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Theory - Design Anthropology

Niall

We've recently learnt about anthropology, the process of studying humanity's history of societies and culture (anthropology). An example includes the study of pre-modern, modern and post-modernist art movements - all three have very different values surrounding them regarding authority: a pre-modernist way of thinking is that God is the one and only outstanding authority, religion is first and foremost, no exceptions; a modernists belief is that science and logic is the authority, you're a fool to think otherwise; post-modernists, however (which applies to the last couple of decades), believe authority is found within the self or the shared group - power to the people, self-love and a healthy well-being above all.


Design anthropology is very similar to speculative design, in that both aim to tackle foreseeable problems with our society and design answers to them before the problem becomes a reality. Within D.A (design anthropology), we take what we know about anthropology and add in the design aspect. That is to say, giving structure and form to the theory. Studying a culture, identifying outlying problems for that culture and designing a solution for them - that is design anthropology.

 
 
 

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