Dori Tunstall

Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall [b.1972, Columbia, South Carolina, USA] is a design anthropologist, researcher, academic leader, writer, and educator. She is Dean, Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in the Toronto, Canada and the first black Dean of a Faculty of Design anywhere. Tunstall holds a PhD and an MA in Anthropology from Stanford University [1994–1999] and a BA in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College [1990–1994]. She is interested in human values and design as a manifestation of those values. Tunstall observes that design translates values into tangible experiences and asks others to consider what their values are. In a Design Matters interview with Debbie Millman, Tunstall describes some of the motivations underlying her research and practice. She is trying to use design and design technologies to make values more tangible and apparent to people and believes that design is not all about mass consumption and unbridled capitalism. She suggests values like equality, democracy, fairness, integration, and connection are values that, to some extent, we’ve lost and design can help make those values more tangible and ultimately express how we can use them to make the world a better place.

Professional Life

In a 2011 Design Taxi article titled Design Anthropology: A Coming of Age, Rachel Xu wrote that Design Anthropology found its initial impetus in the dot-com boom of the nineties. Incessant developments in technologies in that decade meant little time was available to train young designers to understand the context in which their work was being developed for. Designers who possessed more than just a creative flair then began to apply their craft and knowledge to different—and bigger—fields.

Tunstall began her professional life in the nineties defining user experience and strategy at Chicago-based E Lab, where she "undertook ethnographic anthropological research on everything from men’s grooming to community use of telecommunications." Tunstall’s social sciences training was valued among interactive and product design firms aiming for a more rigorous approach to user experience and research. E-Lab was an experience-based research firm, leading a new marketing philosophy with a direct approach: Understand how real people experience real products to create innovative product concepts and services. The idea challenged companies to forget conventional market research (focus groups, consumer surveys, targeted test markets) because a breakthrough approach has tapped into the consumer behavior patterns that drive everyday purchasing trends. E-Lab pioneered that breakthrough. Cambridge-based Sapient Corporation, an IT provider and e-services consulting group for Global 1000 companies and startups, acquired E-Lab in 1998. E-Lab became Experience Modeling, one of five strategic disciplines that Sapient incorporated into its organization. Tunstall was a Sr. Experience Modeler, for Sapient Corporation from 1999–2002 then moved on to Arc Worldwide, a Leo Burnett/Publicis Company where she was a Sr. Experience Planner from 2003–2005. At Arc Tunstall immersed herself in hardcore advertising and marketing furthering expanding her range of experience and insight.

After the turn of the century Tunstall focused on academic and civic-minded pursuits. In 2005 Tunstall became Associate Director, City Design Center, University of Illinois at Chicago and Associate Professor of Design Anthropology, School of Art + Design, University of Illinois at Chicago and began her career as an academic leader. From 2005-2006 she also served as the Managing Director of Design for Democracy, an ongoing AIGA program that applies design tools and thinking to "increase civic participation by making interactions between the U.S. government and its citizens more understandable, efficient and trustworthy. Design for Democracy collaborates with researchers, designers and policy-makers in service of public sector clients and AIGA’s goal of demonstrating the value of design by doing valuable things." In 2008 Tunstall organized the U.S. National Design Policy Summit and Initiative focused on creating an actionable agenda of U.S. Design policy for economic competitiveness and democratic governance. In 2009 Tunstall became Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching, Faculty of Design, and Associate Professor of Design Anthropology, Faculty of Health, Arts, and Design at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. In 2010 Tunstall found the Cultures-Based Innovation Initiative focused on the use of tangible and intangible cultural heritage to drive irreversible changes in peoples' attitudes, behaviors, and/or values that directly benefit communities under social and environmental distress.

