There's methodology in the madness: toward critical HCI ethnography.

We examine the expansion of topic areas for qualitative research in HCI publications, focusing on representations of users and field sites. We examine further developments in anthropological methodologies during a critical period of the late 1980s and 90s. We identify concerns shared by both research communities, in particular, the relationships between researcher and informant, and the construction of bounded settings for field work. We then argue that ethnographic approaches and theoretical commitments which came to the fore after Anthropology's critical turn can be usefully applied, in ways that can inspire design, to investigations of social practice and technology appropriation.