Paula Zuccotti (London-based ethnographer, designer, and trend forecaster) and Ina Feistritzer (Marketing Lead at Accenture Song DACH) talk about Paula’s work as an ethnographer and her experiences conducting research in different countries, as well as how she explores how social behaviours and cultural norms manifest themselves in people’s possessions.

Paula is a leading expert in global consumption and a respected authority in consumer behaviour and product interaction of the past, present, and future. She authored “Every Thing We Touch: A 24-Hour Inventory of Our Lives”, the book that introduced us to storytelling with objects as she portrayed the lives of ordinary people around the world presented by a single photograph of every object her subjects touched in a day.

In this episode of the NEXT-SHOW, we talk about Paula’s diverse research projects around the world, from studying luxury consumption in China, to exploring how people ear mayonnaise or drive sports cars! We also talk about how the pandemic impacted research methods, how Paula has adapted to conducting interviews remotely, and what possessions tell us about the people behind them.
She also emphasised the importance of understanding the present, before discussing the future in research reports and how ethnography offers multiple perspectives on today’s status quo.

If you would like to learn more about Paula’s work, we recommend reading her book, “Every Thing We Touch: A 24-Hour Inventory of Our Lives” and watching the complementary documentary series, “Future Archeology”.

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We have also summarised this episode on our blog.

Paula Zuccotti: how design ethnography illuminates the future by understanding the present