A couple of weeks ago, I presented part of my thesis at the Danish open source conference Open Source Days.
In the process of preparing the presentation, I returned to thesis and delved into the material in a way that I haven’t done since I wrote it. It was interesting to see how my own ideas [...]
Posts under ‘Anthropology’
Presenting my thesis (again)
Lucy Suchman on framing technology
This is a sort-of rough edit of my live-blogging notes for Lucy Suchman’s talk today at the IT University of Copenhagen. The talk was entitled “Human-machine reconfigurations - expanding frames and accountable cuts”
Lucy Suchman is an antropologist by training, and has worked at the legendary Xerox PARC research facility for many years. Suchman is [...]
Jeff Juris’ “Networking Futures”
Some time ago, I read Networking Futures by Jeff Juris. A trained anthropologist, Juris spent 18 months conducting ethnographic fieldwork among anti-corporate globalization activists in Barcelona at the height of the protests against the neo-liberal economic institutions in 2000-2002.
Juris’ main argument is simple enough: That the practices of the anti-corporate globalization movements involve a growing [...]
On social objects
Working at Socialsquare, I’ve been introduced to some very practical thinkers in the realm of digital sociality. These are the people who are concerned with connecting the technical ‘how’ with the social ‘how’ to build new web services that help redefine digital sociality. One of the more thoughtful of these thinkers is Jyri Engeström.
Jyri [...]
Online Ethnography
There was an interesting attempt at a discussion on the Anthrodesign mailing list recently as to what online ethnography actually entails. But the discussion never really seemed to get off the ground, and effectively had died by the time I posted my comment. So I thought I put it up here with a few adjustments:
Online [...]
Design ethnography deliverables
We had a great meeting in the Danish Design Anthropology network this Thursday. We’re getting some good energy into the meetings, going beyond the usual epistemological insecurity inherent to our profession and actually getting down to discussing and reflecting on our practice, sharing experiences and war stories from the front lines of user involvement, strategic [...]
Bit by bit - a review of “Two Bits”
I finally found the time to read Christopher Kelty’s book Two Bits - The cultural Significance of Free Software. Kelty is one of the few other anthropologists studying Free Software in general, and his work has been a huge inspiration in my thesis work on Ubuntu, so naturally, my expectations were high.
As Kelty argues, we’ve [...]
Let the user finish the design
At EPIC, I took part in a very interesting workshop discussion led by Jeanette Blomberg and Elin Rønby, two of the leading figures within the field of ethnography-supported design.
The theme of the workshop was making visible the object of design in the design process, and centred on this diagram describing the generalized design process:
This [...]
Epiphanies commoditized
The final session at the EPIC conference was a return to the original question that led to the creation of the EPIC conferences in the first place:
How do we make people (stakeholders, decision makers, change agents and others) understand the value of ethnography in praxis?
This was the main issue discussed when EPIC started in 2005, [...]
All design is redesign
A recent Bruno Latour keynote[PDF] has been making the rounds on the Anthrodesign mailing list.
Called “A Cautious Prometheus?”, it is a very concise and thoughtful dissection of the changes the word and concept ‘design’ has been undergoing for the past 30-40 years, which also signals the change from “the hubris of modernity” with its [...]
