The DE Book Club

It may seem a little odd to be just over one third of the way through a programme and only now do we assign you some reading matter that explores what makes a study an ethnography, but material like this is much better digested after your ethnographic feet are wet, not before. Our new reading challenge is “What is Ethnography? Methodological, Ontological and Epistemological Attributes” by Professor Tony Whitehead. Maybe we should have tackled that one a bit earlier!

In fact it’s the perfect thing to read at this point in the programme; you have begun to get a sense of what ethnographers do, and an awareness of why they are asked to do it (i.e. the context we design ethnographers work in). And you have (we hope) begun to understand that a key challenge is being able to defend the very idea of doing ethnography for business and design purposes. But (we hope) you are also just at the point when the very question “is what I am doing truly ethnographic, what makes an ethnography an ethnography?”. In other words you are not yet sure you can defend the idea of doing ethnography, and you probably even harbour some dark doubts about whether what you have done really is ethnographic (on that one be reassured you are not alone, it’s a common anxiety). In my experience the best ‘defence’ is to have a clear understanding of the philosophical as well as the methods choices that ethnography demands of us and what those choices allow us to defend (or not), to question
(or not). I think this paper dissects the question of philosophical stance in a really well-structured and informative way.

I won’t apologise for the fact that this is a tough read – you need time to devote to mulling this one over, but it’s time to grasp the nettle! I look forward to hearing what you all think about it.

Well not quite, but Arvind Venkataramani’s beautiful presentation from this year’s EPIC conference in Boulder teases that way at least.

Brigitte Jordan’s paper from last week raised all sorts of exciting challenges to reconceptualise the relationships between anthropology, ethnography, and this strange beast variously called Design Ethnography, User Research, Experience Research etc. One of the key themes the Class of 2012 brought out in their comments was the idea that Jordan’s paper isn’t just about how to preserve ‘the ethnographic inheritance, skill set and instinct’ but how it must adapt to a new context, a rapidly evolving and unstable context. Arvind takes this challenge on head on, exploring and proposing a new agenda for skilling up Design Ethnography. For Arvind the challenge is to turn those skills beyond mediator (or worse, ‘proxy user’), even the more recently fashionable idea that we are in essence storytellers, to something far more adventurous.

Thinking back to our opening class, if Jordan’s paper in particular focussed on the ‘DE as meeting of design and ethnography’ and ‘began to explore DE as continuum of design to ethnography’ Arvind clearly is in the ‘DE as intersection of D and E’ space (and beyond).

So… this week’s challenge is to really dig deep into these ideas, bring your own experiences and insights or other readings to bear, and help Arvind extend this challenging and forward thinking set of ideas. Launch date for comment chat to begin is October 18 (I’m being kind to the Class of 2012, they have a big project on!). And as we have said before, feel free to join in. The University of Dundee MSc in Design Ethnography Class of 2012 have to participate, it’s a class requirement. But you’ll want to just for the craik Check our FAQ for more info.

It’s the question often lurking in any gathering of experience researchers: can you do ‘this’ if you don’t have a PhD in Anthropology (or ‘at least’ sociology)? Can someone ‘do’ ethnography without that rich education and training? And regardless of the answer – is design ethnography really the same as ethnography? Is it a sub-set, a variation of, a mutation of, or even a travesty of ethnography as it is known in academic anthropology? Is design ethnography even the right name for this emergent, fluid, unstable world of ‘people doing immersive research into people’s lives in order to in some way impact design and business processes’? Even within the broad community that identifies itself at some level with that phrase design ethnography, it’s a hot topic. It’s hotter still when one entertains the idea, as businesses increasingly do, that ‘ethnographic skills’ could be useful and/or taught to other employees of their organisations.

OK Class of 2012, grab your lifejacket and dive in. These are deep and murky waters but the sooner you begin to paddle in them the better! Our reading this week tackles this space with great skill and insight – it’s “Transferring Ethnographic Competence:Personal Reflections on the Past and Future of Work Practice Analysis” by Brigitte Jordan. Brigitte Jordan is one of the pioneers of what has become known as design ethnography. Now a consultant, she also publishes regularly and with her unique experience brings a particular perspective to the challenges of defining what design ethnography is. It may not make comfortable reading for everyone – but these are ideas that we need to engage with. So your challenge is easy: as a complete newbie MSc Design Ethnography student (many with little or no prior contact with anthropology) – what do you think? Can those of us without that PhD in Anthropology also rise to Jordan’s call to “adapt and adopt” time honored ethnographic methods and approaches to a changing world. Or is the issue rather that Jordan is talking about one ‘space’ (‘scape) for DE and we belong in another? Is the implication of what she says that ultimately a PhD in Anthropology is a pre-requisite, or more that a commitment to ethnography as technique and anthropology as way of thinking about and approaching the world is what counts?