Critical Design Ethnography

Seminar

2024-2025

Together with the students of the MA Public interest Design, we have experimented with different methods of critical design ethnography in small research projects.

Part 1: Critique of Design Research
Based on a lecture by Foucault (1978), we first asked: What is critique? And how can we criticise in and through design?

During the four-day workshop, we looked at various fields of design research that deal with social issues in design: DesignCulture, DesignAnthropology, DesignHistory, CriticalDesignTheory amongst others. By studying corresponding texts, we explored together the key topics and methods of the various overlapping fields.

Then, finally - while enjoying a delicious muesli breakfast - we critically reviewed our own design practices. Using samples of our own activities, we responded (Neumann 2020) to each other: what is our design practice actually aiming to change? And to what extent can it do so?

Part 2: Methods of a Critical Design Ethnography
Critical design ethnography empirically investigates social phenomena using design tools and methods, e.g. co-creation workshops, prototyping or cultural probes. It uses creative design techniques to reveal social issues and problems.

For instance, one group developed a cultural probes kit to analyse the use of a public space in Wuppertal, another group followed the idea of critical making and developed a pee quartet. Yet another group investigated the renaming of M* Street in Wuppertal and its colonial heritage using critical mapping.

The different methods, from cultural probes to participatory workshops to critical making and counter mapping, make it possible to collect subjective and often unexpected data about cultural contexts through creative and open tasks and to make power structures and things visible that would otherwise not be mapped.

Cultural Probes and Critical Making in progress

Research Posters

Archive

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