The Everyday World and Intersubjectivity

Abstract

Abstract: We have learned through processes of socialization how to name and identify things, which helps us continually reduce complexity and bring order to the contingent world around us in our everyday life. At the same time, we move within many “small” social lifeworlds, or “multiple realities,” that are disconnected from one another and each have a particular cultural grammar in which “things” are loaded with quite a variety of meanings that impact and alter our identities. Design ethnographers also move within these small social lifeworlds. They should neither judge these morally nor overwrite them with their own values, but rather meet them with openness and sensitivity.