Shining a light on agency: Examining responses to resource constraints to uncover opportunities for design

Publication Date

9-1-2011

Document Type

Article

Abstract

People employ creative ways to overcome the challenges of daily life. The construct of agency is a productive area of inquiry when considering how people respond to these challenges. Exploring moments of agency provides an embodied understanding of people’s motivations and helps reveal the structural and technological barriers they encounter every day. We propose a framework of agency and three corresponding categories: resourcefulness, resilience, and powerlessness. This framework was developed while working with data from two design ethnographies: one in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and the other in Seattle, Washington.

Publication Title

Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings

Volume

2011

Issue

1

First Page

299

Last Page

310

DOI

10.1111/j.1559-8918.2011.00001.x

Publisher Policy

open access

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