00:00:09 Hi everyone I m Kadambari Sahu. I'm the head of design at Value Labs. Design Inspire is

00:00:14 the web series of passionate innovative and young inspiring designers. The web series

00:00:19 dive into their passion inspiration and what makes them go. It's an effort to understand

00:00:25 how they are navigating their career path and how they are investing their creative

00:00:29 energies. We believe hearing their bold moves and inspiring stories that will ignite interest

00:00:34 and inspired the next generation of budding designers across the globe. So let's go forward.

00:00:39 Hello everyone welcome to design inspire. Our today's guest is Vyjayanthi Vaderu is

00:00:44 an ethnographer and consultant under her brand, Rasa, In New York City. Most recently she

00:00:49 is applying her ethnography skills at the Lab at Capital One, using customer experiences

00:00:54 as fodder for product innovation in the banking and credit card space. She is also an adjunct

00:00:59 professor of Applied Anthropology at the City University of New York. She has been a dancer

00:01:05 for 25+ years, trained in Indian classical dance (Bharatanatyam, odissi, Kathak). She

00:01:10 been building on the art of expression and the art of studying what it means to be human

00:01:16 (anthropology) to explore fictional writing and performance, particularly in observational

00:01:20 comedy space. Welcome Vayjayanthi. How are you doing today?

00:01:23 Doing well. How are you? I'm good. Let me talk a little bit about the

00:01:29 format of this show. As a piece of what are going to do is the first part, the 20 minutes

00:01:33 would be anything that you're passionate about. Any presentation, any stories that you want

00:01:38 to share with us, the later part would be me. And you can, we're saying on topic of,

00:01:42 you know, the life of a designer in your case, research and anthropologists. And you know,

00:01:47 how things are in terms of like, how do you inspire and motivate? So that will be more

00:01:51 in the life of a designer or a creative person. So let's go forward. We're very excited to

00:01:58 hear stories from you over to you Vayjayanthi Thank you so much. So I wanted to start with

00:02:06 a story about my first teaching experience, teaching applied anthropology. The first day

00:02:12 of class, I asked students, why are you studying anthropology? A few students raised their

00:02:17 hand and said, because I majored in it a few students, Left the class dropped the class

00:02:22 that day. And then one student in particular said very confidently. I have no idea what

00:02:28 anthropology is. I'm just here because it sounded cool. So that student, became well,

00:02:36 they're all my favorites, but became one of my, prize students because, The student went

00:02:42 from not really understanding what anthropology was and the simplest way I'd like to explain

00:02:47 it as anthropology is the study of what it means to be human there's many branches. I'm

00:02:53 going to focus on the cultural anthropology aspect of this. So I'm teaching this class.

00:02:58 How do you apply anthropology in the real world? And, the student definitely kept me

00:03:02 on my toes. A lot of sarcastic. The comments? It was amazing. Definitely wanted to establish

00:03:08 themselves as the comedian of the class. And, it wasn't until. COVID hit in New York City

00:03:16 and the pen. And we became the epicenter of the pandemic that the student really realized

00:03:22 the value and how widespread the practice application and even philosophy of anthropology

00:03:28 could be applied. So I asked them, you know, I said, let's take a breather. You know, this

00:03:32 is not about class anymore. But use what you've learned in class so far. And talk to me about

00:03:39 how this pandemic, how, the environment of COVID has affected you personally. And this

00:03:47 student went and, thought about it for a little while and in their paper wrote about how their

00:03:54 family, in spite of having some cases in their family insisted on going to church and the

00:04:01 student so far had never realized how religious. Their family was nor how deeply ingrained

00:04:08 their norms and beliefs were until this incident. The student was very upset. The student said,

00:04:16 I, I respect my religion. I respect my spirituality, but I didn't realize that the culture of,

00:04:24 my religion could override the, the, the value of health itself. So that was one very pivotal

00:04:31 moment in the student's life. And perspective. And then since then the student said, well,

00:04:38 I don't want to be an anthropologist, but I do want to apply anthropology to the world

00:04:44 of finance. So when we were doing due diligence on investments, I can use, I could go beyond

00:04:51 the quantitative and use qualitative, observational methods. To help my team to help us find the

00:05:00 most lucrative investments to find the most intelligent investments. And I will also have

00:05:06 an edge over others. So this was, this was my experience in teaching anthropology and

00:05:14 it was, it was really great because I've, I feel that there's. There's really no, corner

00:05:23 that anthropology can't touch, you know, so this is, this is why, it renewed a sense of

00:05:30 why I fell in love with the subject, why I continue to practice it, but I've definitely

00:05:35 gone through ebbs and flows myself of, This field, I always loved it, but what happened

00:05:42 the application of it in, we were talking earlier about in corporate settings, in any

00:05:49 workplace settings, there's, there's a lot of pressure on timelines and you continue

00:05:54 to get squeezed and you get squeezed. And the very nature of anthropology is immerse

00:05:59 yourself. And the cultures, take time to observe people in different States every day won't

00:06:06 look the same. If you sit them down for a three hour interview one day, and then you

00:06:11 do the same interview. One week later, they might be saying completely different things.

