1. Low Fidelity

The approach we are calling Low Fidelity espouses the virtues of selectively drawing from aspects of the work of a theoretician. For a certain idea or theory to be useful, to provide intellectual value, it is not necessary that the applied ethnographer is acutely aware of all the specifics, nuances and qualifiers that surround that idea or theory. Rather than being subservient to the wider context of a theoretician’s (or even an entire discipline’s) body of work, useful and interesting ideas are made to work for the ethnographer. If an aspect of an idea or theory helps us to elevate our insights into ideas with explanatory, predictive power then that is an inherently good thing. We feel no need to reject that data analysis if it turns out that the way we drew upon the academic’s work is not wholly aligned or even at all consistent with their entire corpus or original intentions. The relevance of theory and the value it adds should be rigorously examined. However, no academic due diligence of then checking that the conclusion drawn by the ethnographer is entirely consistent with the full spectrum and nuance of the ideas of the theoretician is required here.

This approach is grounded in our belief that ethnographic practice, in particular applied ethnography, is fundamentally creative, interpretive and dialectical. We always provide our clients with clarity on how to make a meaningful impact in the world. We may not always provide them with observations that are precisely consistent with the intellectual milieu of the day, because that likely may not be relevant. In a recent study we conducted, examining the role of trucks in North Americans’ daily lives, we drew upon Heidegger’s perspective on how it is that we humans are related to the world. It became apparent to us during fieldwork that trucks were incredibly valuable tools for their users that afforded them varied opportunities in the world. This prompted us to think about the relationship between humans and the objects that surround them in a deeper way, naturally leading us to consider what Heidegger had to say.

As part of his project of exploring the question of the meaning of Being, Heidegger puts forward a radical account of how we are directed towards other objects (e.g. fearing tigers, believing in science). He wanted to reject traditional philosophical accounts that had characterized this property of intentionality as belonging to mental states. For Heidegger, it is fundamental to our Being, as humans, that we are already with other beings. In his words, “intentionality belongs to the existence of Dasien [the Being of humans]” (1982, p.157). What was useful to us was that in building up to this argument Heidegger puts forward an account of two different ways in which we have a relationship with objects.

According to Heidegger there are two modes of engaging with the world. One is a detached and intellectual relationship with objects, consciously reflecting upon them (encountering them as present-at-hand). The other is an involved and practical engagement with objects, using them unthinkingly in our daily projects (encountering them as ready-to-hand). Contrary to popular belief, says Heidegger, the present-at-hand relationship is not the more natural, fundamental, truthful relationship humans have with the world around them. Famously, he takes as evidence of this our ability to pick up and use a tool without having first to consciously reflect upon the properties of the tool and what they afford us.

This gave us a valuable framework to draw inspiration from, when exploring users’ relationship with trucks. We saw that they assessed trucks before making a purchase according to how the truck can facilitate their projects (towing a boat) rather than the truck’s abstract capabilities (towing 1000 kg). Of course, assessing trucks is fundamentally a present-at-hand engagement but what mattered to us was that what the buyers were thinking about mimicked Heidegger’s division. They were clearly considering how they would take up a ready-to-hand relationship with their new tucks. Heidegger inspired a useful perspective for differentiating how users think about their trucks and how manufacturers think about their trucks. It was of no consequence to us that this differentiation was between two different styles of thinking about trucks (having a present-at-hand relationship) rather than between two Heideggarian modes of engagement with the trucks (intellectual reflection and practical interaction). In the end we had partially disregarded Heidegger’s point.

We also saw that the drivers appreciated the value of their trucks much more when they did not have access to the truck or when it broke down. The drivers realized and reflected upon all the meaningful possibilities the trucks had afforded them that had now been taken away from them. This paralleled Heidegger’s description of how when a tool breaks we often switch from practically engaging with the tool to reflectively analyzing the tool and the affordances it no longer gives us. As the drivers switched to present-at-hand reflecting on their broken down trucks, the trucks became more valuable to them because they were more conscious of all the things they could usually do with the truck. One of our research participants described a time she lamented not being able to pick up a discarded piece of furniture because she was in her car rather than her truck. From then on she always chose the truck over the car when she could. Heidegger has nothing to say about the perceived value of tools and how that may change in different modes of engagement with the world but this mattered little to us. A small assertion in his grand exploration of the meaning of Being had inspired us to consider something we may otherwise have overlooked and to develop an interesting insight into users’ relationship with their trucks.

We did not feel obligated to incorporate Heidegger’s entire body of work and its nuances as we applied one aspect of it. We simultaneously had a general understanding of and irreverence towards his full theory on Being. How different would our results have been if we had ignored Heidegger and theory all together? We are skeptical that we would have been able to deliver the same value for our client in recommending strategies for how the value proposition of trucks should be communicated to users.

