The future is here. Or so it has often been proclaimed by futurologists, scientists and engineers, as the fruits of science labs and cutting-edge technological gadgets are showcased, promising to make our lives more productive and more enjoyable. The public facade of design shows grand visions of future possibilities, yet every imperfect Now is also the concrete instantiation of what was once a vision of a bright future. Envisioned futures, as Bell and Dourish (2007) remind us, tend to differ radically from how they eventually unfold in the situatedness of people's lives. The future is not an empty space awaiting projected visions from an incomplete present; neither is it a predefined destination that we can simply foresee and arrive at in due time (Yelavich and Adams 2014; Mazé, this volume). Rather than seeing the future as a separate space or time, design anthropologists in this book engage with the future as a multiplicity of ideas, critiques and potentialities that are embedded in the narratives, objects and practices of our daily lives. In this sense, multiple, often conflicting, futures are always already here as part of a continuously unfolding present and past.Design Anthropological Futures explores futures and future-making from a design anthropological perspective. Here futures are not understood as striking visions created and implemented by scientists or designers, but rather as collaborative explorations of situated possibilities, formations and actions at the intersection of design and everyday life. The term futures relates both to the theoretical and practical engagement of design anthropology with futures and future-making as a subject -futures in design anthropology -and to the exploration of possible future directions for the discipline itself through such engagements -futures of design anthropology. Through various design anthropological investigations at specific sites -from care homes to corporate organizations, eco-homes to museums, Rio de Janeiro to Italy -this book critically addresses a number of dominant perspectives on, and approaches to, futures, including implied assumptions of singularity, linearity, locality and novelty. In the following we briefly elaborate on these themes and propose alternative perspectives for a design anthropological approach to futures.First, 'The future' is often referred to in the singular, using the definite article to 9781474280624_txt_print.indd 1 20/05/2016 16:16imply that there is only one version. Assuming eventual singularity of 'the future', futurologists, for example, tend to look at patterns of historical continuation and change, seeking to determine the probability of distinct future events. Although the established likelihood of a particular future does not rule out the realization of alternatives, it does foreground and authorize one dominant version of the future over alternative, subaltern ones (Mazé, this volume; Drazin, this volume). This idea of a singular future has political implications. As pointed out by Watts, 'telling stories of the...

This paper explores challenges and potentials for innovation and co‐creation within an increasingly interconnected and digitalized world, and its affect on ethnographic practices within the field of design and business development. Our discussion is based on material from an interdisciplinary research and design project with a leading computer game developer, exploring opportunities of involving online gaming communities in innovation processes and product development. Based on our case, we argue that in a world with increasingly blurred boundaries between physical, digital and hybrid contexts, as well as design, production and use, we might need to rethink the role of ethnography within user centred design and business development. Here the challenge is less about “getting closer” to user needs and real‐life contexts, through familiarization, mediation, and facilitation, and more about creating a critical theoretically informed distance from which to perceive and reflect upon complex interconnections between people, technology, business and design, as well as our roles as researchers and designers within these.

This paper presents a design anthropological study with User Experience design departments from five large companies in Denmark, ranging from manufacturers of medical equipment through toys to control systems for industrial infrastructures We explore the challenges they face as products, services, and user research are increasingly connected. Our research shows that current methods, development processes, and organizational structures do not sufficiently support User Experience design teams in dealing with emerging design and organizational challenges that follow from increased digitalization. As a result, UX designers are struggling to anticipate the future of product interaction, user data, and their organizational role. In this paper, we explore how playing with theoretical concepts and introducing a new vocabulary may facilitate fundamental shifts in perspective necessary to instigate change. We deploy ‘theory cards’ in an experiment with one of the companies to see if theories might serve as instruments for seeing field material and design problems in ways more supportive for future design endeavours.

In this workshop we explore the opportunities of ethnography and design anthropology in Participatory Design (PD) as an approach to design in an increasingly global and digital world. Traditionally, ethnography has been used in PD to research reallife contexts and challenges, and as ways to involve people in defining userneeds and design opportunities. As the boundaries between physical, digital and hybrid spaces and experiences become increasingly blurred, so do conventional distinctions between research and design. This halfday workshop invites participants to discuss and explore opportunities of using design anthropology as a holistic and critical approach to societal challenges, and a way for anthropologists and designers to engage in design that extends beyond the empirical.

No abstract