00:06:16 How do you bridge the gap? And the gap is only bridged truly by observing what they

00:06:21 do in their natural setting, instead of asking them what they say. So we want to, we want

00:06:26 to kind of. Bridge that do and say gap. So, so I realized that going through this ebb

00:06:34 and flow, what I had not done until very recently was an auto ethnography. And I, I really advocate

00:06:43 for this. This method. And I feel that all researchers really, all people should kind

00:06:50 of do it auto ethnography to understand why you're doing what you're doing to understand

00:06:55 essentially what forces have, have been combined to make, who make you, who you are and, show

00:07:03 you what you believe in. So a lot of times, we ve well, I shouldn't say a lot, but there

00:07:11 have been critiques of auto ethnography saying it's very. Self-absorbed, it may be even narcissistic.

00:07:18 There's some people that are like, this is not academic. This is not rigorous, you know,

00:07:23 what, what what's going on here, but I feel that if you, if you understand your layers,

00:07:30 if you understand what you remember, if you understand what you connect to, then you can

00:07:34 kind of understand your biases when you're doing research. And not only doing the research

00:07:40 as in conducting, sitting, observing, but also synthesizing. And in synthesizing with

00:07:46 the knowledge of what, what your beliefs are, what your values are, you can learn to edit,

00:07:52 according to your biases against your biases and kind of level set and calibrate. So, so

00:07:59 for example, you know, I, I will use my own identity pretty obvious female of Indian origin

00:08:08 grew up in the United States. So. So I realized that, I was always over-indexing on minorities

00:08:15 and I still continue to do that. I was always over-indexing on remembering the stories of,

00:08:22 people of global majority people of color over the, the majority Caucasian populations.

00:08:28 And I had to recalibrate that and some of my research, because yes, I would take copious

00:08:33 notes. Yes. I would, note down everything everyone said. But then when it came to synthesis

00:08:38 and kind of putting together things, both from your notes, but also from your memory

00:08:42 also from the epiphany's that struck, you have to understand that all of those come

00:08:46 from, inherent bias, we can't remove bias, but we can kind of adjust for it and we can

00:08:53 be very systematic of, shaping it, shaping it to, to be more meaningful, both for the

00:09:01 client and for yourself. So, so in that way, I think, I think we. Oh, hold on one second.

00:09:15 I think, auto ethnography is a course that I wanted to teach. So I'm going to start teaching

00:09:23 that course in January. And what we're going to do is use auto ethnography to explore,

00:09:31 students' current sentiments around the black lives matter movement around the pandemic

00:09:36 and other global phenomenon that's happening right now. So. I, I do, have to give credit

00:09:43 to Ruth Bay har who has been, she wrote a lot of amazing books. One of my favorite is

00:09:50 the vulnerable observer. And she talks about incorporating yourself, your emotions and

00:09:55 your background in your research. So, I, I mentioned all of this because we often talk

00:10:02 about research, being, learning about, being in the shoes of the other. And research being

00:10:09 about understanding other people's lives. And I think that is completely the aim of

00:10:15 research, but you can't understand what is other, if you don't understand what is yourself

00:10:20 and you don't. And if you don't understand the separation of when you re self is kind

00:10:25 of, bleeding into the interpretation of the other. And then in classical anthropology,

00:10:32 I mean, there was, it started from kind of this Western gaze of the exotic, other exotic

00:10:38 Eastern cultures, you know, so it's definitely evolved from there. And it's definitely evolved

00:10:43 from the kind of Western superiority that it used to hold. But we still have a ways

00:10:50 to go and, and we don't want to have that kind of power dynamic of like, well, this

00:10:55 is where we stand and we're right. You know, nor should it be, you know what it's becoming

00:11:01 now where the customer is always right or the client is always right or that three,

00:11:06 three hour interviews also, the gospel, you know, because we, we have to. We have to kind

00:11:13 of use our own, faculties and our own backgrounds to interpret some of these, some of these

00:11:20 situations. So I want to talk more about like, how I got into this, how I got into this space.

00:11:35 And, we met because I gave a talk on how my background in Indian classical dance led me

00:11:42 to anthropology. But then on, upon further introspection upon further auto ethnography,

00:11:48 I realized that wasn't the central why of why I got into this. So I'm going to turn

00:11:54 it to you Kadambari and ask you what you think of this image, this artifact that I'm going

00:12:01 to show you from my life and this to me explains a lot about, why I got into anthropology.

00:12:10 Okay. I can see you there. And I can see like lot of people with different cultural backgrounds

00:12:17 or, you know, different cultures. And with the image that I can see, like, you know,

00:12:22 you're standing in between, and there's also this thing of, you know, girls just looking

00:12:27 at the different, people there who are your friends maybe, or, you know, people you're

00:12:32 with them right now. but what I see is not like same sort of people there, there's a

00:12:37 lot of mature, like, you know, different sort of people who are there, different cultures,

00:12:41 maybe you wanted to understand them better and from this picture, if I have to infer

00:12:46 like take a long leap, I would say that if you were interested in, your friends there

00:12:52 and wanted to understand them better. So that was the starting point for you to start on

00:12:57 the anthropology. Awesome. Yes. That was definitely a huge part

00:13:04 of it wanting to understand them more. But I think even more than that, this was, this

00:13:09 was home to me. Home was multicultural. Home was multi-lingual home was, every other friend

00:13:16 I had was a child of immigrants. So I was always clamoring to get back to that sense

00:13:21 of home. And, and to me, I think always this is what home will look like. And it is also,

00:13:30 important to note that this was some kind of, you know, where your cultural dress performance

00:13:36 or program that they put on for us when we were, I don't know, like, I guess it looks

00:13:40 like four or five years old and that's also a part of it, you know hold on to where you

00:13:47 came from, hold onto your stories, as you can kind of hold hands with everyone else,

00:13:52 you know, join forces. So it's kind of, it's a very like utopian, you know, we're, we're

00:13:57 all a happy family, but I, I really did grow up in that. I mean, you, you learned little

00:14:02 bits and pieces of other people's language and it was. It was cool. It wasn't like strange.

