AANA18109U The Anthropology of Design

In recent years “design anthropology” has been considered a feature of anthropology that is “exportable” to the world beyond academia. But while being highly praised it often seems unclear what design anthropology is and what it does—and how it might be used. In this course we explore design anthropology as an approach that persistently seeks to push the boundaries of the discipline into adjacent areas.

Bringing together academic scholarship and applied practice the scope is interdisciplinary, collaborative and interventional. The students will explore the merging of design and anthropology in small projects concerning current societal challenges within new tech and sustainable transition. Moreover, the course will open for grander questions, especially concerning the social consequences of these developments. During the course we approach such questions through discussions of both ethnographic accounts as well as anthropological theories.

The course thereby seeks to open up the “black box” of design anthropology by exploring how it is carried out in different settings, by different people and for different purposes. In an equally critical and exploratory manner the course seeks to identify what an anthropology of design might be.