If anthropology is about anything humans have ever done from the emergence of primates until now, design covers a territory that is equally vast, up to, and—according to some—even including the universe itself as a designed thing. This essay focuses on both anthropology and design with an eye toward highlighting examples where rigor and sophistication apply equally to the anthropological as it does to the designerly. Carving a manageable path means that some important areas, such as human-computer interaction (HCI), crip technoscience, and critiques of artificial intelligence (AI) are attenuated. Ethnographers who are not anthropologists are also largely absent. As design has moved in recent years into taking on social problems, and international development issues, anthropology has taken notice. Meanwhile, changes in technology and communication have made design an appealing site of exploration for anthropology. Much of what has emerged is what Murphy 2016 describes as ethnographies of design. Design provides inspiration, as well, in terms of research methods, ways of working, and knowledge production, that is, anthropology through design. If the first strong wave of design interest in anthropology resulted in “design anthropology,” more recent interest from anthropology in design has explored how studio culture might transform the lonely ethnographer into a team player; anthropological interest is growing, as well, in designerly modes of investigation that indulge in play, use of materials, and shortened research deployments. Tensions abound: even as anthropologists criticize designers for being bad ethnographers, they have a strong tendency to be design interlopers, ignoring or giving short shrift to designerly forms of rigor and ways of working. Still preferring to write and talk, anthropologists on the whole remain deeply undesignerly in their ability to manipulate tools, materials, and form with both creativity and skill. Design, for its part, has a stunning capacity to claim to solve problems while providing no convincing evidence that this is, indeed, the case. The debates are important. Equally important are examples that demonstrate the power and potential in synergizing the two disciplines. Wherever possible, such examples are highlighted. If debates are often centered on boundary-keeping, these experiments and examples point a way toward blurring of boundaries that promises to enrich thinking and making in exciting and durable ways, both for anthropology and for design.
Using metabolomics and artificial intelligence to explore the universe of the dark metabolome