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D W E L L I N G W I T H D E S I G N
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the relationship between the household and the outside world — the boundary
across which artefacts and meanings, texts and technologies, pass as the
household defines and claims for itself and its members a status in neighbourhood,
work and peer groups in the “wider society.” (ibid. 25)
The next turn at formulating the domestication model took place in the article
“Design and the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies:
Technical Change and Everyday Life” (Silverstone & Haddon 1996). In
this account, a product’s domestication within a household is framed by the
product’s career in public: the design process, how it is manufactured, how
it is marketed and consumer feedback. In this version, the domestication
involves three phases: commodification, appropriation and conversion. Of the
phases, commodification and conversion are linked with a product’s production,
whereas the seeds of appropriation are planted during the point at which a
product is being commodified by its producer and, on the other hand, conversion
feeds into a product’s design in the form of user or consumer feedback.
The domestication of an object is part of an endless cycle of production and
consumption, described as a cycle of commodification – appropriation – conversion
– design – manufacturing – marketing – commodification – appropriation
(and so forth).
The third, and for my work, most fruitful formulation is presented in Roger
Silverstone’s last article on domestication, “Domesticating domestication.
Reflections on the life of a concept” (Silverstone 2006) (Figure 2). In this version,
the focus is no longer on products transcending the boundaries between
private and public. Instead, the focus is on the work and skills involved in the
domestication process. Consequently, the phases of domestication are defined
a bit differently. The familiar phases (commodification, objectification, incorporation
and conversion) are now defined as dimensions of appropriation (ibid.
233), and “domestication” is an umbrella term referring to the entire career of
an object in the market. This third formulation of the domestication model
appears as a hybrid of the first and second formulations, since, while it takes
into account the production phase in an object’s biography, it also acknowledges
the complexities of domestic life.
Appropriation involves phases of commodification, conversion, objectification
and incorporation. Commodification “prepares the ground for the initial
appropriation” (ibid. 234). To a great extent, the commodification process is
directed by the product’s producer and it is acknowledged that “machines and
services do not come into the household naked” (ibid.).