2. Bricolage

The second approach we have found ourselves using, which we here call Bricolage, encourages the mixing and matching of theories: combining seemingly unrelated theories from disparate disciplines to make sense of the examined phenomenon. We find it is a perfectly valid and useful exercise in applied ethnography to splice together theories from different or even seemingly incompatible schools of thought and academic disciplines. We treat these potentially disparate sources as additional informants to our study rather than resigning ourselves to the confinement of one theoretical framework over another. We would not rely on our participant-observation with a single research participant we’ve met in the field to drive all of our insights and recommendations on a phenomenon of study, but rather we would draw out patterns across our research participants – and so too do we try to draw on the varied perspectives of different theories, rather than relying on solely one. We also recognize that different theories are more or less valuable for different tasks of the research project and for interpreting different aspects of the phenomenon to be studied.

In a recent study we conducted into life in long-term care in Northern Europe, North America, and Japan, we used theories from anthropology, economics, and cognitive science to both frame our study and analyze our data. Reflecting upon Actor Network Theory (Latour 2005) and its relevance for our study reminded us of the importance of paying attention to the role of non-human actors in a given setting. In framing our research we therefore decided that we study the full ecology of the long-term care institution. We would follow and examine not only all the people involved in the institution (e.g. residents, relatives, caregivers and administrators) but also patient handling equipment, bathing devices, cutlery, walking sticks, alarms, walkie-talkies and all other devices that regularly cropped up while exploring the institutions. We became fascinated with how all of these “actants” interacted and contributed to life, in the broadest sense, in these elderly care facilities. Actor Network Theory only provided initial inspiration but it was crucial in stimulating our thinking and giving greater depth to our approach.

While in the field and analyzing data we were influenced by Embodied Cognition (for a summary see Gallagher & Zahavi, 2008), the collection of theories that assert that aspects of our body, beyond our brain, play a constitutive or even causal role in our cognitive processing and experience of the world. This meant that we invited our participants to reflect upon their felt bodily experiences throughout their day and how this might perhaps influence their thought and emotion. We made sure to experience for ourselves the physical sensations that residents went through, of being lifted in mechanical devices and sleeping on strange medical mattresses. We also, perhaps controversially, asked some of the caregivers to experience what it was like being transferred between beds, wheelchairs and bathing devices. It was fascinating seeing them develop new perspectives on the experiences of the residents they cared for and realize the impact of the bodily experience upon their residents’ psychological wellbeing. We allowed Embodied Cognition to influence how we conducted our research. In doing so we may have ended up with an interpretation of our data that had a slightly different emphasis than we would have reached if we had set the theory aside.

When it came to analyzing our data upon return from the field we also drew on different models of efficiency from economics to help us articulate a trend that we were seeing in long-term care facilities. Technical efficiency is the measure of how much output is delivered from a system with a set amount of input resources. Naturally, more efficient systems deliver more output from the same amount of input. Looking at the long-term care facility we could see that most institutions were focused on maximizing their technical efficiency; trying to move as quickly as possible through all their various and challenging daily tasks with the resources available to them. However, there was a group of institutions that focused instead on maximizing what we observed to be their “Pareto efficiency.” When optimal Pareto efficiency is achieved it is impossible to make any one individual better off without making another worse off. Improving this kind of efficiency means reallocating resources to make individuals better off up until this process detracts from another’s wellbeing. If one resident needs special treatment or extra attention then they should get that up until this detracts from another resident’s or caregiver’s wellbeing. The goal is not to rush through daily tasks but rather to maximize the residents’ wellbeing up until this burdens the caregivers, detracting from their wellbeing (and thus the caregivers’ ability to deliver care to other patients as caringly). Ironically, what we saw was that those institutions that focused on Pareto efficiency managed to deliver greater technical efficiency as well. In brief, the focus on technical efficiency was detracting from the residents’ happiness, especially those with dementia, to the extent that they became more difficult to work with, prolonging care tasks and reducing efficiency.

While ANT, Embodied Cognition, and these two economic models of efficiency have little, if anything, to do and say with one another, they all proved to be hugely useful in our research when combined, and allowed us to deliver impactful and strategic recommendations on the future of long-term care. As long as pragmatic value is delivered for our clients we are happy to pick and mix in the candy store of available theories to help us interpret different aspects of a phenomenon.