Perspectives on Design Anthropology

Tunstall describes Design anthropology as an evolving, "interdisciplinary field that seeks to understand the role of design artifacts and processes in defining what it means to be human (e.g., human nature). It is more than lists of user requirements in a design brief, which makes it different from contextual inquiry, some forms of design research, and qualitative focus groups. Design anthropology offers challenges to existing ideas about human experiences and values." She recommends design take some precautions. "Marking the boundaries between respectful knowing and making, design anthropology lives across and within design’s desire to serve as a positive force in the universe by drawing attention across evolving human values, the making of environments, objects, communications, and interactions that express those values, and the experiences that give interpretation to those values and their meanings. But design must learn to tread respectfully in order to avoid becoming another colonizing practice."

Evolution of Design Anthropology

• In the beginning, design anthropology was about researchers as interpretive experts, delivering and recommendations to design teams and others.
• In the 1990s this evolved toward Participatory Design in which interdisciplinary teams participated in observations and defining insights. Insights are delivered in the form of experience models and personas. Researchers become facilitators with multiple, complex stakeholders involved.
• She [Tunstall] proposes that the next phase of Design Anthropology will establish the academic foundation of this practice. With that will come a focus on social issues and an understanding of how objects affect the people around them. Designs are disruptions to the people in a culture and those disruptions should be studied. This study of objects and processes define what it means to be human. Design can seek to close the gap between the disruption and the ideal experience.

Principles of Design Anthropology

• Value systems and cultures ought to be accepted as dynamic, not static. Each generation goes through the process of negotiating the elements that make up their value systems and cultures.
• One ought to recognize the mutual borrowing that happens among value systems and cultures, and seek to mitigate or eliminate the unequal circumstances in which that borrowing takes place.
• One must look simultaneously at what is expressed as that to be gained, lost, and created new in the recombination of value systems and cultures by a group of people.
• One should seek to eliminate false distinctions between art, craft, and design in order to better recognize all culturally important forms of making as a way in which people make value systems tangible to themselves and others.
• One ought to create processes that enable respectful dialogue and relational interactions such that everyone is able to contribute their expertise equally to the process of designing and those contributions are properly recognized and remunerated.
• Projects should use design processes and artifacts to work with groups to shift hegemonic value systems that are detrimental to the holistic well-being of vulnerable groups, dominant groups, and their extended environments.
• The ultimate criteria for success of any Design Anthropology engagement are the recognized creation of conditions of compassion among the participants in the project and in harmony with their wider environments.

Teaching Design Anthropology
Tunstall has described the teaching of design anthropology as a hybrid praxis of:

• critical anthropological and design theory
• anthropological and participatory design research methods
• design studio and social systems making

Tunstell suggests a shift in design education to focus on how students and staff exist ontologically, or ‘be,’ in the world rather than solely how they see the world.

