Research Through Design Anthropology

// method // research

How can design be used to explore open-ended questions? How can anthropology support this?

Design anthropology is a hybrid discipline that blends theorizing the way things are (anthropology), with theorizing how things could be (design) (Smith 2013).

As a design anthropologist, I translate open-ended questions into design briefs. I then work with design practitioners as they interpret this brief and make it into a design concept. My site of fieldwork is the design process itself, which serves to develop an understanding of how to navigate between that open-ended question and design practice itself. How can design contribute to defining that open-ended question, and how can that question contribute to design practice itself.

This was the foundational methodology of my doctoral research.