00:14:07 It was awesome that you could, you know, I, I think I knew a little bit of Korean and

00:14:12 Greek growing up and definitely Spanish and I speak, the only thing I retained now is

00:14:18 Spanish. I don't know any of those other languages, but I mean, it's, it's awesome to grow up

00:14:23 in this kind of environment where. You know, there isn't one majority, there isn't one

00:14:28 minority it's kind of, and it s kind of peppered throughout. So I realized that, I mean, this

00:14:35 is why I study anthropology because I'm always trying to bridge these differences and say,

00:14:42 you know, we could be different, but we can still understand each other. We can still

00:14:47 Co-exist and it really does follow a lineage of anthropologists. Who've been activists,

00:14:55 they've been, promoters of equality and justice. I mean the father of American anthropology,

00:15:02 Frank boas is the one that kind of. Spread the cultural relativism concept of like, you

00:15:13 know, and within our cultural context, we, we learned certain things. We have certain

00:15:17 values, none is better than the other. It's all relative. And it's all, you know, it's,

00:15:23 it's different, but equal kind of, sort of, you know, that's not, that's not the best

00:15:27 way to phrase it, but, Yeah. So, so this is essentially why I continue to dive into anthropology

00:15:37 because you know, you, you get to a point where differences become similarities and

00:15:43 similarities become differences, and it keeps weaving in and out of, these, these kinds

00:15:48 of norms and an abnormal, but what you call abnormal, what you call normal is, is always

00:15:55 changing from this. So, yeah, so I, I say that, you can, you can get really entrenched

00:16:07 in learning about other people by learning about your story. Another thing I would say

00:16:12 is, In, in my experience of how you tell these stories and, and some of that, we talked about

00:16:21 some of those timelines being condensed and some of the stories of longitudinal study

00:16:26 of deep immersion and ethnography, or either you can't, you don't have time to actually

00:16:31 explore them, or you don't have time to tell them. I realized for, for me personally, writing

00:16:36 those stories out, maybe even taking inspiration from those stories and writing fictional stories

00:16:43 has been a great outlet. So I would say researchers, if you feel like I did all this work, I collected

00:16:48 all these great stories. You know, you can this is how, how writers and filmmakers work.

00:16:54 They, they take from real life. So it is, you know, it is art imitating life and you've.

00:17:00 Seeing all these life experiences. And if you need, if you need an outlet, I would say,

00:17:06 definitely go into some of these performing arts spaces and some of these creative spaces

00:17:11 to, to really let that story breathe. So, I think, I think I'll end there.

00:17:18 I mean, I have a few other things, but I think that's where. I'll wrap up because I want

00:17:26 to hear from you now. It was amazing to hear, you know, thoughts,

00:17:30 how you got into ethnography and anthropology. Sorry, not, and you know, how you continue.

00:17:37 So you did talk about that, you know, understanding your friends was the starting point maybe,

00:17:44 or what does, that was my at least leap, of like, you know, how did that get interested?

00:17:48 But I want to understand, like at what time, what time in you re, like, you know, growing

00:17:53 up, you understood that you want to be an anthropologist and, how did you go about becoming

00:17:59 one? I think there's a few seeds that were planted

00:18:04 and, or a few breadcrumbs that were leading me to, to practicing anthropology. I think

00:18:13 the first was, we had an exercise when we were in sixth grade where each, each group

00:18:20 of students had a different class culture like Egypt and Greek. And then we painted

00:18:26 pots according to the art and life of, those cultures broke the pots, buried them in sand.

00:18:32 And then a different group. So let's say I was in the group Egypt. I would go to, to

00:18:38 some other group. They wouldn't tell us which one uncover the pieces of the broken pot and

00:18:44 put it together. And that's where I first learned about archeology. It's not to say

00:18:48 this, that our social studies. We're centering on, anthropological fields, but, that one

00:18:57 or two weeks, or maybe it was even a few days, I can't remember right now, left a big impact

00:19:03 on me. Next was, I believe there was another social studies class around 13 or 14. And,

00:19:09 I don't quite remember what the class was, but I do remember them saying there are people

00:19:14 who major in anthropology and that, that planted the seed for, Oh, I could actually study this

00:19:19 and then. After, not quite after graduating during the last years of university, one of

00:19:28 my friends mentioned an article on corporate anthropology because I felt my professor,

00:19:37 my advisor gave me an assignment that would have been the precursor to a PhD in film and

00:19:43 anthropology. And I realized I didn't have the patience for it. And I think he kind of

