Legitimating design: a sociology of knowledge account of the field

This paper presents a sociology of knowledge approach to describe disciplines in the field of design. We show how the approach casts the nature of knowledge in design disciplines as based upon socially agreed criteria for what constitutes the realization of legitimate knowledge. Interviews with designers and analyses of professional and pedagogic discourse about design are used to illustrate how the approach reveals the differences in what kind of design knowledge is valued, cultivated, and emphasised within a discipline. By placing a sociological lens on knowledge in design, we aim to suggest a language by which what counts as design knowledge can be explicitly expressed. A common, shared language to describe the differences opens a mechanism to discuss what can count as knowledge, rather than to retreat into corners and only agree to disagree that there are different knowledges in design.