The Armor of a Researcher: A Critical, Material Engagement with Somatic Experiences

Main Article Content

Janne Mascha Beuthel

Abstract

Design researchers and practitioners continuously engage with humans in their work, which can translate into encountering personal stories, challenging questions, and facing expectations. The researcher can be torn between remaining ‘professional’, which is often connoted to being ‘neutral’, and engaging their own emotions, vulnerabilities, and insecurities. This paper presents a soma design process that was informed by the autobiographical experiences of the author. The result is a wearable artifact named ‘The Armor of a Researcher’. The artifact embodies somatic experiences of ‘doing research’ and ‘being a researcher’ during qualitative studies with participants. It is intended to be thought-provoking and points towards reflections on professionalism. Physical materials are assembled into a wearable form, which allows others to engage with them through their own bodies. Finally, themes that The Armor has evoked in others are described; these outline knowledge that the artifact puts forth to HCI.

Article Details

How to Cite
Beuthel, J. M. (2022). The Armor of a Researcher: A Critical, Material Engagement with Somatic Experiences. Diseña, (20), Article.3. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.20.Article.3 (Original work published January 31, 2022)
Section
Original articles
Author Biography

Janne Mascha Beuthel, University of Salzburg

PBA in Fashion Design and Business, Business Academy SouthWest. MSc in IT Product Design, University of Southern Denmark. Research Fellow and Ph.D. Student in the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. Her research focuses on body-centered design, wearable interactions, felt experiences, material and craft explorations, and feminisms in HCI. Some of her most recent publications include ‘Experiencing Distance: Wearable Engagements with Remote Relationships’ (with P. Bentegeac, V. Fuchsberger, B. Maurer, and M. Tscheligi; in Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, TEI 21); ‘Grandparents and Grandchil­dren Meeting Online: The Role of Material Things in Remote Settings’ (with V. Fuchsberger, P. Bentegeac, and M. Tscheligi; in Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems); and ‘Wearing the Invisible: Wearable Mani­festations of Embodied Experiences’ (In Companion Publication of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference).

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