00:19:47 wanted to, he's like, yeah, he's like, and it s yours. If you want it, you could do the

00:19:51 PhD. But at that, at that time, at that age, for whatever reason, I just, I was like, This

00:19:56 one paper was enough and I don't think I have the stamina, the endurance, God bless everyone

00:20:02 who does, but I was like, I can't, I can't do this right now. So, you know, this like

00:20:09 his exercise combined with this friend showing me the article on corporate anthropology,

00:20:14 which was a big light bulb moment. I didn't know this existed definitely didn't hear about

00:20:19 it in our school. I had heard about applied anthropology, but it was mostly applied to,

00:20:26 Social causes. And, for example, that same advisor, he applied his knowledge of drugs

00:20:34 and culture to rehabilitation centers for addicts, you know, so, so that's kind of like

00:20:39 I saw it in very limited lenses and that corporate anthropology opened up wider doors. I did

00:20:44 start out doing work in nonprofits and loosely applying my anthropology background, but it

00:20:50 was largely administrative. So, so then that whole corporate anthropology came kind of

00:20:57 screaming back like three or four years after my, my dabbling in the nonprofit world. And

00:21:03 I said, why, why not go into for-profit? I shouldn't, I shouldn't be so black and white,

00:21:08 you know, let's try both, both sides. And, and I actually was in sales and marketing

00:21:14 before I said, let me create my own position as a, it was a tech company. A cloud computing

00:21:21 company. So I said, if you want to sell cloud computing, products. And if you want to design

00:21:27 them in a way that makes sense, you really need to study these highly skeptical, highly

00:21:32 intelligent developers up-close and see what's working for them. See, what's already being

00:21:37 used and, and not build something equal or let alone sub-par, you know, you have to build

00:21:44 something that's much better and you have to talk about it in a way that doesn't raise

00:21:50 suspicion. So, I created this developer anthropologists role and I was in Silicon Valley. Like every

00:21:57 week I basically lived there and went to conferences. So, so that's kind of how, it's, how it started.

00:22:08 You talked about applying anthropology to design, right? Like, so how has that journey

00:22:13 been? And, can you elaborate like how it can be used actually in the corporate settings?

00:22:20 So there's. There's lots of different ways, but basically, I mean, when, when I work with

00:22:26 designers, they're, they're trying to solve problems, elegantly beautifully, intelligently

00:22:31 and kind of seamlessly, you know so there's this, I believe it's a Parsi phrase, be like

00:22:37 sugar and milk. So I feel like the sugar is, that user research. And then, you know, when

00:22:45 your sugar and milk, you don't see the sweetness, you don't see the research, you don't see

00:22:49 the intelligence behind, but it's, it tastes and feels better. So I feel that our research

00:22:55 has to be, I mean, it's the designers part too, to kind of weave it in seamlessly, but

00:23:02 as a researcher that hopefully brings the designer along the ethnographic journey, it,

00:23:09 it truly is that like immersing yourself, collecting these stories, making sure, the,

00:23:15 the depth of a nuance of the human experience is always present in every part of the decision-making

00:23:22 process. It's, it's kind of astonishing how quickly that. Mindset can drop if you or somebody

00:23:31 in the room is not advocating for the customer because very easily it could become well,

00:23:37 it's just too difficult to build that. It's just too, ah, do we really need to worry about

00:23:42 that, you know, level of comfort or do we really need to worry you it's just incredible

00:23:47 how quickly that perspective can drop because of it, you know, very understandable practical

00:23:53 business need, or it's just too difficult on the engineering side but not impossible,

00:23:59 you know? So, so we really have to be, remembering and retelling these stories that we found

00:24:06 out in the field to keep everyone in that kind of like present with the customer because

00:24:13 the customer's not in the room, they don't get to be in the room. So you have to. Keep

00:24:16 kind of invoking them in, in, and there, their stories and their spirit and into the design

00:24:26 process. Do you want to talk about some of the methods

00:24:28 that you applied? Like you did talk about, you know, some of the things like immersing,

00:24:32 and longitude middle, you know, after UX and things like that, do you want to elaborate

00:24:37 on that for people like what it means and what it is.

00:24:41 So there's on the observation side, there's covert observation and participant observation.

00:24:48 So covert is essentially spine, you know, so I'll, I'll bring in one of my favorite

00:24:55 projects I got to work on, which was. My first project. When I became an, when I went independent

00:25:01 was a design group in Denmark, wanted to build, they wanted to revolutionize products for

00:25:09 the visually impaired they're like, why are we still using this stick, the cane we need

00:25:14 to, we need to blow this out of the water. We can incorporate motion sensing. So and

00:25:20 we want to launch in New York City, which is a very different place from Copenhagen.

