Abstract
Design needs language and text so that it can be negotiated intersubjectively and become capable of connection to other academic disciplines. Texts, however, do not objectively reflect realities but rather bring them forth through their own medium: academic, journalistic, essayistic, and literary texts afford very particular ways of viewing the world. Scientific truths are produced narratively as well—at least from the constructivist perspective. This is particularly the case for the texts of design ethnography, in which a story-telling quality is inherent and which may take on subjectivist perspectives. These aspects of design ethnography must be consciously reflected in the process.
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The French author Raymond Queneau, like Georges Perec a representative of the “OuLiPo” movement, published a little book in the 1960s called Exercises in Style (2012). In it, he tells a story about seeing a man on a bus in Paris who is annoyed because he is repeatedly jostled by his neighbor. Two hours later, the same man is standing on a city square where a colleague points out to him that he needs to have a button sewn onto his coat. The story is called “Notation” (2012, p. 3). It is insignificant and trivial. The book then offers 98 more versions of “the same” story, but told in a variety of narrative forms. Queneau tells the story as “Retrograde,” “Dream,” “Negativism,” “Philosophic,” “Biased,” etc. What is the author trying to tell us with all this? It is not one story, told in 99 variations, but rather 99 stories. With each new version, the sentences produce a different reality. It is not possible to tell the story in a “neutral” form. Of course, one can attempt it—only then this version would take its place next to the others as “Neutral.” In that respect, there is no such thing as a linguistic description of an objective reality: “Through his choice of words and method of organization, a writer presents a version of the world. As a selective and creative activity, writing always functions more as a filter than a mirror reflecting the ‘reality’ of events” (Emerson et al. 1995, p. 66).
A certain text creates a certain reality. We intuitively realize whether we are reading a scientific, essayistic, journalistic, or literary text—and have corresponding expectations. That we realize this is not only due to the text itself, but is already guided by the medium: We have different expectations when we are holding an anthropological journal or a literary novel in our hands. We read the New York Times differently than a tabloid, a blog differently than an SMS. Haptic, creative, typographic, visual, linguistic, and contextual factors play a role in this framing.
Epistemological questions of this kind have been addressed by anthropology in the “writing culture” debate. Ethnographic accounts, it is argued, do not represent reality but rather bring it forth (Clifford and Marcus 1986; Geertz 1988; van Maanen 1995). Accordingly, ethnographic findings are not objective, but rather narratively produced and partial (Adler and Adler 2012; Clifford 1986, p. 7; Emerson et al. 1995, p. 3). They are Tales of the Field (van Maanen 2011). Language objectifies an observed, fluid situation that, at the time of the description, is irreversibly in the past. What is objectified is not observed reality, but only the text. When we write texts, we are relying on conventions. We can play with these conventions—partially break them, the way the OuLiPo writers attempt—but we cannot eliminate them entirely because language itself is a convention. How findings are linguistically “told” depends on the context of the project and the methodological approaches with which the research was conducted and documented. If there was video produced in the field, it can be made into an ethnographic documentary film. The same film material can be analyzed linguistically, through which it is then transferred into another form. Or sketches, for instance, could be employed either for documentation or as a memory aid, but they could also be a form in which to convey insights. The great extent to which transmission formats can vary is exemplified by the Japanese artist Tatsuo Inagaki, who conducted interviews in an iterative process with people from troubled neighborhoods in Mexico City and Antalya, Turkey and then turned the results into museum installations that were exhibited to the public, with whom he then engaged in dialog. He subsequently conducted workshops and readings with the people in local contexts. The results were then put together in documentaries (Inagaki 2010, p. 76 ff.).
What form of transmission is chosen depends on the goals of the project and the context. In the case of a course of study at an art college, the context is usually that a written thesis must be produced to graduate. This may sometimes be criticized as “academicization,” but engagement with epistemological and methodological questions is what makes design capable of interdisciplinary connection, enabling it to have greater impact on other disciplines. This is only possible through language. Even the interpretation of an image becomes communicable and intersubjectively accessible only after it is linguistically negotiated (Poferl and Keller 2017, p. 314). It is an illusion to believe that design can do without language. It is precisely the interdisciplinary position of design that requires it to enable the sort of communicative connections that are only possible through language.
In contrast to ethnography in the social sciences, the way in which findings are ultimately worked up in the context of design is more variable and depends largely on the goals of the research project: “[…] there is no one ‘natural’ or ‘correct’ way to write about what one observes” (Emerson et al. 1995, p. 5). When a student conducts ethnographic research, the notes serve as the basis for an ethnographic report that is integrated into a theoretical thesis. Such a thesis must meet formal requirements that differ from the research documentation. The documentation reflects the research process more or less chronologically. In the thesis, however, a new structure is created that follows an intrinsic logic specific to the research (Cranz 2016, p. 113 ff.).
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Müller, F. (2021). Representation and Reporting. In: Design Ethnography. SpringerBriefs in Anthropology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60396-0_7
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