Making Trouble: Redesigning the Rituals of Civic Life
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Panel: The Madness of Methods: Emerging Arts Research Practices
Harold Garfinkel, father of ethnomethodology, once described his methodological “preference to start with the familiar scenes and ask what can be done to make trouble.” My work applies this sensibility to the design of public rituals. I will present research from several collaborative vox pop experiments and situate this work as “making trouble” for the assumptions that traditional journalism creates when it uses social media to curate the public back to itself. Culminating with a call to arms, I argue that the designers and funders of new civic platforms should embrace the opportunity to redesign our public rituals from the ground up.