00:25:24 It's like, we, we know like everything is different, you know how do we, how do we go

00:25:32 about doing this for that context? And what I had done was. First of all learned a lot

00:25:39 of valuable lessons and gatekeepers, because there was a lot of folks when I called and

00:25:44 said, I'm a researcher and I should have known this, but I, you know, you learn lessons many

00:25:48 times. I should have known that you can't just go in and say, I'm a researcher. I want

00:25:51 to stare at your community and take notes and be weird. You know, they're like, we're

00:25:56 not getting we get about 10 calls like this every day. We are not interested. And I realized,

00:26:04 you know, you have to, there is an exchange that we always talk about in a traditional

00:26:08 anthropology. Like you, you do have to give back to the society, that's giving so much

00:26:12 knowledge to you. So I became a volunteer at one of the shelters and in that way I was

00:26:17 able to. and then of course I kept all the names anonymous, but I was able to respectfully

00:26:23 be there, but still be a fly on the wall, listen, and both engage, but also be kind

00:26:29 of covert in, in like the conversations I listened to. And there's so much value in

00:26:35 that. Especially a group that is completely different from your own. I didn't realize

00:26:39 for example, that the actual material of the stick of the cane mattered. So there's plastic,

00:26:49 there's rubber, plastic allows people to tap and it kind of creates like an echo. So people

00:26:55 you are kind of warned or, or even they can see, Oh, it's this material or that material

00:27:01 based on the echo, the rubber is less slippery, but it kind of mutes out the sound, especially

00:27:07 when it's snowing. And so there's all these things that I was like, I listened to a conversation.

00:27:11 All of this was from me, just sitting there, like, like listening to a conversation between

00:27:16 two of the members of the community. And I would've never gotten this information. I

00:27:21 wouldn't have known to ask this information. In the years, you know, and I did listen to

00:27:26 podcasts. I did try to do my, secondary research upfront. So I came in informed, but in no

00:27:32 way was I was I that well-informed, that I got these kinds of intimate conversations

00:27:37 about materials, about the really day to day. Difficulties and nuances of navigating the

00:27:44 city as a visually impaired person. So I, I always advocate for starting with a combination

00:27:50 of secondary research and that includes podcasts. That includes, academic articles, even, you

00:27:57 know, but not, not even academic articles, but just find all kinds of resources, stories,

00:28:03 from the group that you were intending to study. But also do some of the covert observation.

00:28:09 And then the participant observation was like I said, I was a volunteer, so I would engage

00:28:13 with them. I would talk to them, but I was essentially part of the community. It's not

00:28:17 always possible. I understand that. But if there is a seamless, respectful, ethical way

00:28:23 to do that, always start with that because I cite that one example of the material, because

00:28:29 you don't know what you don't know, you don't know what questions to ask and that will give

00:28:34 you the most intelligent kind of briefing to then create your, interview questions.

00:28:41 The interview should be like the second part of the whole research journey.

00:28:46 Yeah. Yeah, that's really awesome to hear like, you know, how you went about it. I want

00:28:52 to focus on one of the things that you talked about that was ethics and it's, its really

00:28:56 important. You know, being that, you know, you're taking so much from, the people understanding

00:29:01 them. So what do you think are good practices for a researcher? Who's, you know, like a

00:29:06 new budding designer, like, let's say researcher, who's coming to the field, knows like, you

00:29:10 know how to conduct the research, but what the part of ethics, what do you think that

00:29:14 should be? You know, taken care of when you're doing interviews or any of those.

00:29:21 There's, you know, there's like kind of the standard legal side of ethics, there's the

00:29:27 cultural sensitivity side of ethics. And then there's probably so many others that I'm not

00:29:31 going to cover. So by no means is this exhaustive, but let's start with the cultural sensitivity.

00:29:36 That's where doing your homework being prepared to seek out participants seek out your, those

00:29:45 that will help you in your research in a respectful way, in a non-offensive way, kind of list

00:29:51 out cultural norms and you know, well, for example, even like home interviews, people

00:29:56 too, Some people still don't know, like you have to take off your shoes in many people's

00:30:01 homes and they just come barging in with their cameras and their shoes. And it's just, it's

00:30:05 like that, like, you know, one-on-one kind of thing, you know? So there's, you know,

00:30:11 that's a very small example, but there's also things you say. I came in calling around saying,

00:30:16 Hey, can I just sit there observe, you know, you're visually impaired, not realizing how,

00:30:21 how, Greedy. That was in a way how disrespectful it was. This is where people come to feel

00:30:29 safe, to feel. Cared for, to really let loose and hang out with people that are like them.

00:30:35 And you don't want, I mean, if you go into like any kind of safe space, how would you

00:30:40 feel if someone's staring? So I should have, you know, this was early on, but I should

00:30:44 have known that. So kind of these, cultural sensitivity and, and even just on a human

00:30:49 level. Code of ethics. And then on the legal side, you know, I will not present your name.

00:30:55 I will not present your, whatever. The, the participant is comfortable with, you have

00:30:59 to honor that. So you'll have consent forms. If, you know, we've run into this a few times

00:31:05 where people are like, I, I didn't realize you were going to videotape us, even if it

00:31:09 was cleared, you know, these things happen, even if it was cleared by whatever recruiting

00:31:14 company or even if we spoke directly to them. They just changed their mind, you know, and

00:31:19 you have to honor that. And if they don't want to sign that consent form, maybe have

00:31:23 another one ready, say, can we record audio at least and not use your name and, you know,

00:31:28 so, so keep adjusting those things, but make sure everything is clear to the participant

00:31:33 and not only clear, but obviously comfortable to them in that moment and then, obviously

00:31:37 on your side, have everything ready to, to be signed, to be verified.