Bi-Weekly Un-Design Design Anthropology Column

https://theconversation.com/profiles/elizabeth-dori-tunstall-105620/articles

• "Remixing Indian design anthropology," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 15 October 2015.
• "Undying: the life and death of an indigo cloth," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 1 October 2015.
• "The Koorie Heritage Trust re-centres Indigenous communities by design," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 15 September 2015.
• "Re-Designing the Conference," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 1 September 2015.
• "Be rooted: learning from Aboriginal dyeing and weaving," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 11 August 2015.
• "Degrowth: Japan models design for steady state economies," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 5 May 2015.
• "Re-doing the cycle: menstrual power protests and design," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 21 April 2015.
• "Un-doing awareness: do smart watches make dumb humans?," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 7 April 2015.
• "Un-masking the five faces of oppression in Australia," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 25 March 2015.
• "Un-doing youth alienation: designs for belonging," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 6 March 2015.
• "Re-imagined power: BDSM as Utopian fantasy," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 19 February 2015.
• "Female power and caring dads: gender and the 2015 Super Bowl ads," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 5 February 2015.
• "Un-doing development bloat," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 15 January 2015.
• "New Year’s reconciliations: Un-doing the New Year’s resolution," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 1 January 2015.
• "ReDesigning Play in Indian Primary Education," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 3 November 2014.
• "Un-gendering designs: the 2014 Gender Design Exhibition ," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 15 October 2014.
• "Please un-do ‘booty’ pop videos," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 25 September 2014.
• "Un-doing disrespect: women and design," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 11 September 2014.
• "Breaking the vase," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 27 August 2014.
• "Australia’s un-doing of voter intimidation," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 14 August 2014.
• "Re/valuating craft in Australia and India," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 31 July 2014.
• "Un-doing (mis)appropriation," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 12 June 2014.
• "Un-doing the traditional ballroom lead and follow," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 28 May 2014.
• "India: design futures of everyday pluralism," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 15 May 2014.
• "Unseating the chair," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 1 May 2014.
• "Re-designing food systems," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 17 April 2014.
• "Un-doing white privilege: a love letter," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 3 April 2014.
• "Fashioning blue-collars: chambray shirts and indigo-dyed workwear," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 20 March 2014.
• "First impressions of class: designs on life in Melbourne," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 6 March 2014.
• "Sitting phat: re-designing obesity and chairs," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 19 February 2014.
• "Un-designing apathy: designs for systems of caring," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 6 February 2014.
• "Un-designing masculinities: K-pop and the new global man?" Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 23 January 2014.
• "Un-designing Knee-hugger Elves: Class, Multi-culturalism, and the Globalisation of Christmas Kitsch," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 26 December
• "Un-doing cycles of vengeance: Nelson Mandela, truth and reconciliation, and the design of social justice," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 12 December 2013.
• "Un-doing the tián (field): Mandarin language and the shift away from Chinese agrarian culture," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 28 November 2013.
• "Secular mourning clothes: Un-Doing connections to the dead," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 14 November 2013.
• "What is Indigenous Australia in 2013?" Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 30 October 2013.
• "MakerBot seeks to undo the industrial revolution," Un-Design, The Conversation—Australia. 27 October 2013.

Research Awards and Fellowships

• 2014 Australia-China Council Grant, Living Blue Project with HANG Hai, Vilvapathy Sakthivel, and Karen Hughes
• 2014 Wenner-Gren Foundation International Collaborative Research Grant, Living Blue Project with HANG Hai, Vilvapathy Sakthivel, and Karen Hughes
• 2012 Swinburne Visiting Researcher Scheme to bring Vice Professor Hang Hai, researcher from China Central Academy of Fine Arts
• 2011 Swinburne Visiting Researcher Scheme to bring Zhou Bo, researcher from China Central Academy of Fine Arts
• 2011 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Conference on Design Anthropology, Indigenous Knowledge, and Culture-Based Innovation
• 2007 Sappi: Ideas that Matter Grant
• 2007 IFG Ulm Designing Politics Grant, one of 8 short-listed candidates
• 2006 UIC College of Art and Architecture Research Prize
• 2005 American Marshall Memorial Fellow, German Marshall Fund
• 1998-9 Mellon Dissertation Write-up Fellowship
• 1997-8 National Science Foundation Dissertation Research Grant, SPO #SBR-9616677
• 1995 Mellon Pre-dissertation Summer Fieldwork Grant for "Official Tourism Policies in Ethiopia"
• 1995 FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies) Summer Fellowship for intermediate language training in Amharic at the University of Addis Ababa. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
• 1995 National Science Foundation Predissertation Fellowship to pursue graduate studies at Stanford University

Book Chapters

• Tunstall, Elizabeth, (expected publication Spring 2016), Cultural Respect, not Social Responsibility—The Seven Principles of Design Anthropology," in Developing Citizen Designers, ed. Elizabeth Resnick. New York: Bloomsbury Academic Press.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth, 2013. "Decolonizing Design Innovation: Design Anthropology and Indigenous Knowledge," in Design Anthropology Between Theory and Practice, eds. Wendy Gunn, Ton Otto, and Rachel Smith. London: Berg Publishing, pp. 232–250.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth, 2012. Interview by Debbie Millman. Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits. New York: Allworth Press, pp. 56–73.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth, 2011. "Respectful Design: a Proposed Journey of Design Education," In ICOGRADA Design Education Manifesto 2011, Audrey Bennett and Omar Vulpinari, editors. Montreal, Canada: ICOGRADA, pp. 132–135.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth, 2009. "Contributor for 38 product evaluations" in Deconstructing Product Design, William Lidwell and Gerry Manacsa. Beverly MA: Rockport Press.

