Meeting the Yeti: Learning about design ethnography and teaching anthropological habitus in a student‐led project on “disconnection”

Our discipline fetishizes ethnography yet tends to keep the prize out of undergraduate students’ reach, citing practical constraints for letting students do real fieldwork. This leaves students already struggling with the question of what to do with a cultural anthropology degree in a difficult place. Anthropology's main promise—to understand other cultures through a deep engagement with ordinary people—is one they have never experienced personally. Yet they will have to justify their choice of university degree in years to come. This article discusses an experimental course at Colorado State University in the growing field of design anthropology in which a student team of researchers collaborated with a team of product managers, innovation strategists, and designers at Otterbox, a locally headquartered company that makes protective smartphone covers. Students practiced a condensed form of ethnographic research with smartphone users in Northern Colorado and investigated the theme of “disconnection” from technology. [design anthropology, technology, business anthropology]