Thing Ethnography: Doing Design Research with Non-Humans

Elisa Giaccardi; Nazli Cila; Chris Speed; Melissa Caldwell

doi:10.1145/2901790.2901905

Thing Ethnography: Doing Design Research with Non-Humans

Elisa Giaccardi, Nazli Cila, Chris Speed, Melissa Caldwell

Human Information Communication Design

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

87 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Drawing from a study of everyday home practices from a material objects' perspective, this paper examines the potential that a thing ethnography holds for both design and anthropology. In doing so, the paper challenges anthropocentric assumptions about the world, and opens up ways of understanding relationships among people, objects and use practices that would be difficult to elicit through traditional observations and interviews alone.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	DIS'16
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
Place of Publication	New York, NY
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages	377-387
Number of pages	11
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4503-4031-1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901905
Publication status	Published - 2016
Event	DIS'16 The 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems - Brisbane, Australia Duration: 4 Jun 2016 → 8 Jun 2016

Conference

Conference	DIS'16 The 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
Country/Territory	Australia
City	Brisbane
Period	4/06/16 → 8/06/16

Keywords

Data worlds
Internet of things
Non-anthropocentrism
Thing ethnography
Thing perspective
Things as co-ethnographers
Use practices

Access to Document

10.1145/2901790.2901905

Cite this

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title = "Thing Ethnography: Doing Design Research with Non-Humans",

abstract = "Drawing from a study of everyday home practices from a material objects' perspective, this paper examines the potential that a thing ethnography holds for both design and anthropology. In doing so, the paper challenges anthropocentric assumptions about the world, and opens up ways of understanding relationships among people, objects and use practices that would be difficult to elicit through traditional observations and interviews alone.",

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author = "Elisa Giaccardi and Nazli Cila and Chris Speed and Melissa Caldwell",

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pages = "377--387",

booktitle = "DIS'16",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",

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Giaccardi, E , Cila, N, Speed, C & Caldwell, M 2016, Thing Ethnography: Doing Design Research with Non-Humans. in DIS'16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, NY, pp. 377-387, DIS'16 The 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems , Brisbane, Australia, 4/06/16. https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901905

Thing Ethnography: Doing Design Research with Non-Humans. / Giaccardi, Elisa ; Cila, Nazli; Speed, Chris et al.
DIS'16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2016. p. 377-387.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

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KW - Non-anthropocentrism

KW - Thing ethnography

KW - Thing perspective

KW - Things as co-ethnographers

KW - Use practices

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Thing Ethnography: Doing Design Research with Non-Humans

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