Online Journal Articles

• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2009. "Transmodern Consciousness: Mapping Value Systems and Models for Graphic Design Education" Iridescent ICOGRADA Journal of Design Research,
• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2008. "The Future of Politics: Distributed creativity and DIY policy design. Re-public Special Issue: Distributed Creativity and Design. (English version). July 10, 2008.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2008. "Design Anthropology: What does it mean for your design practice?," Adobe Design Center Think Tank. May 13, 2008.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2007. "What if Uncle Sam Wanted You?." Design Observer. November 1

Conference Proceedings

• Tunstall, Elizabeth, 2012. "Decolonized Anthropology and Design: the Utility of Design Anthropology," 2012 Participatory Innovation Conference Digital Proceedings [CD], paper 94. Melbourne, Australia.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2009. "Transmodern Consciousness: Mapping Value Systems and Models for Graphic Design Education" ICOGRADA IEN Education Conference Proceedings, Beijing, China. Montreal: ICOGRADA
• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2008. "The QAME of Trans-disciplinary Ethnography" 2008 Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) Proceedings, Copenhagen, Denmark. Vol. 2008 (1). Hoboken, NJ. National Association for the Practice of Anthropology/John Wiley and Sons. pp. 218 – 233.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2006. "Reframing American Democracy: the role of research in the interpretation of election design artifacts," Design Research Society 2006 International Conference Proceedings, Lisbon, Portugal. London: Design Research Society. Paper 036.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2006. "The Yin and Yang of Ethnographic Praxis in Industry" 2006 Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) Proceedings, Portland Oregon. Vol. 2006 (1). Berkeley, CA. National Association for the Practice of Anthropology/University of California Press. pp. 125 – 137.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth and Stephanie Munson. 2006."Industrial Design Graduate Education: Identity Finding," 2006 IDSA Education Symposium Conference Proceedings, Austin, TX. Arlington, VA: IDSA. pp. 181 – 191.

Reports

• Tunstall, Elizabeth. 2009. U.S. National Design Policy Initiative Summit Report: November 11–12, 2008. New York: U.S. National Design Policy Initiative.
• Tunstall, Elizabeth and the American Design Communities. 2009. Redesigning America’s Future: Ten Design Policy Proposals for the United States of America’s Economic Competitiveness and Democratic Governance. New York: U.S. National Design Policy Initiative.

Keynotes

• 2014 "Living Blue: Transcultural Indigo and the Seven Principles of Design Anthropology," keynote address at the Emerging Practices Conference from 13–14 October 2014, at Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
• 2014 "Respect and Speculative Futures of Women in Design," keynote address at the Big Small: Gender Design Network Conference from 10–11 October 2014, at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.
• 2011 "Ethnographic Descriptions, Reimaginings, and Visions," keynote address at the Participatory Innovation Conference on 12–15 January 2011, Sønderborg, Denmark.
• 2009 "Transdisciplinarity," keynote address at Cumulus 38ºSouth, Melbourne, Australia.
• 2009 "Buckminster Fuller Gallery Talk: Success and Failure with Michael Rakowitz and Elizabeth Tunstall," invited Lecture at Museum of Contemporary Art
• 2009 "ReDesigning America’s Future: The U.S. National Design Policy Initiative and the Industrial Design Community," invited presentation at IDSA NE Regional Conference, Boston, MA.
• 2007 "Values/Design/Experience," keynote presentation at IRS for Design Management Project Celebration on July 27. Washington, D.C.
• 2006 "Design +Governmentality," keynote presentation at 2006 World Usability Day Chicago, sponsored by Usability Professionals Association, Chicago, IL.

