Disability, Ethnography, and Desgin
Instructor: Karen Nakamura
Term: Spring 2019
Time: M,W 10:00 am - 11:29 am
Units: 4
Course Number: 15313
Various topics covering current research theory, method; issues of social and cultural concern; culture change, conflict, and adaptation. May combine more than one subdiscipline of Anthropology.
Course Description:
This course explores disability worlds in the Bay Area through the ethnographic field methods, visual anthropology, and design anthropology. What does it mean to be disabled? How are disability organizations in the Bay Area trying to accomplish social and political change? What is the disability world? Through close participant observation and iterative design, students will work closely with local organizations and disabled individuals on projects ranging from the creation of ethnographic and documentary films, the construction of assistive devices, and the documentation of disabled lives and history. Aside from the weekly meetings, students will be expected to spend considerable time embedded in the community and to work on joint and individual projects for the course.