temporality

Perspectives

Ethnography, Ethics & Time

Posted by  • 

Japanese panel painting
  "Ethnographers flit forwards and backwards all the time as we create research objectives, wonder whether what we learnt yesterday is really the full story, and create and debate theories." Ethnographers are not time travelers, but we may be close. Our frameworks and methodologies develop a nuanced understanding of how relationships, processes, and objects evolve over time. This 'temporal expertise' is key to enacting our ethical responsibility to the past and future, says anthropologist Dr. Oliver Pattenden, who will explore these themes in his upcoming EPIC Talk on April 25, 2023: From Complex Histories to Possible Futures: Ethical Practice Across Time. In this Q&A, he discusses the intersection of ethnography, ethics, and time; how to encourage organizations to focus on ethics as a core component of decision-making, and what he's learned from his three-year-old son lately. We hope you enjoy this rich conversation! When people think about ethics, time probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. What inspired...

Intelligences

Anticipatory Ethnography: Design Fiction as an Input to Design Ethnography

Posted by  • 0 Comments

JOSEPH LINDLEY DHRUV SHARMA ROBERT POTTS [s2If is_user_logged_in()]Download PDF[/s2If][s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] Here we consider design ethnography, and design fiction. We cast these two approaches, and the design endeavor itself, as forward-looking processes. Exploring the means by which design ethnography and design fiction derive their value reveals the potential for a mutually beneficial symbiosis. Our thesis argues that design ethnography can provide design fiction with the methods required to operationalize the practice in industry contexts. Meanwhile design fiction can provide design ethnographers a novel way of extending the temporal scope of the practice, thus deriving actionable insights that are applicable further into the future. [s2If current_user_is(subscriber)] Become a member to access video. Learn More. [/s2If][s2If !is_user_logged_in()] Free Article: Please sign in or create a free account to access the leading collection of peer-reviewed work on ethnographic practice.To...

Intelligences

The Pop-up Ethnographer: Roles of the Researcher in Temporary Spaces

Posted by  • 0 Comments

DEBORAH MAXWELL, MEL WOODS and SUZANNE PRIOR [s2If is_user_logged_in()]Download PDF[/s2If] As our lived reality becomes ever more mobile and networked, society and business has adopted cultures and practices to embrace the creation of temporary interstitial ‘pop-up’ environments. These spaces, which can take the form of work environments (e.g. the UK Innovation Charity Nesta’s ‘Productive Coffee Breaks’), training (e.g. workshops), knowledge exchange (e.g. sandpits, culture hacks), and social environments (e.g. festivals), require us to examine the role of the temporal ethnographer. Our paper explores the changing and challenging roles that researchers must adopt and move between (from organizer, facilitator, participant, observer, and analyst) by examining four empirical case studies in a range of research contexts. Furthermore, we consider how short-term studies in such temporary, ‘pop-up’ environments can contribute to and be enriched by ethnographic practices.[s2If !is_user_logged_in()] Sign in or create a free account...

Intelligences

If These Walls Could Talk: The Mental Life of the Built Environment

Posted by  • 0 Comments

NEAL H. PATEL [s2If is_user_logged_in()]Download PDF[/s2If] Renewing Henri Lefebvre’s unfinished and overlooked science of ‘rhythmanalysis,’ I propose physical space becomes meaningful to us to the extent that it provides refuge from the ravages of time—specifically, the intersecting rhythms of everyday life. In other words, we develop affinity with space based upon its restorative function. Conflict between overlapping rhythms is mentally exhausting. There are cognitive costs associated with the work day’s intrusion upon our sleep cycle, or extension into our evening leisure time. I will contend that we love our local bars, coffee shops, and hangouts because they are intermediary spaces, situated between cycles, thereby easing our transition and restoring our mental energy. I conclude with some examples of these dynamics at play in the urban life surrounding two peculiar Polish sausage stands on South Side of Chicago.[s2If !is_user_logged_in()] Sign in or create a free account to access this content and over 400 articles—the...

Intelligences

Ethnographic Temporality: Using Time-Based Data in Product Renewal

Posted by  • 0 Comments

SAM LADNER [s2If is_user_logged_in()]Download PDF[/s2If] Corporate ethnography is often targeted at renewing the life of a product. Getting customers to start using a product again – or start using it in the first place – entails a deep understanding of the rhythm of everyday life. When do customers begin to use this product? When do they stop? What else is going on during this time? It is tempting to rely on the automatically collected time-data from “big data” analytics to answer this question. But ethnography offers a unique cultural lens to understanding the temporal aspects of the product lifecycle. In this paper, I provide examples of technological products that demonstrate how ethnographic insight offers deeper insight about the temporal aspects of products. I introduce the concept of the “timescape” and its three dimensions of time, and explain where some products are temporally successful and others temporally fail. I explain in the final portion of this paper, I outline ways in which digital time-data should complement...

Intelligences

Numbers Have Qualities Too: Experiences with Ethno-Mining

Posted by  • 3 Comments

KEN ANDERSON, DAWN NAFUS, TYE RATTENBURY and RYAN AIPPERSPACH [s2If is_user_logged_in()]Download PDF[/s2If] Field research holds a special place for those who conduct it. It is also our anchor for relevance in the corporation. This paper explores the authors’ experiences with “ethno-mining”, a way of joining data base mining and ethnography. Since 2004 we have been using a variety of sensing and behavioral tracking technologies in conducting field research. We will present the main characteristics of doing ethno-mining, compare ethno-mining to other field research technologies, highlight the strengths of ethno-mining in co-creating data with participants and conclude by noting how the representations have opened new conversations and discourses inside the corporation. In this way, these new opportunities to collect sometimes counterintuitive data contributes to the research itself as well as the ongoing process of constructing oneself as relevant.[s2If !is_user_logged_in()] Sign in or create a free account to access this content...