Methodological reflections between the social sciences and design research

Seminar

Time: 26 April, 2013, 09.00 – 16.00
Location: AHO Conference Centre (entrance on Maridalsveien)

Seminar organized by the AHO PhD School in collaboration with the Centre for Design Research

This one-day seminar aims to explore how design and the social sciences can draw on each other’s theoretical and methodological perspectives to produce novel insights on the contemporary social world.

This seminar will address a number of questions such as: How might design and the social sciences draw on each other’s methodological practices? How might design research benefit from qualitative methods in the social sciences with regards to creating innovative ways of conducting and conveying research? How might the social science qualitative inquiry draw from design to move from not just investigating the social world but engaging with it?

Our invited guests for this event are Nina Wakeford and Celia Lury. Nina Wakeford is the Director of INCITE (Incubator for critical inquiry into technology & ethnography) at the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. Celia Lury is Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick.

In addition to the international guests, the seminar will also bring together a group of Oslo-based scholars and practitioners from design and the social sciences drawn from fields such as interaction design, service design, media studies, science and technology studies, and sociology. The seminar will be structured along dialogic lines as a collaborative forum for co-producing knowledge across difference. Thus participants will be invited to engage in dialogue on the basis of their own research experiences and theoretical perspectives.

Programme

Welcome

0945: Henry Mainsah & Andrew Morrison (AHO)

Session 1 – Setting stages

Chair: Henry Mainsah

1000: Nina Wakeford – Connecting social science methods and design inquiry

1030: Andrew Morrison – Making methods matter

Session 2 – Contexts of knowing

Chair: Andrew Morrison

1100: Sisse Finken – Ethnographic inquiries into digital artefacts and use as outcome of negotiations

1130: Celia Lury – Inventive methods

1200 LUNCH

Session 3 – In the thick of …

Chair: Andrew Morrison

1300: Henry Mainsah – From ethnographies of identity to design situations

1330: Jørn Knutsen & Einar Martinussen – Adventures in GPS

1400 COFFEE

Session 4 – Debate with Designer-Researchers

Chair: Henry Mainsah

1430: Sigrun Lurås, Lise Hansen, Øivind Raise

Closing reflections

1500:

METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS BETWEEN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES AND DESIGN RESEARCH

Seminar organized by the AHO PhD School in collaboration with the Centre for Design Research

Date: 26 April 2013

Time: 0945 – 1530

Venue: AHO Conference Centre (entrance on Maridalsveien)

Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO)

Programme

Welcome

0945: Henry Mainsah & Andrew Morrison (AHO)

Session 1 – Setting stages

Chair: Henry Mainsah

1000: Nina Wakeford – Connecting social science methods and design inquiry

1030: Andrew Morrison – Making methods matter

Session 2 – Contexts of knowing

Chair: Andrew Morrison

1100: Sisse Finken – Ethnographic inquiries into digital artefacts and use as outcome of negotiations

1130: Celia Lury – Inventive methods

1200 LUNCH

Session 3 – In the thick of …

Chair: Andrew Morrison

1300: Henry Mainsah – From ethnographies of identity to design situations

1330: Jørn Knutsen & Einar Martinussen – Adventures in GPS

1400 COFFEE

Session 4 – Debate with Designer-Researchers

Chair: Henry Mainsah

1430: Sigrun Lurås, Lise Hansen, Øivind Røise

Closing reflections

1500:

Speaker biographies

Nina Wakeford is the Director of INCITE (Incubator for critical inquiry into technology & ethnography) in the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey. She is a Reader in Sociology and an ESRC Research Fellow 2007-2010 at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her previous research projects include studies of Internet cafes, women’s discussions lists and the use of ethnography by new technology designers. Amongst her publications are papers on virtual methodologies, queer identities, digital communities and public Internet access provision. Along with colleagues at INCITE she is interested in the ways in which collaborations can be forged between ethnographers and those from other disciplines, such as engineering and computer science. She is particularly concerned with the ways in which critical social and cultural theory can play a part in the design process, including the challenges that feminist and queer theories pose to collaborative projects between designers and sociologists, as well as technology studies.

Celia Lury is Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick. Her interest in interdisciplinary methodologies is concerned with the ways in which ‘live’ methods enact social worlds. Recent publications include ‘ What is the empirical?’, a Special Issue of European Journal of Social Theory (co-edited with Lisa Adkins), Inventive Methods, (co-edited with Nina Wakeford, Routledge, 2012), and Measure and Value (co-edited with Lisa Adkins, Blackwell, 2012). On a general level, her research interests are focused on the sociology of culture and feminist theory. She explores contemporary developments in the culture industry with a special focus on changing forms. She has carried out a series of empirical research projects, exploring contemporary developments in the culture industry with a special focus on changing cultural forms, drawing on part of what has been called a “topological turn” in cultural theory.

