Design Anthropology

Design Anthropology brings together leading international design theorists, consultants and anthropologists to explore the changing object culture of the 21st century.
Decades ago, product designers used basic market research to fine-tune their designs for consumer success. Today the design process has been radically transformed, with the user center-stage in the design process. From design ethnography to culture probing, innovative designers are employing anthropological methods to elicit the meanings rather than the mere form and function of objects. This important volume provides a fascinating exploration of the issues facing the shapers of our increasingly complex material world.
The text features case studies and investigations covering a diverse range of academic disciplines. From IKEA and anti-design to erotic twenty-first-century needlework and online interior decoration, the book positions itself at the intersections of design, anthropology, material culture, architecture, and sociology.

Alison J. Clarke is professor of design history and theory, and director of the Victor J. Papanek Foundation at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, Austria.

Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Introduction

1 Susanne Küchler - Materials and Design
2 Harvey Molotch - Objects in Sociology
3 Alison J. Clarke - The Anthropological Object in Design
4 Maria Bezaitis and Rick E. Robinson - Valuable to Values
5 Jane Fulton Suri - Poetic Observation
6 Jamer Hunt - Prototyping the Social
7 Pauline Garvey - Consuming IKEA and Inspiration as Material Form
8 Nicolette Makovicky -'Erotic Needlework'
9 Vladimir Arkhipov - Functioning Forms / Anti-Design
10 Diana Young - Coloring Cars
11 Lane DeNicola - The Internet, the Parliament, and the Pub
12 Daniel Miller - Interior Decoration
13 Erin B. Taylor and Heather A. Horst - Designing Financial Literacy in Haiti
14 Arturo Escobar - Stirring the Anthropological Imagination
Index