Frictions, Futures, and Possibilities of Anthropology and Design

Mahmoud Keshavarz -

This roundtable conversation with Mahmoud Keshavarz, Helen Pritchard, and Dana Burton explores critical questions about the possible joint trajectories for anthropology and design.

What happens when anthropology and design come into contact—not as complementary disciplines, but as fields in tension, in interlocution, entangled in their problematic histories and presents? What happens when they refuse to serve dominant social orders and instead align with the struggles of those who resist them, those who are impacted by their injustices?

These disciplines do not simply intersect; they negotiate, they unsettle. They generate new ways of thinking, making, and being in the world, but they also expose the limits of collaboration, the constraints of institutions, and the risks of co-option. When do practices on the seam of anthropology and design open up possibilities, and when do they reinforce the very structures they seek to dismantle?

In this roundtable, Dana Burton, Helen Pritchard, and Mahmoud Keshavarz reflect on the moments where anthropology and design converge, where they clash, and where they force us to reimagine what each discipline can be. Drawing from their experiences in research, practice, and pedagogy, they will consider the politics of participation, the ethical dilemmas of working across different modes of knowledge production, and the uneasy balance between critique and complicity.

What forms of collaboration move beyond extractive models? How do we challenge disciplinary boundaries without reinforcing institutional hierarchies? And what imaginaries emerge when anthropology and design are brought into dialogue—not as stable categories, but as evolving, contested terrains of inquiry?

The roundtable is co-moderated with researcher, educator, and editor Anna N. Nagele.

Dana Burton (she/her) is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Design at The New School for Social Research in New York. She is an anthropologist who sits at the intersection of the anthropology of outer space, feminist science and technology studies, and multispecies studies. Diving into the world of astrobiology, Dana followed scientists from the Atacama Desert, Chile to NASA centers around the US, to (models of) planetary bodies across the solar system to explore the efforts to comprehend and materialize life beyond Earth. She teaches classes on anthropology and design, sensory-based methods, and the critical and creative potential of the planetary. She is also engaged in artistic practices and draws on her background in dance, painting, mixed-media, and poetry across her research and teaching endeavors.

Helen V. Pritchard (they/them) is an artist-designer, geographer, and queer love theorist. Their work considers the impact of computation on social and environmental justice. Helen organizes with The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest (TITiPI). Their work with companions generates methods to uphold a politics of anti-fascist queer survival and practice. Helen is Professor and Head of Research at the Institute Experimental Design and Media Cultures (IXDM), Basel Academy of Arts and Design, FHNW, Switzerland, and Associate Professor in Queer Feminist Technoscience at the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom.

Mahmoud Keshavarz (he/him) is a Senior Lecturer in Design Studies at HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design, and Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg, both in Sweden. His work focuses widely on the politics of design and the design of politics, and on how different material practices shape everyday perception and possibilities of (un)doing politics. Working across design, anthropology, border politics and the question of (de-)coloniality, his work particularly addresses the violent yet imaginative capacities of materialities of mobility. Keshavarz is the author of The Design Politics of the Passport: Materiality, Immobility, and Dissent, co-editor of Seeing Like a Smuggler: Borders from Below, co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Design and Culture, as well as founding member of Decolonizing Design and Critical Border Studies.

Event language: English with Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) speech-to-text translation support.

Accessibility: Please contact anna.nagele@uni-ak.ac.at if you have any (access) needs for us to consider, or if you have questions about the access provided.

Register here

By registering, you are provided with access to the full two symposium days.

This event is part of the On the Seam: Anthropology, Design, and Situated Practices symposium navigating frictions, collaborations, and politics shaping present struggles and future possibilities.

The symposium is a collaboration between Futuress and the Department of Design History and Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria, as part of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF)-funded research project “Design Anthropology: Cold War Industrial Design & Development” (Grant DOI 10.55776/PAT4411223).

The event is co-curated by Anna N. Nagele and Maya Ober and co-coordinated by Mio Kojima and Anna N. Nagele. Visuals by Heba Daghistani.

Full symposium program

May 8, 2025

2:00 pm – 2:15 pm CEST
Welcome & Opening Remarks

2:15 pm – 3:35 pm CEST
Lectures Session
Pedagogy and Education at the Seam of Anthropology and Design
With Bibiana Serpa and Cherry-Ann Morgan
Moderated by Maya Ober

3:50 pm – 5:10 pm CEST
Lectures Session
Anthropology and Design Shaping Techno-Imaginaries
With Prathima Muniyappa and Grace Turtle 
Moderated by Anna N. Nagele

5:30 pm – 6:30 pm CEST
Roundtable
Frictions, Futures, and Possibilities of Anthropology & Design
With Dana Burton, Mahmoud Keshavarz, and Helen Pritchard
Moderated by Anna N. Nagele and Maya Ober

May 9, 2025

9:30 am – 9:45 am CEST
Welcome & Opening Remarks

9:45 am – 11:05 am CEST
Lectures Session
Engaged Practices in Anthropology & Design
With Imad Gebrael and Farah Hallaba
Moderated by Amanda Haas Halim

11:20 am – 12:50 pm CEST
Group Conversation
Let’s Talk About Ways of Knowing
Moderated by Mio Kojima and Bibiana Serpa

12:50 pm – 1:00 pm CEST
Closing Remarks & End of Symposium

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