneously subjected the field to cooptation. Recently, the practice of ethnography came to embrace the terminology of User Experience (UX) – though with it, ethnographers found what once made them distinct and differentiated (their representation of diversity of global cultures, the ability to think laterally with historically grounded theoretical approaches, etc.) was lost. UX, though a useful marketing tool, came to change the researchers and their productions, in subtle yet profound ways. This piece explores how what started out as a tool anthropologists hoped to use to shape the corporation, ultimately shaped them.

show abstract

Design and Anthropology

Cited by 99 publications

References 105 publications

Good ramps, bad ramps: Centralized design standards and disability access in urban Russian infrastructure

Good ramps, bad ramps: Centralized design standards and disability access in urban Russian infrastructure

Linguistic Anthropology in 2016: Now What?

The Rise of the User and the Fall of People: Ethnographic Cooptation and a New Language of Globalization

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About