The literature on Design Anthropology (DA) is skewed towards discussion exploring anthropology's potential for design. In contrast, discourse on how design can contribute to anthropology is somewhat limited. This article proposes an ‘Anthropology through Design’ (AtD) approach by reflecting on a study on the emergent phenomenon of ‘energy exchange’. The AtD approach aims to generate anthropological knowledge of an emergent sociocultural phenomenon through the use of a design intervention. This article describes four intertwined tracks—Framing, Design Intervening, Ethnographic Particular Understanding, and Anthropological General Understanding—of our AtD process. The proposed AtD approach takes a strategic step in relocating ‘design’ from being an object of anthropology to becoming an instrument for doing anthropology.

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Within the areas of distributed, off-grid, and decentralized energy, there is a growing interest in local energy exchanges. A crucial component of an energy exchange is a return provided by an energy-receiver to an energy-giver for the energy provided. The existing energy literature on such returns is primarily limited to monetary returns and lacks a critical discussion on the different types of monetary and non-monetary returns possible and variation in people’ preferences for these. Based on an ethnographic ‘research intervention’ study conducted at two off-grid villages in rural India for 11 months, this article presents a sociocultural understanding of returns. The article presents a classification of returns consisting of three types, i.e., in-cash, in-kind and intangible, and proposes a conceptual model of ‘returns-continuum.’ The article showcases how people's preference for a type of return varies with the nature of their social relationships with each other and suggests that configuring a return is not merely an economic act but a complex sociocultural process. Finally, the article recommends to energy researchers and practitioners to enable diversity in returns, to acknowledge dynamics of social relations in returns, to interconnect energy economy with the local in-kind economy, and to engage with ethnographic approaches.

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Many energy researchers and practitioners envision householders to have an active role in local energy distribution in emerging energy systems. In the energy literature, the dominant view of local energy distribution, grounded in the rational choice perspective, sees exchanges of energy between households as energy trading. The existing energy literature lacks conceptualization of social and personal exchange of energy between households that is mutually structured and negotiated. This article builds on the theoretical works of an economic anthropologist, Stephen Gudeman, to conceptually discuss such energy exchanges. This article reports from an ‘ethnographic intervention’ study conducted at an off-grid village in rural India for three months (1 February–30 April 2016). The ethnographic data analysis reveals how social relations and diverse cultural values influence on energy exchanges between households in the village. The article introduces ‘circle of mutual energy exchange’ as a conceptual, analytical and descriptive unit for understanding such energy exchanges. The article describes two co-existing and dialectically connected modes of energy exchanges: ‘mutual energy sharing’ and ‘mutual energy trading.’

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Objective Lower back problems are a common cause of sick leave of employees in Dutch care homes and hospitals. In the Netherlands over 40% of reported sick leave is due to back problems, mainly caused by carrying out heavy work. The goal of the iLift project was to develop a game for nursing personnel to train them in lifting and transfer techniques. The main focus was not on testing for the effectiveness of the game itself, but rather on the design of the game as an autogenous trigger and its place in a behavioral change support system. In this article, the design and development of such a health behavior change support system is addressed, describing cycles of design and evaluation. Methods (a) To define the problem space, use context and user context, focus group interviews were conducted with Occupational Therapists (n = 4), Nurses (n = 10) and Caregivers (n = 12) and a thematic analysis was performed. We interviewed experts (n = 5) on the subject of lifting and transferring techniques. (b) A design science research approach resulted in a playable prototype. An expert panel conducted analysis of video-recorded playing activities. (c) Field experiment: We performed a dynamic analysis in order to investigate the feasibility of the prototype through biometric data from player sessions (n = 620) by healthcare professionals (n = 37). Results (a) Occupational Therapists, Nurses and Caregivers did not recognise a lack of knowledge with training in lifting and transferring techniques. All groups considered their workload, time pressure and a culturally determined habit to place the patient's well being above their own as the main reason not to apply appropriate lifting and transferring techniques. This led to a shift in focus from a serious game teaching lifting and transferring techniques to a health behavior change support system containing a game with the intention to influence behavior. (b) Building and testing (subcomponents of) the prototype resulted in design choices regarding players perspective, auditory and visual feedback, overall playability and perceived immersiveness. This design process also addressed the behavior shaping capacities of the game and its place within the health behavior change support system. An expert panel on lifting and transferring techniques validated the provoked in-game activities as being authentic. (c) Regression analysis showed an increase of the game score and dashboard score when more sessions were played, indicating an in-game training effect. A post-hoc test revealed that from an average of 10 playing sessions or more, the dashboard score and the game score align, which indicates behavioral change towards executing appropriate static lifting and transferring techniques. Conclusions Data gathered in the final field test shows an in-game training effect, causing players to exhibit correct techniques for static lifting and transferring techniques but also revealed the necessity for future social system development and especially regarding intervention acceptance. Social system factors showed a strong impact on the games persuasive capacities and its autogenous intent.@en