According to Christian Wasson, the article's editor, design anthropology aids in representing anthropologists' activities as they work with team members and designers from other disciplines. As a consequence, these activities lead to the growth of innovative product concepts. The anthropologists' contributions are mostly seen in the ethnographic studies undertaken with the product's future consumers in mind. In reality, anthropologists attempt to study the meaning of symbols, everyday behaviors, and the social forms required for articulation by a popular new product. Other team members including the product development designers use this research to draw their findings for the development of ideas of design that fit the intended users lived experience.
In this article, Wasson tries to imagine how the world is likely to look like when most vehicles on the road become autonomous. In other words, when humans and robots are the passengers and drivers respectively. In brief, the design anthropologists actively try to explore such questions by working for a variety of consulting firms as well as the automotive companies. Even though the autonomous vehicle's development is a problem of technology, it is also a cultural and social issue. The author argues that the success of the autonomous vehicles is primarily based on both the cultural behaviors and social life that embeds the current use of car and practices of driving.
This peer reviewed journal primarily explores the design anthropology using three case studies. All these case studies are in line with the class since they all explore the issues about anthropologists. In the article, the first case study regards the way of communication of the self-driving cars with the users of the road. Here, Wasson notes that Logan McLaughlin used an internship opportunity at the Nissan Research Center to conduct his thesis. The second case study is about Space in Space. This thesis research was carried out by Jo Aiken through an internship at the Johnson Space Center of NASA in summer 2013. In this article, the final case study talks about the Language Archives' User-Centered Design. According to the author, it is believed that more than seven thousand or so of the world languages are likely to disappear before this century's end.
My Thoughts
I think the three case studies the author used helps in illustrating various design anthropology application contexts. For example, it is evident US practices the first case more commonly when it comes to design anthropology than others. In the same way, the public sector or the government appears more common in countries such as Denmark. Specifically, Denmark has both an expansive welfare as well as the flourishing community of design anthropology approach for the improvement of the lives of citizens. Regarding the third context, there is a shift from the powerful and large institutions in both the public and private sectors to small. In most instances, such changes result from the under-resourced organizations in both non-profit and profit sectors.Again, I would like to encourage several design anthropologists to continue engaging in activities that benefit the society's sectors with few resources of finance. However, it is evident that the practitioners already face some financial constraints. For this reason, the design anthropologists need to engage in research without the aim of making profits. Furthermore, the community of design anthropologist would find it useful to try developing innovative models of finance that allows other people to better support projects. Here, the project proposals should aim at generating valuable cultural as well as social benefits without necessarily having to make profits. This field of design anthropologists has to have a continuous development.
Personal Reflection
This paper present autonomous vehicles as one of the examples of the several cutting-edge services and products on which the modern anthropologists work on. At this point, I agree with the author that the design anthropologists actively explore some of the vital questions that help individuals as they work for consulting firms and companies. Regarding all the three case studies discussed in the article, it is evident many other fields including anthropology produces comparative methods' intellectual results developed in the early centuries. Anthropologists have to work hand in hand with other diverse areas to enhance their success of their operations. Here, the relevant fields include linguistics, anatomy, as well as the etiology.Relatively, there is little methodical training that involves hands on, and substantive filed based practices despite the average increase of the ethnographic methods. Traditionally, the classroom instruction's context affords only limited prospects. Such prospects were for precluding immersion, field work, as well as the opportunity for students for learning how to build and maintain relationships and rapports, manage logistics of the filed, experiments with the techniques of collecting data, and the understanding of the entire experience of the fieldwork. Currently, the class relates to the article in the sense that they all provide more practical issues that the world faces.
Conclusion
This article expertly explores the field of design anthropology in a simpler way that can be related to class. Indeed, anthropology appears to be a worldwide discipline that involves social sciences, humanities, as well as the natural sciences. Overall, the author, Christian Wasson did a great job on the article.
Bibliography
Wasson, Christina. 2016. “Design Anthropology.” General Anthropology 23 (2): 1-11. doi:10.1111/gena.12013.