00:31:44 So I'm going to ask you another question, which is like, we generally do in design when

00:31:50 we're, you know, constructing a persona and I want to construct a persona of a person

00:31:55 who's a researcher. So I want to understand the day in the life of a researcher. So how

00:31:59 would it, how does yours, like, if you are a researcher who is doing on a, on a project,

00:32:04 how does your day in life looks like A day in the life? I think if you're going

00:32:10 to talk about personas, which, you know, kind of put you into this like static state, which

00:32:14 is a little unfair for any kind of person. I would say the biggest commonality is you

00:32:21 have to be a good improviser. I would, I would stand by that for anybody. You know, you're,

00:32:26 and you re an improviser. You may have to have a poker face because you don't know.

00:32:31 it's, it's an awkward thing to say, your improve improvisation implies like great performance,

00:32:39 but your performance is being, you know, very like, Oh, you just screamed at me. Okay. Okay.

00:32:45 You know, like, you know, there's, there's that, I believe. There's a sense of listening.

00:32:52 I mean, you know, heard this a lot, but the best researchers kind of put themselves, at

00:33:01 least in some of these interviews kind of put themselves and their personality is secondary

00:33:05 or background to what's going on in front of them. So a little bit, a little bit like,

00:33:11 and it's not to say that's who they are all the time, but in these research settings.

00:33:15 And then you asked for specifically a day in the life. I mean, let's talk about a day

00:33:19 in the life, in, in the field. I think it's, it's, coming up with, and let's say truly

00:33:28 in the field, you don't have a camera, you just have a notebook and let's say it's something

00:33:32 like with the visual impaired, I couldn't go in with a camera you have to set out with

00:33:38 what are some questions you have to answer from the previous day or your previous research?

00:33:45 Have those questions in the background, but always be listening for something unexpected,

00:33:52 always be fresh eyes, always be, kind of arguing with your assumptions and your biases and,

00:34:01 be kind, Is opportunistic the right, you know, like, like be ready to jump at an opportunity

00:34:08 to speak with somebody or to be involved in an activity or, to kind of go with the flow

00:34:13 of what this natural setting is presenting to you because you, you never know if, that

00:34:19 might be a hidden gem. That might be the one thing that unexpectedly led to the product

00:34:25 innovation to the beautiful design, you know, you never know. So. Undercurrent is game of

00:34:33 improve. Start out with some objectives. Start out with like a loose structure, but always

00:34:38 leave room for surprises. You also draw a lot of pamphlets between,

00:34:43 you know, the performance art, and you know, you've also talked about like how it can be

00:34:47 a good outlet for researchers to publish those stories or, you know, create something from

00:34:53 that side. And you'd also performance artists. So how do you see these two things coming

00:34:59 together for you? For me, I, I got into writing. Scripts, just

00:35:07 like putting together these stories and these characters that I ve that have been floating

00:35:10 around in my head very recently. It was never really on my radar. So, so it was just, it

00:35:18 was just very surprising that this came to be so, I believe that if you in fiction, and

00:35:29 fictionalized versions of these ethnographic experiences. You can have some license for

00:35:35 interpretation, which is not like, well, where did you get that from? Where's the proof,

00:35:38 where's the proof you're like, no, I just, I can just infer it. I can just feel it. You

00:35:43 know, you can give yourself permission to do that because yes, we, again, we are people

00:35:47 and if you. Are talking to someone and you're reading between the lines and you're kind

00:35:52 of like your colleague is reading between the lines of the executive is like, well,

00:35:56 they didn't say it word for word. They didn't say I liked the color green and I like buttons

00:36:00 that are round versus square. You did not prove this to me. I don't see the evidence

00:36:06 you need to back it up. You re kind of like, Oh my gosh. You know, so, so it's, it's a

00:36:11 chance to, you know, fill in those, those in between the lines kind of stories. And

00:36:19 I gave like a very mundane example, but there's all kinds of other things. Well, you don't

00:36:23 like round buttons because you're very into this and this and this, you know? So you can

00:36:27 just go with your imagination. You can go with, the little, the little like peaks that

00:36:35 people give the little glimpses people give into their lives. And you could keep expanding

00:36:40 on that because. Inevitably, it'll be percolate percolating in your head of like, who are

00:36:45 they? You know, I want to go deeper. I want to go deeper. Well, in your imagination, in

00:36:49 your stories, you can go deeper. So I find that for me personally, that was an unexpected,

00:36:58 gift to kind of let out some of these things, these characters that have been like. I didn't

00:37:04 even know under no we're running around in my head.

00:37:08 So, it's, it's like, you know, these fields that we are in are much driven by passion

00:37:14 than anything else. Right. I want to understand what keeps you moving in the direction, what

00:37:20 made you feel, and what is the rewarding experience for you being in anthropology and research?

00:37:26 Yeah, I think what's keeping me moving these days more than anything is the, the new found

00:37:33 teaching, personally, because, I get to experience and I, when I teach it, it's a very much like

00:37:41 self-designed kind of, approach to it. So I get to see anthropology applied to areas

00:37:49 that I didn't even think to apply to, or maybe I thought about it, but I didn't realize how

00:37:53 exciting it could be for somebody. So I think that that keeps it fresh for me. I think,

00:37:59 outside of that, yes, the performance aspect is, something that really helps. I mean, you

00:38:04 know, did I. This am I representing this person of this cultural group, very accurately will

00:38:13 Wilson anthropologist colleague come after me and be like, what a caricature you built?

