On “The Design of Everyday Life”

Abstract

The article highlights the intersection between design, STS and consumption outlining practices as the central unit of analysis. The paper illustrates this perspective with reference to a variety of examples, including home improvements and do-it-yourself (DIY) projects, digital photography and plastic stuff. In the paper some questions are raised: where does competence lie? Does it reside in the human or in the non-human, or in the relation between the two? What does the concept of a human-non-human hybrid mean for the sociology of consumption? And how does the human-material distribution of competences affect the details of everyday life and what people do?