Title: Social science, design and everyday life: refiguring showering through anthropological ethnography

Authors: Sarah Pink; Kerstin Leder Mackley

Addresses: Design Research Institute and School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia ' Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, LE11 3TU, UK

Abstract: In this article, we examine the relationship between social science theory, methodology and design through a comparison of two increasingly popular paradigms. We investigate how social practice theory and phenomenological anthropology frame approaches to social research and co-design. Through the example of design research related to showering, we compare applications of sociological theory with a visual-sensory anthropological ethnography approach. We propose that focusing away from the practice of showering towards the elements of the everyday from which uses of showering are emergent and contingent offers a closer understanding of where to situate co-design interventions.

Keywords: social practice theory; social science theory; improvisation; everyday life; visual-sensory ethnography; design anthropology; showering; co-design.

DOI: 10.1504/JDR.2015.071454

Journal of Design Research, 2015 Vol.13 No.3, pp.278 - 292

Received: 19 Jan 2014
Accepted: 09 Oct 2014

Published online: 28 Aug 2015 *

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