00:38:18 What are you doing? You know, like, so I think some of this is like, you know, we speak of

00:38:23 ethics and if you're doing comedy, you're kind like. Ethical comedy, like, I don't know,

00:38:29 like ethical representation of this person from this subgroup. but still make it funny,

00:38:34 you know, like it's, I think that's giving me new life, a new challenge, in, and, and

00:38:41 also allowing me to go a little bit deeper into listening and researching in a way that

00:38:47 for a consumer design or B2B design, I, you know, I'd gone to a certain level. But I couldn't

00:38:56 go further into that story. Whereas this medium of performance art demands you to go really

00:39:03 far into that story, because the reason is like in, in business settings, they they're

00:39:08 like, okay, we don't need any more, you know? So you almost you're like, Oh, if you don't

00:39:11 need more, I'm not going to invest more time. Sometimes you get to that point where you're

00:39:14 like, all right, we got enough, but it's in the end to learn about a person's life. You

00:39:19 can never have enough data and stories. Right. So now talking about business, I want to understand

00:39:26 like gets its way, to talk about research and, you know, in the corporate setting and,

00:39:30 you know, to read and give that amount of time. So how do you emphasize the value of

00:39:34 research to your business stakeholders? Yeah. I feel like there's, there's been, an

00:39:41 interesting shift for, for me and perhaps I've learned from some others where. Previously,

00:39:47 it would be like let's advocate for it. Let's push let's push let's push it. Now it's been

00:39:53 a little bit of a, let them do the research. Let them not only sit in on an interview,

00:39:59 but you know, ask some of the questions upfront, some of, kind of the rapport building questions.

00:40:07 And, even more important than that I believe is having non researchers collaborate in the

00:40:15 synthesis. Because I feel like, and, and some institutions organizations already do this,

00:40:22 of course, but I feel like that's when.

00:40:26 People I've seen shift from skeptical of research. Why does this take so much time to like, Oh

00:40:31 my gosh, had we not had this much time to synthesize the information? We wouldn't have

00:40:36 gotten this? You, we wouldn't have connected the dots between these, these two behaviors

00:40:41 and understood that it was a negotiation of finances and priorities, for example, you

00:40:46 know, so there's, there's something to sitting back and allowing. People to essentially immerse

00:40:55 themselves in a research world. So you're kind of, it's kind of like eating our own

00:41:00 dog food. You're like, hey, let's let the non-researcher do participant observation,

00:41:06 do an ethnography, be an ethnographer in a researcher's world. And only then I believe,

00:41:12 will they truly buy into all of this? It's not always possible. I know with stakeholders,

00:41:17 but if you get. You know, bit by bit. If you get more and more people to immerse themselves

00:41:23 in the world of research, I think the work will be done for you. You don't have to push.

00:41:29 I'm going to ask you another tough question in that regard. So there's always like, there's

00:41:34 never, nobody's going to tell us that you know, that this is the, you know, endless

00:41:39 time you have to continue your project and things like that. Most of the time, like very

00:41:44 you know, put into a very tight deadline and very short, sort of, you know, workshops and

00:41:50 things are conducted, to create, you know, maybe research or design or for that matter.

00:41:55 So how do you negotiate with such things or, or do you negotiate or how do you think that

00:42:01 your people should find, what are your suggestions maybe?

00:42:06 I think, it's always important to negotiate, never back down from that, but, but also know

00:42:13 when, when, when you're, when you're spending more time negotiating then research thing.

00:42:19 If, if, if you know what I mean, like if it's holding up the process or if it's taking away,

00:42:24 you know, other things you could be doing. So, so first of all, balanced that out and

00:42:29 what you're negotiating for. Because if you start thinking creatively about repurposing

00:42:35 research and, and it doesn't work in every circumstance, but there are situations where

00:42:40 there's been some foundational research done about, you know, for example, how, how, folks

00:42:49 in a certain area think about their personal finances and the fears and myths that they

00:42:53 have. So if you've kind of. Taken a good, deep longitudinal approach to that world.

00:43:01 Maybe you can use some of that research to us. Supplement the kind of drain of time that

00:43:09 you have on this current project. So, so yes. Look, it's, it's, it's, I'm saying contradictory

00:43:15 things, but you have to look at this project with fresh eyes and say, what does this project

00:43:19 need? But, Oh, Hey. People in the sentiments and some of the cultural aspects are the same

00:43:25 as this other project, or, you know, there's, there's all these fantastic anthropologists

00:43:30 and other academics that have done years in lifetime of work on some of these areas, please,

00:43:37 you know, build from them, borrow from them. Use, use some of this research, to do, to

00:43:44 kind of, you know, like. To start out a little bit on a higher plane with your own research.

00:43:51 So I think, you know, while you negotiate and that's, that's like a hard battle to win,

00:43:57 you can find other ways to deepen your research and, and, kind of make up for lost time or

00:44:04 make up for time. That s been cut from you. Now I'm going to ask you some of the things

00:44:10 that keeps inspiring you. I understand, like, you know, in current times of pandemic, there's

00:44:14 lot of things happening, but, you did talk about, you know, what keeps you motivated,

00:44:19 but in general, like even before pandemic and even now, what are the things in life

00:44:23 that inspires you? Things in life that inspire me. Well, it's

00:44:30 become a lot more grounded. Like that answer would have been very different pre pandemic.

