ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two important distinguishing features of product ethnography that set it apart from other ethnographic applications and very specifically from systems ethnography. It investigates the substrate of culture in which individual wishes and aspirations flourish only to gain a deeper understanding of the individual and individual decision-making, in sharp contrast to systems ethnography, which privileges the system over the individuals who must work within it. The chapter focuses primarily on products that the individual has a relatively unconstrained ability to decide to buy or, if not buy, then choose to use or not use, as is often the case in the context of contemporary knowledge work. Where purchase and adoption choices are severely constrained by a larger system, whether it be regulatory, medical, or military, ethnographic practices will tend to shade over into realities described in Patricia Ensworth's chapter concerning systems ethnography.
