Keywords for Ethnography and Design
Cassandra Hartblay, Joseph D. Hankins, and Melissa L. Caldwell, eds.
This series of short essays explores issues facing ethnographers working on or in collaboration with design as a field. It begins from the proposition that the intersection of ethnography and design is not merely a topical convergence of subject matter, but a provocative point from which to theorize what it is that ethnographers do. The essays were adapted for publication from presentations at the conference “Ethnography and Design: Mutual Provocations,” which was held at the University of California, San Diego in October 2016. Our contributors fall into four categories: ethnographers who conduct critical ethnography of or about design thinking and design practice in the world; ethnographers who adapt elements of design practice (including performance and theatrical design, as well as product and digital design) into ethnographic practice; ethnographers who think critically about the epistemological roots of both design and ethnography as Western expert discourses; and ethnographers who are interested in ethnography as a design for social change.