00:44:34 I would have been like it's the parties. No, just kidding. But you know, I, I feel like

00:44:42 I've come to a point where I'm living in, in. These quiet times. It's, it's a very,

00:44:51 you know, kind of cliche answer, but like family and cooking food and my dog and, you

00:44:59 know, these, these kinds of things inspire me. And, I, in nature, I mean, I've, you know,

00:45:07 like what, what can you do? You don't, you don't want to gather with too many people,

00:45:11 but you still want to be out. So to say, and I feel like being in nature, you. You learn

00:45:17 a lot, or you don't learn a lot and its fine. It's fine to not keep grinding and learning

00:45:22 and producing and processing all the time. Some rest is, is needed. But, but pre pandemic

00:45:30 times, I, I joked and said parties, but I, I think I, I went, I was lucky enough to gather

00:45:36 with so many cool people. Like I met you at the conference. I would, make it a ritual

00:45:43 to go to this Margaret Mead film festival. It was the ethnographic film festival in New

00:45:49 York. And, and then, and then film festivals themselves. There's a lot of South Asian film

00:45:53 festivals that have started budding up in, in the US even and reading the people behind

00:45:59 the films, the storytellers, the, they are in their own way. Ethnographers, you know,

00:46:05 they're putting, I studied life on camera. So, these people, these, gatherings were,

00:46:14 and probably still will inspire me once, once we resume.

00:46:20 Yeah. Some recommendations that you will give for younger researchers and designers.

00:46:26 I would say, I would say read some of the classic anthropologists works. So Margaret

00:46:36 Mead, Ruth Benedict, and then more recently, Ruth Bihar, I talked about her book, vulnerable

00:46:43 observer and kind of find, find, even if you're not. Professing to be an anthropologist. I

00:46:49 think you could find a lot of inspiration from how they took anthropology, made it their

00:46:54 own, but then also gave a lot of respect to the culture, cultural groups they were studying.

00:47:02 And, so that's, you know, that's going deep into your practice. I think it's equally important

00:47:06 to get out of your practice. So do something completely different. Shake up your mind.

00:47:12 I talked a lot about how, Research is a game of improv. And I would say take improv classes.

00:47:20 I would highly recommend that because it's just fun. I think any industry, I mean, just,

00:47:25 you have to get out of your head. It is scary, but so is you show up to a client's house.

00:47:31 They're not expecting you, your camera's not working. They hate you, whatever it is, you

00:47:37 know, you have to be ready for some of these challenges and still make the most of it and

00:47:42 still see the benefit in it. Just like an improv, anything that's given to you, you

00:47:46 have to make a scene out of it. So I think take improv classes. I obviously I'm biased,

00:47:53 but any kind of artistic outlet, you know, have that, have that just for the sake of

00:47:57 having it, whatever it might be, crocheting painting, dancing. You know, so I think these,

00:48:05 these are some things I could offer. And in general, like people who are getting

00:48:10 into design or any sort of career, what sort of thing they should look out for are some

00:48:14 of your suggestions in terms of, you know, going onto a career, which is more creative

00:48:18 or, you know, research and things like that. What, what, what would be your advice to them?

00:48:25 So, I would say folks getting into career. I, in the beginning, I talked maybe a little

00:48:36 too much about auto ethnography, but it's only because I think it's more important than

00:48:41 ever, or maybe it's always been incredibly important to know why you're getting into

00:48:45 something and keep, keep revisiting that. Why keep re-examining why, why you're doing

00:48:50 what you're doing, why you're studying, what you're studying, why you're advocating for

00:48:56 certain approaches and. A lot of times we see even in the supposed creative fields,

00:49:02 this kind of like there's mother duck, and then baby duck is going to follow and make

00:49:07 sure, you know, there's, there's some imprinting of like, I idolize this designer, I idolize

00:49:11 this anthropologist and you know, that's wonderful. They'd probably deserve a lot of that, but

00:49:18 also make sure, you know, beyond idolizing this person and beyond idolizing this career

00:49:23 path, truly for yourself authentically, why you're doing and in embarking on this path.

00:49:30 Well, that was a great, you know, advice, piece of advice to be authentic and to look

00:49:35 into yourself right before idolizing others. Yeah, that was great. I would now want to

00:49:42 thank you for coming and sharing your thoughts with us today. And, for the great work that

00:49:47 you're doing and, you know, again, inspiring so many people, we, we want to just, confer

00:49:52 upon you a small love, and, you know, a token of appreciation from our side and I'll just

00:49:59 share that with you. So we just want to show that today you are our inspiring young designer.

00:50:08 Thanks for coming and sharing your thoughts with us. We really loved, you know, listening

00:50:13 to your story is, being authentic and you know, how, how it means to be an anthropologist

00:50:19 and researcher and how you do your apply that thank you so much for sharing that today.

00:50:22 Thank you. This was such an honor. And, I love the series you're putting together. I

00:50:27 admire the work you're doing and thank you so much for having me.