Welcome! I look forward to meeting all of you, and to our work together this semester! Because this an anomalous semester, however, I sense that it’ll take a week or two for us to get settled – and we’ll have a bit more work to do to acclimate to our environment. So, for this first week we’ll establish the terms of our engagement, begin conducting some preliminary “fieldwork” in a few potential learning spaces, and start analyzing how those spaces “design” our interaction and learning.
TODAY’S AGENDA
- Land acknowledgment + indigenous geolocation
- Overview of the semester
- Begin thinking about our Community Agreement
- Introduce our (optional) ongoing, collaborative design-ethnographic project (wherein we continually reflect on our learning spaces and digital forums as “field sites,” and implement changes whenever necessary). See the #our-learning-environments channel on Slack!
These texts will inform my introductory presentation; you needn’t read them, but you’re welcome to do so if you like!:
- Betsy Gardner, “The Case for Anthropology in Urban Planning and COVID-19 Resilience: Lessons from Buenos Aires,” Data-Smart City Solutions (Harvard Kennedy School / Ash Center, June 10, 2020).
- Aimi Hamraie, “Beyond Accommodation: Disability, Feminist Philosophy, and the Design of Academic Life,” philoSOPHIA 6:2 (2016): 259-71.
- Sarah Ahmed, “Making Feminist Points,” Feminist Killjoys (September 11, 2013).
- Ateya Khorakiwala, “Architecture’s Scaffolds,” e-flux architecture (November 25, 2018).
- Bernard Rudofsky, Architecture Without Architects: An Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture (MoMA, 1964).
- Clapperton Mavhunga, “Incoming Technology and African Innovation,” Carson Fellow Portraits (2011) + “What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?” Talks @ Google (December 20, 2017).
- “Our Final Projects,” Anthropology + Design (Fall 2019); “Our Final Projects,” Anthropology + Design (Fall 2020).