Creativity and Ethnography: An Expansive Proposal for 'in the Wild' Research of Ideas in Practice in Design Studios

TY - GEN

T1 - Creativity and Ethnography

T2 - 16th Conference on Creativity and Cognition, C and C 2024

AU - Nouwens, Minke

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 Owner/Author.

PY - 2024/6

Y1 - 2024/6

N2 - A growing number of scholars are exploring ideas 'in the wild' and across different timescales through qualitative research, and especially ethnography. Previous controlled and lab-based studies have formalized techniques to encourage idea development and outlined measurements to rate the success of produced ideas based on quantity, quality, novelty, and variety. Qualitative 'in the wild' research aims to fill the knowledge gap regarding the evolution of ideas, how prior ideas shape new ones, and what other factors impact ideas and their development within a professional setting. However, these studies have been hindered due to difficulty around knowing how to 'do' ethnography and to interpret findings through a theoretical lens via ethnographic analysis and writing in creativity studies, HCI, and Design. This paper provides an in-depth discussion of an ethnographic analysis and writing process from a year-long fieldstudy with designers at a large Danish library. In doing so, it also contributes a better understanding of how to do ethnography on ideas to promote a betterment of the scholarship on ideas, designing, and creativity in the field of creativity studies, HCI, and design.

AB - A growing number of scholars are exploring ideas 'in the wild' and across different timescales through qualitative research, and especially ethnography. Previous controlled and lab-based studies have formalized techniques to encourage idea development and outlined measurements to rate the success of produced ideas based on quantity, quality, novelty, and variety. Qualitative 'in the wild' research aims to fill the knowledge gap regarding the evolution of ideas, how prior ideas shape new ones, and what other factors impact ideas and their development within a professional setting. However, these studies have been hindered due to difficulty around knowing how to 'do' ethnography and to interpret findings through a theoretical lens via ethnographic analysis and writing in creativity studies, HCI, and Design. This paper provides an in-depth discussion of an ethnographic analysis and writing process from a year-long fieldstudy with designers at a large Danish library. In doing so, it also contributes a better understanding of how to do ethnography on ideas to promote a betterment of the scholarship on ideas, designing, and creativity in the field of creativity studies, HCI, and design.

KW - Analysis

KW - Anthropology

KW - Ethnography

KW - Ideas

KW - Professional Design Studio

KW - Writing

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85197855911&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3635636.3656205

DO - 10.1145/3635636.3656205

M3 - Article in proceedings

AN - SCOPUS:85197855911

SP - 268

EP - 279

BT - C and C 2024

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

Y2 - 23 June 2024 through 26 June 2024

ER -