As a design historian and social anthropologist, Alison J. Clarke’s research deals with the intersection of these disciplines, specifically in terms of their shared focus on the politics of material culture and social relations. Her most recent monograph Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World (The MIT Press, 2021) explores the controversial origins of social design, casting a critical perspective on the origins of a movement that has claimed to promote social justice through people-centered approaches.

Her present book and research project Design Anthropology: Decolonizing and Recolonizing the Material World (The MIT Press) explores the blurred historical boundaries between design practice and anthropology, and the social consequences of the uptake of this melding in the contemporary corporate sector. Clarke’s research has been supported by the Graham Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Austrian Science Fund and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, among others.