Low Fidelity and Bricolage are by no means meant to be the only approaches for applying theory to applied ethnography. Rather, these are meant to launch further thinking about other approaches that prove useful and inspirational for ethnographers in industry. Further, in our experience pre-existing theory can be applied at many stages of the project. It can help to frame the project, to develop the insights in and out of the field, and to develop the recommendations. We will discuss theory’s role at each of these stages in the next section.

1. Theory Before the Field

Theory can be useful in framing a project’s research scope, approach, and methodologies prior to going into the field. A couple of years ago, in a project for an electronics manufacturer, we were asked to explore the future potential of camera devices to improve users’ everyday lives. Prior to going to the field we used pre-existing theories to help us think through our research approach. We learned from philosophy professor Taylor Carman, of Columbia University, about the biological and philosophical differences between a camera and an eye, and about the various interpretations of perception and seeing. We dedicated time to browsing through a range of theories across disciplines that dealt with these themes. We found the work of anthropologist Christina Grasseni (2007) on “skilled visions” to be particularly relevant and inspiring. Grasseni explores ways of seeing as a skill, how vision is cultural, varied, and something learned through experience and apprenticeship.

Inspired by this theory in particular, we decided to frame our research around the concept of “expert seeing,” and we met with people across various professions – from a race care driver to an astronomer to a golfer – who use their vision in unique ways. We designed our research so that during our participant-observation with each expert, we asked them to demonstrate their “skilled vision” in their line of work, then asked them to apply that skill in a completely different context. We also asked each expert to try to teach us their “skilled vision,” and we had them use a camera to try to translate their human skill into the functions of a machine, abstractly by comparing themselves to a camera and practically by actually taking photographs.

The experimental and interactive methodologies of our fieldwork stemmed directly from applying pre-existing theory to our thinking at the start of the project. Our approach ultimately helped us to think of creative new use cases for advanced camera technology. Oftentimes technology projects ask us to provide insight not into people’s lives today, but into what people’s lives might be like in the future, and this can lead to speculative recommendations, solving for problems that do not exist, and developing new technologies and offerings in a vacuum far removed from the contexts in which they will be used and experienced. Our theory-inspired research approach of exploring vision outside the known contexts of the average device user was helpful in keeping us grounded in real world applications even as we were asked to develop a perspective on the future.

2. Theory During and After the Field

Theory can help lend explanatory power to insights development during and after fieldwork. In a project for an appliances manufacturer, we set out to study what was driving consumers’ increased investments in their laundry rooms. In north Texas and the New York tri-state area, we observed how people did their laundry and talked about their homes, supplemented by interviews with developers, architects, and designers. What we found was an increase in open-plan design. Consumers wanted to take down walls and barriers, increasing flow between spaces, and creating more lines of vision across rooms. Concurrently, we observed an increase in investment in not only laundry spaces but also master bedroom suites and other more “private” spaces like pantries and garages.

While in the field, we could see that as homes were becoming more public and accessible to visitors, people were investing more in their private spaces. But we needed a theory to help explain why the value of these kinds of spaces were linked to one another, and we found it in Erving Goffman’s theory of frontstage and backstage, outlined in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). Goffman studied how the individual seeks to manage impressions in social interactions, framing these interactions as theatrical encounters. Goffman named the space in which we give our public performances the front region, and the place where we knowingly contradict that performance the back region. He argued that performances in the front region depended on the existence of the back region, since the respite and privacy the latter offered were necessary to the success of the performance in the former.

By using this theory to help interpret our data during and shortly after fieldwork, we could see why private spaces were becoming more important to our research participants. As their frontstage expanded – as they maintained their performance in more parts of the house – they consequently needed to invest more in the backstage, the private places where they could relax and let their guard down: places like master bedroom suites, garages, and crucially, laundry rooms. Why were laundry rooms back region? Due to their association with dirty clothing, and their practical use as a convenient area to store everything from toiletries to cleaning supplies, they were a place where our respondents could give up the performance of a presentable, hospitable space. There was, in fact, a deep psychological value in having a good laundry room. Based on our analysis, we saw potential for an ecology of washing machines that could be credibly located in many back regions: for example one type of washing machine in the bathroom, and another type of washing machine in the garage. Moreover, we predicted that the contemporary movement towards putting washing machines in the kitchens was not going to last; that this fad would die out since kitchens, as “front region” rooms, were not appropriate places for laundry.

3. Theory and Delivering Recommendations

Finally, theory can be invaluable in translating insights from the field into powerful recommendations for clients. Several years ago, a big American museum asked us to help them improve their membership program. The museum had a large number of visitors, and high interest, but struggled to convert visitors to members, particularly at high levels of giving. To identify what would incentivize people to become members, we decided to study the phenomenon of membership and belonging among people who engaged in artistic culture in the area.