Conference Papers

• 2012 "Decolonising Design to Enable Conditions for Australian Indigenous Design Practices," invited paper with Myles Russell Cook to AIGA Design Educators Conference: Geographics Design, Education and the Transnational Terrain, December 13–15, Honolulu, Hawaii.
• 2012 "Decolonized Anthropology and Design: the Utility of Design Anthropology," invited presentation at the 2012 Participatory Innovation Conference, February Melbourne, Australia.
• 2009 "Transmodern Consciousness," invited peer-reviewed presentation at ICOGRADA IEN Design Education Conference, Beijing China.
• 2009 "ReDesigning America’s Future: a Framework of Design Policy for Managing the U.S.’s Post-Industrial Context," invited presentation at the 34th Annual Design Management Institute Conference, Boston, MA.
• 2009 "Design Research Outreach to Business, Government, and Society," Organizer and panelist at AIGA Design Conference: Make| Think, Memphis, TN.
• 2009 "Making/Thinking Culturally: Transcultural Aesthetics and Contemporary Design," Panelist at AIGA Design Conference: Make|Think, Memphis, TN.
• 2009 "Cross-Cultural Design Panel," Panelist at AIGA Design Conference: Make|Think, Memphis, TN.
• 2009 "ReDesigning America’s Future: Ten design policy proposals for the U.S.’s economic competitiveness and democratic governance," invited presentation at the APCI Design and Innovation Conference, Paris, France.
• 2008 "Engaging in Transdisciplinary Praxis," Organizer and panelist, American Anthropological Association Meetings, San Francisco, CA.
• 2008 "The QAME of Trans-disciplinary Ethnography," presentation delivered at the 4th Annual Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference 2008 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• 2008 "Black Designer’s Forum," invited participant in one-day forum on the state of black design and designers, Chicago, IL.
• 2008 "Design and Anthropological Theory: Trans-disciplinary intersections in ethica design praxis," invited panel presentation at College Arts Association Meetings, Dallas, TX.
• 2007 "Anthropology, Design and Govermentality," invited NAPA session at AAA Meetings, Washington D.C. on December 30.
• 2007 "In Design We Trust," invited peer-reviewed presentation at International Associations for Design Research Societies in Hong Kong on November 14.
• 2007 "Yin Yang of Design and Anthropology," invited focus session at NEXT: 2007 AIGA National Conference in Denver, Colorado on October 12.
• 2007 "In Designo Nos Fidus," invited presentation at International Design Forum Ulm Designing Politics programme in Ulm, Germany on Sept. 20-21.
• 2007 "Reframing American Democracy: the Role of research in the interpretation of election design artifacts," presentation delivered at the Wonderground 2006 Design Research Society Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
• 2006 "The Yin and Yang of Seduction and Production: Social transitions of ethnography between seductive play and productive force in Industry," presentation delivered at the 2nd Annual Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference 2006 in Portland, Oregon.
• 2006 "Identity Finding in Industrial Design," presentation delivered at the 2006 IDSA National Education Conference in Austin, Texas.
• 2005 "Anthropology Re-Branding Campaign," presentation delivered at the 2005 American Anthropological Association Meetings in Washington, D.C.
• 2005 "Working with a Net – Designing for Disaster," panelist for main stage presentation at 2005 AIGA Design Conference in Boston, MA.
• 2004 "Design for Democracy: Engaging the Government and Citizens in Design," multimedia presentation (with Marcia Lausen and George Slavik) delivered at the 2004 About, With, and For Conference in Chicago, IL.
• 2004 "In Design We Trust," paper delivered at the 2004 Society for Applied Anthropology Meetings in Dallas, Texas.

Media

• audio recording: Design Matters with Debbie Millman https://soundcloud.com/designmatters/design-matters-with-debbie-112
• video performance: DAnthro Rap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upwIqqFdP4k
• video lecture: Nýsköpunarmiðstöð Íslands with Dori Tunstall https://vimeo.com/29317679
• viral video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSczizV8Eqc&spfreload=10

Social Media

• https://twitter.com/dori_danthro
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/etunstall

Links

• Biography: http://www.aiga.org/diversity-inclusion-design-journeys-essay-dori-tunstall/
• Papers: https://independent.academia.edu/DoriTunstall