Ethnography and Design
SISP 245
Spring 2020 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
CSPL 245 |
| Certificates: Civic Engagement, Civic Engagement Minor |
| Course Cluster: Service Learning |
Exercising humility and developing methods of meaningful engagement are essential to becoming an effective ethnographer and designer. Collaboration with users provides knowledge that allows designers to imagine artifacts, places, and systems that are thoughtfully enhanced or radically new. This course rethinks power dynamics to better understand how to design both for and with other people. With successful completion of this course students will be able to demonstrate competence in developing, refining, and communicating research interests in a committed, reflexive manner. They will gain an understanding of the strategic and tactical value of design and a sense of the practical problems involved in realizing design solutions and responses that are attuned to the needs of both an institution and individual users. Students will gain experience not only in theoretically framing social and political issues as these are expressed through design, but also in understanding the methodological tools needed to translate problems into creative interventions that are user-centered and compassionate. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS SISP |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
Christena Nippert-Eng, WATCHING CLOSELY
Michael Taussig, I SWEAR I SAW THIS
Allison Clarke, DESIGN ANTHROPOLOGY
Donna Haraway, SITUATED KNOWLEDGES
James Spradley, ASKING DESCRIPTIVE QUESTIONS
Robert Emerson, WRITING ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDNOTES
Scott Doorly, MAKE SPACE
Annemarie Mol, THE LOGIC OF CARE
Ian Hacking, KINDS OF PEOPLE
John Law, SEEING LIKE A SURVEY
Kathleen Connellan STRESSED SPACES
Erving Goffman, ASYLUMS
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Examinations and Assignments:
Assignments will explore both traditional and experimental ethnographic methods including: participant observation; sound studies; portraits in objects; mapping; and ethnographic interviews. Students will keep a research notebook where they will reflect on their fieldwork, and they will prototype a design intervention and present their project at the close of the semester. As part of a collaborative research team, students will work with a local community partner on the redesign of a particular space, artifact, or service that they explore over the course of the semester. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Students will work with residents and staff at Gilead Community Services as part of a collaborative research team, and together, student-participant teams will redesign a particular space, artifact, or service that they explore over the course of the semester. |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
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