Andrew Morrison is Professor of Interdisciplinary Design and leader of the Centre for Design Research at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO). As centre leader, Andrew takes part in and leads a range of design research projects. These cover Communication Design, dynamic interfaces and social media; RFID, mediation and activity; Service Design and innovation in leadership; electronic arts installation; narrative and mobile media; practice-based research/research by design; online research mediation and design research methods. Andrew also focuses on design writing, fiction and criticism. He has been central to the on-going redesign and teaching in the last two intakes of the PhD school at AHO. He is currently supervisor for 8 PhD students at AHO and a member of the PhD Board. He was paper co-chair for Nordes 09, Engaging Artefacts, 3rd Nordic Design Research Conference (www.nordes.org). He has published widely in journals, books and online and has a special research interest in online research mediation. He has edited and co-edited several collections of papers and chapters related to design and new media.

Henry Mainsah is a researcher at the Centre for Design Research at AHO and currently the coordinator of the AHO PhD school. His academic background is from media nd cultural studies. His research has focused on he has studied the way young people use social media in their everyday lives. Buzzwords in his research world include: social media, identity, design, youth, cultural studies, learning, ethnography, race, gender, class, and ethnicity. He also lectures on subjects such as qualitative research methods, youth culture, media theory, and cultural identities. His current research focuses on how social media design can be used to change the way young people participate in civic life. He is part of to the delTA research project on social media design for youth civic engagement, and DesDoc project, on doctoral education in design, both at the Centre for Design Research at AHO.

Sisse Finken is a senior researcher at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. She is engaged both theoretically and empirically in techno/social-anthropological research, and her work is concerned with understanding relationships between practices of design and use — between the technological and the social. Her research is influenced by work in the traditions of anthropology of technology, computer supported cooperative work, participatory design, and science and technology studies, and as such I both draw on and consistently question such methodological frames. Currently she is the project leader of Case C ‘When health care services move to the home’ (in the figure of the “smart home”). She is also part of the project Autonomy and Automation in an information society for all funded by The Research Council of Norway (VERDIKT) for a four-year period.

Jørn Knutsen is a PhD candidate in Design at AHO. Jørn is an interaction design and researcher. He his currently a research fellow in the YOUrban project, working on networked cities, social media and design. His work includes hybrid products, visualisations of technology, films, interactive products and exhibitions, as well as teaching, talks and publications. Earlier projects have incorporated design of urban games, social media and technology for everyday use and social environments. Alongside the research at AHO he is part of the design studio Voy in Oslo doing design consultancy and developing new products of their own.

Einar Martinussen is a PhD candidate in Design at the Institute for Design at AHO. Einar Sneve Martinussen is an interaction designer and researcher working with technology, cities and everyday life. Martinussen is taking a doctorate at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design as a part of the research project YOUrban on networked cities, social media and design. His work includes visualisations of technology, films, interactive products and exhibitions, as well as talks and publications. Einar is educated as an interaction designer at AHO, but also has a background from architecture, music and technology. Einar teaches various areas of interaction design at AHO and is a part of the design studio Voy.

Sigrun Lurås is a PhD candidate in Design at the Institute for Design at AHO. Sigrun is an interaction designer with a special interest in designing for high-risk environments. In her PhD research, Sigrun focuses on how one can use Systems Oriented Design when designing for sensemaking in dynamic environments where complex operations are carried out. Sigrun has an M.Sc. in Industrial Design Engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2005. Before she started on her PhD at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design in September 2011, she worked as an interaction designer at Halogen and an interaction designer and human factors specialist at DNV.

Lise Hansen is a PhD candidate in Design at the Institute for Design at AHO. She is a trained graphic designer from Central Saint Martins and Royal College of Arts, London. She was an Associate Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins 2000-2005 where she ran several collaborative projects with other art schools, such as ECAL. She also run her own design company in London for many years, working with architects and developers involved with urban regeneration in London such as Stratford City, Chelsfield and Stanhope, Aarup and Allford Hall Monaghan Morris etc. She worked with cultural institutions such as British Film Institute, Tate Britain, Goldsmiths College of Art and Westminster Academy and more. Lise is currently exploring interaction, communication and movement by mingling choreography and code to explore how new interactions may be designed. She writes (sporadically) about her research project on the blog Kinetically.

Øivind Røise is a PhD candidate in Design at the Institute for Design at AHO. He is currently studying how professional designers can support innovation processes in he PhD-project [designing innovation]. He is also engaged in the D·side research project that explores how design support interdisciplinary environments in med-tech industries. Røise has educational background from design, with a Master of Industrial design, from AHO. He is also educated in business management, with a Master of Business and Economics from the Norwegian School of Management, BI. Røise has previously studied design ability in Norwegian companies that do not have in-house design capacity. Here the scope was to identify to what extent the companies were able to adapt design knowledge and input from design consultancies.

Methodological reflections between the social sciences and design research

Seminar

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