"Stories are omnipresent in our lives. “man lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others,” Sartre told us, “he sees everything that happens to him through them.” Indeed, we are encircled by stories. Yet the interpretive contribution of storytelling is anything but mundane. Unlike many stories that we meet elsewhere, those offered in interpretive settings are designed to inform and enlighten us-to do us good."
— Larry Beck and Ted Cable Interpretation for the 21st Century
Interpretation has its roots in the communication of traveler/gatherers who brought back artifacts. They shared the story of place and people through these artifacts (evidence), used as symbolic representations to help us to imagine culture, nature, histories and other unknowns.
In the same way that value was created by the interpretation and generated story of the objects, places and people it is possible never to have been the originator and gatherer of the materials, yet you are still able to construct meaning and narrative of these artefacts.
Stories that link knowledge insight and evidence require an author of meaning. This counts for dramaturgical storytelling through to factual documentary making in a documentary the meaning may be constructed via voice over in a drama it may be stitched together by the central character.
Detective stories are the ultimate tool for showing this approach and there are none better than Columbo. In the case of Columbo, he changes the way we view the evidence and the fine details to tell a compelling story. Columbo is designed to inform and enlighten, and in this case Columbo is the author of meaning. Though an example from fiction what is important in this example is the interrogation and subsequent interpretation of the data at hand.
In your case you will be the author of meaning. You are charged with informing and enlightening us through the data at hand.
Although we have not gone over ethics in relation to research, ethical issues play a part in conducting research and often determine appropriate forms of interaction, observation and behaviour as well as guiding principles of how to respect the identity and beliefs of participants.
Ensure voluntary participation (avoid the scenario of ‘captives’)
Avoidance of Harm (both physical and psychological)
Anonymity of Subjects (if requested)
The following sites provide a useful introduction to ethics in ethnographic projects
Please see
http://www.netnography.com/showthread.php?31-What-is-ethical-netnographic-research
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR15-5/kozinets.pdf
http://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/ERCj.htm
http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/277
http://qhr.sagepub.com/content/13/4/567.full.pdf
any questions, just let us know.
Hello roaming ethnographers, its important at this stage to think about what ethnography reveals and how ethnography’s focus allows us to identify patterns of behaviour, cultural codes, design practices, structures of meaning, ritualized objects and spaces and much much more (remember you are not to interpret what they mean yet, as that’s the next stage).
As a subject ‘memory and design’ necessarily involves our sense (both in personal and collective memory) and so we are reminded that the recent emergence of sensory ethnography provides a distinct focus on practices of cultural embodiment and sensory practices of remembering (or forgetting).
“A key concept here is sensorium – culturally and historically located arrays of the senses and sensibility” (Pearson and Shanks 2001 p.54).
This sensory aspect of memory is internal and external – we feel through our bodies, but it is our cognitive capacities that make sense of and order memories.
And so, objects and spaces are implicated in the sensory relation to memory, we know that artifacts are the traditional research objects of ethnography that can be classified and understood as totems of ritual, icons of identity and possessions of cultural significance. Spaces too can be researched according to a sensory logic and this spatial sensory research has a long history in the practice of ‘deep mapping’ (as discussed in lecture).
“Reflecting eighteenth century antiquarian approaches to place which included history, folklore, natural history and hearsay, the deep map attempts to record and represent the gain and patina of place through juxtapositions and interpretations of the historical and the contemporary, the political and the poetic, the factual and the fictional, the discursive and the sensual; the conflation of oral testimony, anthology, memoir, biography, natural history and everything you might ever want to say about a place” (Pearson and Shanks 2001 p.65).
"A designer should care bout ethnography because it can help produce more compelling, innovative design that really connects with users - in a way that creates delight."
— Darrel Rhea, design research consultant
One of the most common problems in research of the nature that you are about to undertake is that you make assumptions, which are based on your own limited knowledge. This perspective regularly creates a lethargic drop in activity in all aspects of research and design work. Over contemplation, a false sense of personal intelligence and knowledge mixed with the ultimate soul destroying process of procrastination often results in stinted incomplete and completely problematic research. Now is the time to realise that you don’t have all the answers and that your prior assumptions may well make you look foolish. The importance of developing your own skills in research lies in the value that it brings to your work. Being able to see opportunities in trends, patterns or, adversely, in unique traits and singular peculiarities deemed from observation and investigations is what differentiates you from the average CAD Monkey and represents you as an intelligent designer.
Take your chances and seek that which you do not know!
