Ethnography and Design
SISP 245
Spring 2019
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01
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Crosslisting:
CSPL 245 |
Certificates: Civic Engagement |
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. |
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 |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 50% - 74% |
SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
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 Bruno Latour, REASSEMBLING THE SOCIAL Avery Gordon, GHOSTLY MATTERS
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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. |
Instructor(s): Adams,Barbara Times: ..T.... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: FISK410; |
Total Enrollment Limit: 12 | | SR major: 2 | JR major: 2 |   |   |
Seats Available: -1 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 4 | FR: X |
Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
Total Submitted Requests: 2 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 1 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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