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Design Anthropology: Software development by participatory observation

Published on October 4, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology, fieldwork / methods, technology, websites

Anne Lau Revil’s homepage

Software design is usually undertaken by IT specialists, who have a technical training. Few have a sociocultural background. In this paper I will show several examples of software design as sociocultural adjustments, and more specifically how anthropologists may contribute.

Finally, I will discuss how the value of the anthropological contribution to the development of software systems may be improved through the development of more flexible methods of communicating the research to both the academic world and the user community. >> continue (pdf, 14 pages) or go to Anne Lau Revil’s homepageJoel Spolsky: Over the next decade, I expect that software companies will hire people trained as anthropologists and ethnographers to work on social interface design (found via Conversations with Dina – Dina Mehta’s Blog)

UPDATE Links updated with copy from the Internet Archive. The website was removed.

Anne Lau Revil's homepage

“Netnography,” – faster and cheaper ethnography on the Internet

Published on September 15, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, cyberanthropology, fieldwork / methods, internet, technology

Karen Lee, University of Texas at Austin

“Netnography,” coined from ‘ethnography on the Internet,’ is an emerging qualitative research methodology adapting ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and communities constructed through the Internet. It uses information that is publicly available in online forums to identify and understand the needs and decision influences of relevant online consumer groups. Compared with traditional and market-oriented ethnography, netnography is far less time consuming and elaborate >> continue

Karen Lee, University of Texas at Austin

"Netnography," coined from 'ethnography on the Internet,' is an emerging qualitative research methodology adapting ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and communities constructed through the Internet. It uses information that is publicly…

The complex relationship between culture and technology

Published on August 23, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, indigenous people / minorities, internet, technology

Telepolis

During the 4th conference on “Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication”, Internet researchers from about 30 countries focused on the differences, the potential conflicts and cultural discrepancies in cyberspace understood as a “urban metropolis”.

A special focus was laid on the investigation of the ICT access and usage by indigenous peoples. The ritual collective artwork of Australian aborigines seems to be endangered by a second expropriation in the anonymous global data worlds. On the other hand, a multi-lingual Internet could help to rescue small languages at the edge of extinction to survive in a kind of virtual reservoir.

Especially exciting were those presentations paying attention to alternative forms of Internet usage by the seemingly unprivileged and marginalized cultures. Thus the escape from spatially closed Internet-environments in South America or India underlined the potential creativity of these non-conventional solutions (Rodrigues). >>continue

(via ethno::log)

Telepolis

During the 4th conference on "Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication", Internet researchers from about 30 countries focused on the differences, the potential conflicts and cultural discrepancies in cyberspace understood as a "urban metropolis".

A special focus was laid on the…

Internet and development in India

Published on August 20, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, development empowerment, internet, technology

CNN/ CBS News

— For 12-year-old Anju Sharma, hope for a better life arrives in her poor farming village three days a week on a bicycle rickshaw that carries a computer with a high-speed, wireless Internet connection.

Designed like temple carriages that bear Hindu deities during festivals, the brightly painted pedal-cart rolls into her village in India’s most populous state, accompanied by a computer instructor who gives classes to young and old, students and teachers alike.

The bicycle cart is the center of a project called “Infothela,” or info-cart. It aims to use technology to improve education, health care and access to agricultural information in India’s villages, where most of the country’s 1.06 billion people live. >> continue

(via Danny Yee’s Blog)

CNN/ CBS News

-- For 12-year-old Anju Sharma, hope for a better life arrives in her poor farming village three days a week on a bicycle rickshaw that carries a computer with a high-speed, wireless Internet connection.

Designed like temple carriages that…

MARSHALL ISLANDS: Preserving culture with new technologies

Published on August 17, 2004 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, culture traditions, Pacific Oceania, technology

Go Asia Pacific

The Alele Museum in the Marshall Islands has joined with the Historical Preservation Office to launch a new internet website, in English and Marshallese. The aim is to make Alele’s collection more accessible to students, researchers and the wider public. In the Marshalls, cultural officers are working to protect fragile records of the past, like the De Brum collection, thousands of etched glass plates, with pictures of Micronesia from past centuries. >>continue (link updated)

Go Asia Pacific

The Alele Museum in the Marshall Islands has joined with the Historical Preservation Office to launch a new internet website, in English and Marshallese. The aim is to make Alele's collection more accessible to students, researchers and the…