Exploring Design Dialogues for Ageing in Place Adam Drazin and Simon Roberts ABSTRACT: Ethnographic work conducted by the Digital Health Group, Intel Ireland, explores the questions of how concepts of health and independence relate to peoples’ lives in later life. This paper serves to present artistic approaches to the design of the material culture in elderly homes in Ireland, and aims to highlight and discuss the merits and problems of such approaches. Through writing ‘in miniature’ about specific experiences and homes, we propose that it is possible to develop explorations of material objects in the home which, rather than presenting material contexts as ter- minal ‘conclusions’ to the research process, use them as provoking and questioning resources for engaged dialogical encounters with informants. KEYWORDS: ageing, design, the home, Ireland, anthropological praxis, applications of anthro- pology, material culture Pru is 90 years old. We spent two days with 38). Pru looks for affirmation that her strategic her in her home in County Cork, Ireland, and placing of the television is a good idea, as if in asked her about the various material objects anticipation of some unspecified concatena- around her home, including the small TV in tion of health crises or slow deterioration of her bedroom: the body. This is a field that is currently receiv- ing immense attention by design and ethnog- Anthropologist: ‘Do you watch a bit of TV up here?’Pru: ‘Not TV. I haven’t connected it yet. raphy, as a part of a project of independent Much like the walking stick. That’s when I won’t living in later life, through deploying the ma- be going out so much. When I go to sleep now, terial world of the home as a social, cognitive I read and I might go to bed asleep. But if that and physical support.1 was on, I’d probably … I couldn’t go and do the Our research has comprised an investigation other things. Keeping it all together for the time of ‘ageing in place’ in Ireland, through discussing when I won’t be as strong. Isn’t that a good idea? … Looking to the future.’ with people the material culture of their homes. The research was conducted by anthropologists The unused television is not a relic of the past, in Intel’s Digital Health Group, and has been nor intended for the present, but is an echo of part of a wider set of projects that develop eth- future possibilities. As we progress in life into nographically founded dialogues between older our seventh, eighth or ninth decade, there can people and product designers and engineers. be a pressure to strategise in everyday life, as Very few of the people with whom we have we find ourselves the focus of ‘compassionate worked are as explicit as Pru. Only on occasion questions and well-intended considerations of does someone state so clearly that an object is other people around us’ (Marcoen et al. 2007: conceived, designed and located as a part of Anthropology in Action,Action, 14,16, 31 (2000):(2009): ?–?72–88 © Berghahn© Berghahn Books Books and and the the Association Association for forAnthropology Anthropology in Action in Action doi:10.3167/aia.2009.160107doi:10.3167/aia.2007.150200 Exploring Design Dialogues for Ageing | AiA planning for future ageing. Even when one material forms and substances (herein we see is 90 years old, ageing is something that will design anthropology resembling archaeology, happen in the future, and is generally unex- in that it is a study of an object, and more spe- pressed. Nonetheless, we propose that the few cifically an archaeology of possible futures, not expressly ‘future-oriented’ objects we found pasts). Third, we propose that a route for do- represent a wider theme. ing this is through engaging in artistic creative There are several positions that we, as engagements with informants, of a type that anthropologists, can choose to take on this is becoming increasingly established in both situation. One position is that this is a meth- anthropological and design practice. odological problem: that many aspects of cul- Our research had two main stages. In the ture do not exist in spoken form but that most first stage, we spent a day in the homes of research methodologies nonetheless depend our informants, learning about everyday heavily on the spoken word. If we take this po- life, personal histories, daily routines, health sition, then ethnographies of material culture, issues and talking about a range of material and of domestic practices and routines, may objects around the home. The material we help fill the gap by providing answers. Yet, we gathered was explored collaboratively as a are making unwarranted presumptions about series of case studies. In the second stage of informants here, that they share the motives research, we developed a range of activities and cultural meanings of the (design) anthro- to explore with informants the issues that pology project. Can ethnographies of material had emerged. The appropriateness of activi- culture sustain the idea that people explicitly ties varied with different informants accord- plan with objects, think of themselves as de- ing to specific social, personal and health signing (being the ‘user-as-designer’), aim at circumstances, but might include videotap- independent living or evaluate themselves as ing performative activities (e.g., ‘making a ‘healthy’? Thus, a second alternative position cup of tea’), role playing or prioritising of we can take is that the aim of the research is to objects. We asked some informants to pro- question and evaluate the underlying validity duce artistic collages using photos of objects of our own ideas about our design-oriented in their homes (see Figure 12), around the project, through a contextually based explora- themes of health and independence. tion. If we take this second position, however, In this paper, we wish to evaluate these there remains for the design anthropologist the collage exercises as tools for anthropologists. problem of engaging with designers and engi- Although they risk appearing as positivistic neers, and assisting them with their questions methodological tools, maps of pre-existing on ‘how’ to design for later life. meanings, they are actually critical in nature. In this paper, we wish to advance the role They are exploratory dialogues produced in of material objects in critical engagements be- the moment, not answers or structures. While tween anthropology and design. We first pro- they do not wholly debunk the dominant pose that objects can be considered as concepts contemporary ideology that health equals or ideas themselves, not as mirror images of independent living and vice-versa (see Lloyd concepts, because thinking itself is a physi- 2000), they challenge and stretch this presump- cal activity (following Holbraad et al. 2006). tion, both by stretching out the meanings of Second, we propose that this means we can ‘health’ and ‘independence’, and the ways by bring forward an agenda of an ‘archaeology which they conceptually interact. At the same of dissonance’ (Tilley 2001) within anthropol- time, the collages can be useful in addressing ogy, meaning that the act of academic critique the question of how to design. The unex- is advanced through an engagement with pected forms and shapes in the collages can | 73 AiA | Adam Drazin and Simon Roberts but conceptions and experiences of health across many homes are almost infinitely var- ied and complicated. It is the contingent ap- propriateness of these collages for particular anthropological work that is our focus. A short example may illustrate the argu- ments. Pru’s television appears to show how she is engaged in planning for a future of inde- pendent living in her own home. However, she does not actually say this, it is only implied, and a future in which she is bedridden is only hypothetical in any case. Specifically, verbalis- Figure 1: ���������������������������������Hugh (81) and Bertha (78) develop ing the possibility of health decline is just as a collage of objects around their home, along unjustified at 90 years old as it is at 80, 70, 60 or themes of healthy/unhealthy and independence/ dependence. They do not just group the objects before. Compare this with the TV presented in in four categories, but interrelate the two Figure 1. Hugh and Bertha have here produced dimensions a collage in which their television is at the ‘un- healthy’ end, while their TV satellite dish and challenge conceptualisations of the material- radio are located as more ‘healthy’. This act ity of independent living. To put this more of collaging does not ‘reveal’ the meaning of simply, the material forms are supposed to a TV, that TV = unhealthy. Although we could stand for themselves, their explication would see this TV as a ‘symbol’, having spent time be highly contingent. They are self-evidently with the family we know that this is not nec- small, limited abstractions of the wider arrays essarily a symbol to them. Sometimes a TV is of domestic objects – the home itself being just a TV (Holbraad et al. 2006), and also each in some sense like a collage of objects. We of the objects represented by photo-icons in the discussed the collages while informants were collage has its own unique story. The general- producing them – making the collages was isability of the category, ‘television’, is a prod- clearly for our benefit, and would make little uct of the second stage of research through the sense done independently – but subsequent use of photos that become iconic. The collag- discussion of them was constrained because it ing is an exercise in challenging the pertinence would imply that the material artefacts can be of the category ‘healthy-unhealthy’ itself for ‘explained away’.