It's Personal: Subjectivity in Design History

Abstract

The practices of design, our experiences of their outcomes, as well as the narratives we create about them, are all deeply personal—and therefore subjective. Postmodern theory might have finally killed off the utopian ideal of history as an objective science, but it has arguably left a vacuum, with no comprehensive debate on the role of subjectivity in history writing and its potential challenges and benefits. As scholars we are trained to put aside subjective responses in our analyses, and yet personal interests, values, and experiences continue to inform the work of design historians, from our choice of subject matter and theoretical frameworks to our methodological approaches and conclusions. In our introduction to this special issue we discuss the historiographical and theoretical underpinnings informing the following articles' rich and diverse explorations of subjectivity in design history.

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