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how to get rid of the mountain of waste?
A friend of mine, Kristina Börjesson, has focused her research on affective sustainability, and how the notion of this can help designers to create more sustainable things. ”If designers are reactive: always try to make their design catch up with changing ways of living, what they design risks having a short life. It will feel…
the ”private” in life
Christmas time is time to wait. Historian Wolfgang Schivelbush shows in a study of rail travel history how train travel meant that passengers were forced to share cramped spaces with strangers for long periods of time. Here the newspaper came to serve as an excellent means to create ”semi-private” rooms in public. The same applies…
how to know what you didn’t know you knew – and how do you know when you know that what you knew was what you wanted to know?
Crazy, but very relevant. You see, we’ve been doing fieldwork for Vägverket focusing on getting a holistic view of the total experience of driving in relation to road quality. When I was presenting the study yesterday, one of the Research Analysist said: “It is so weird. I have been analyzing details within this field for…
anthropology as a service
This week Siamack Salari will come and give a breakfast seminar at our office. He is the CEO at Everyday Lives based in London. Ethnography is central to everything Everyday Lives does for their clients. Findings are used to inform innovations, concept development, brand strategy, scenario modeling and much more. It will be interesting… So…
krakschi jidolucka medigi anthropology? the need of translation for normal people*
When holding a MA-seminar in commercial anthropology one of the students had beforehand submitted a paper titled: Krakschi jidolucka medigi Anthropology? The need of translation for normal people. Outside the academic world (some times inside as well) this field is sort of a mystery – you’ve heard about it in relation to non-profit organizations, exotic…
75% say no to traditional advertising
Is it something new, that 75% of the consumers say no to traditional advertising?? Well, being involved in consumers’ everyday lives it’s quite obvious; people are tired of old style advertising. Brand communication needs to focus on culture, not the products. When in Malmö and Moving Images (I know it’s a long time ago now……
old discourses – wrong food for thought
Even if most of us aspire reflection (for instance relating recent experiences to earlier ones in order to produce more complex thoughts), we sometimes get stuck in old discourses giving us the wrong food for thoughts. Strategies, questions, are being formulated and framed on the basis of this misleading (maybe obsolete) knowledge. I have recently…
”entertainment” is dead
No young informant uses the word entertainment when speaking of or describing media. For example, while Omar, 16, likes being entertained by sitcoms, advertising, and music, he never counts media as entertainment. Media is either information or advertising, not “entertainment”. Is it the new definition of “media”? Should all media be informative, either as advertising…
cockroaches in your face every day – not possible in sweden
Anyone else who had tears in their eyes when Uppdrag granskning showed a family of nine living in a two bedroom apartment in Malmö full of cockroaches? A lot of people have difficult lives but in most countries there is an awareness of this. But in Sweden, people just won’t believe it’s true unless it…
in the dressing gown
We went to Yasuragi to walk around in the Japanese kimono, or dressing gown as we Swedes say, and plan the new concept Konsumentnära Varumärkesutveckling. Viktoria and Jonas look quite happy!
tip of the day – how to deal with stress when driving
Spending time with informants is such a privilege. Not only do they welcome me into their private lives, they allow me to explore their personal world – an amazing source of information on human behavior. That’s way the ethnographic method is so central for in-depth understanding of people. The other day I was doing fieldwork…
anthropologist visiting an exotic tribe?
When I am presenting our ethnographic findings about media habits amongst the younger generation, it sometimes feels like I am talking about a different tribe. Almost like the old anthropologists, that travelled to Africa or Asia, coming back to describe totally unknown habits and customs from their exotic fieldwork far, far away from home. Media…
