New Domestic Rituals: Note on Design Anthropology

The paper focuses on the relationship between design and anthropology and investigates the way in which social actors shape their domestic life and spaces through objectivation and resignification, using designed objects to convey a meaning to their everyday experience. Firstly, the paper discusses the role of domestic rituals and artifacts, providing specific examples and materials directly concerned with ethnographic research in domesticity (Miller, Appadurai, Gunn, etc.) so as to highlight the anthropological contribution in design studies. Following the first survey, the text presents some results of a field research in Italy (Siena, Venice), conducted with the aim of analyzing the effects of beliefs and practices on design and the function and value of contemporary objects in domestic rituals.