Anthropology and Truehome

I finally finished my presentation for the panel I am joining at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco.

Our panel does is led by Dori Tunstall, Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Dori works in design antropology. While cramming the last few days for the event, I discovered that some of the things I do with my clients are techniques used by anthropologists. So that is a relief.

I have not had a course in anthropology since I was a freshman in college, so I was bit intimidated being the only non-anthropologist on the panel.

But I expect it will be just fine...except for one thing. Our panel's presentation is entitled somewhat formidably "Engaging in Transdisciplinary Praxis: Comparative Questions, Assumptions, Methods and Evidence of Anthropology's Disciplinary Interlocutors."

Ever notice how academics sometimes go out of their way to make it hard to understand what they are talking about?

Dori's panel is going to talk about how different disciplines approach similar problems in terms of theory, by using a method created by Alan Barnard in his book, History and Theory in Anthropology. Barnard's framework says theories can be broken down into four pieces: questions, assumption, methods, and evidence (QAME).

So I had to squeeze the theory that informs my Truehome process, which basically deals with questions like "what is a home" and "what is a human being" and "how do you design a home to fit a human being" into 25 slides.

Anyone who knows me will consider that a miracle. I am not known as "a man of few words."

Given there are a lot of other people out there that don't know what the heck I am talking about due to my innate verbosity, I will share it with you. You can find the link on Slideshare.net here.

Our panel starts at 8AM on Saturday the 22nd. I hope those anthropologists don't stay up too late partying. It's a lot more fun to play to a full house. In any case, see you guys in San Francisco!

Anthropology, Design and the Big Picture

I have recently been asked to participate on a panel that will be presenting before the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association next November.

I came by this honor as the result of an invitation from Dr. Elizabeth Tunstall of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Tunstall, known as "Dori" to those she works with, has a background in both anthropology and design.

Her blog is here if you want to learn more about design anthropology.

Dori's panel at the AAA meeting is exploring a subject she technically calls "Trans-disciplinary theory and praxis" of design. In plain language, that means our panel - which includes both academics and "real world" practitioners like me - will be exploring how a multi-disciplinary approach might uncover practical ways to inform the design of products, and in my case, of buildings.

If you are a reader of the posts on this blog, you will know I am way into that conversation.

The panel includes a NASA anthropologist (did you know those existed), a business consultant, an innovative designer, a socio-cultural anthropologist and a guy who runs an architecture firm and an Internet startup (me), so there will be a variety of perspectives presented.

The framework for the discussion about design theory - set up for us by Dori - follows Alan Barnard's QAME format. (See History and Theory in Anthropology)

Barnard defines theory as made up for four elements: questions, assumption, methods and evidence. (QAME)

I expect to learn a lot. Every day it seems I find this conversation about how design and human factors are being explored in new ways in another discipline. For someone like me who runs a Google Alert search on keywords related to this subject daily - and has for almost 18 months - it is clear to me there is a very large trend in this direction not only in academia, but in business.

It only makes sense that it would be a major focus in anthropology, given the perspective of ethnology, but until the last couple of months, I honestly had no idea.

I am sure this will cause me to brush up on my anthropology. It has been a long time since those two anthropology courses I had in college, and for the most part my attention as a freshman was on beer, ping pong and poker...which perhaps explains my misbegotten academic past.

Here's the abstract for my small portion of that discussion.

Truehome - A Transdisciplinary Approach
to Designing Homes as Fitting Eco-systems

Abstract

The eco-system humans call “home” is the most endemic environmental niche created by large organisms on the planet. Yet in academic architecture and the many academic disciplines that study behavior and environment - it is sadly neglected.

Consequences of this are:

Home improvement consistently tops all industry sectors in the U.S. as a source of consumer complaints. Architectural services remain beyond the means of a majority of the population, yet there is high demand for habitats that fit consumer needs, values and sensibilities. Correlations between ill-adapted living space, increased stressors, and health effects have been well established, but research in health care and corporate environments is seldom applied to the fragmented housing industry.

Design criteria self-reported by clients are notoriously inaccurate. To solve this problem, the presenter went on a decade long multi-disciplinary quest through fields as diverse as environmental and clinical psychology, human factors, physiology, neuroscience, ecology, personality research and evolutionary theory to find answers.

The result was a workshop with a “systems” approach to creating home environments that fit inhabitants. Results of anecdotal research in the field - and an emerging theory - will be discussed using the Barnard's QAME framework. Client case studies and images of projects designed will be displayed.

The process is currently being adapted to web-based software that combines surveying tools, a value-based recursive database, and high level analytics. The challenges of such an approach in an online medium – and how they are being faced – will also be discussed.