Observe
Enter people’s worlds without reducing them to “users”.
FIG. 01 · SHIFT THE PERSPECTIVE
01 / POSITION
THIS IS WHERE MY FIELDWORK BEGINS.
My fieldwork begins where objects and technologies become presences.
These presences shape how we live, work and consume. I reveal the constraints, beliefs and practices that turn them into partners and, at times, authorities.
Through ethno-design, I turn this material into design decisions, research frameworks and shareable experiences. The future becomes debatable, and habitable.
BEFORE THE TOOLS
I work onarchitectures of thought.
Depending on the question, this work takes the form of studies, atlases, strategic recommendations, books, talks or research programmes.
AI plays an important role when it helps reveal the narratives, categories and criteria steering an organisation. It remains one lens among others for understanding uncertainty, trust, luck and what we imagine to be possible.
STUDIESATLASESSTRATEGYBOOKSTALKSAI
02 / ETHNO-DESIGN
INVESTIGATE · INTERPRET · DESIGN
ETHNOdesign
Ethno-design combines the depth of anthropological inquiry with design’s ability to give form.
It begins with lived situations: gestures, objects, attachments and contradictions. It produces more than a diagnosis: criteria, scenarios, frameworks and design choices. Research does not simply precede design. It shifts it.
Document
Follow the gestures, objects, narratives and constraints that organise a situation.
Interpret
Connect field-level detail to cultural, economic and symbolic systems.
Give Form
Turn analysis into tangible points of leverage for decision-making, prototyping and transmission.
MY DISTINCTIVE STRENGTHMaking fieldwork a force for design.
03 / FORESIGHT
Strate École de design Lyon × Renault · Mobility · 2025 / 2026
From fieldwork to
possible futures.
Research becomes foresight when it produces a hypothesis that can be seen, handled and debated.
Within the Strate École de design Lyon × Renault partnership, five major themes generated 54 studies. Starting from everyday mobility situations such as attention, wear, cohabitation and availability, students produced situated artefacts, prototypes and scenarios. My role is to hold the entire chain together: from a researchable subject to the right question, then from that question to a future that can be debated.
5MAJOR
RESEARCH THEMES
RESEARCH THEMES
54STUDENT-LED
STUDIES
STUDIES
01 INVESTIGATE02 REFRAME03 PROTOTYPE04 OPEN TO DEBATE
FROM INQUIRY TO OBJECT
Five objects.Five forms of mobility.
Each proposal retains the trace of its inquiry: an artefact, but also a different way of understanding what it means to move.
- 01Quiet ThreadAttentional mobility
- 02A Journey for AllInterspecies mobility
- 03In-BetweenRelational mobility
- 04Trace KitBiographical mobility
- 05Wear & AttachmentMobility through attachment
FROM PROTOTYPE TO PRINCIPLE
The vehicle becomes a space of thresholds.
Objects matter as more than solutions. Viewed together, they reveal four principles for inhabiting movement differently.
- 01Attention
Inform without becoming intrusive.
- 02Care
Welcome other living beings without losing coherence.
- 03Durability
Make traces and repair into values.
- 04Relation
Make unavailability legible and legitimate.
“Design mobility as a way of inhabiting movement.”
“A good artefact does not close the inquiry; it makes it visible.”
04 / ECOSYSTEM
Three positions.
One practice.
MANAGIA
Co-director of the Research and Teaching Chair
Studying transformations in work and management in the age of artificial intelligence, as closely as possible to organisational practices.
Strate École de design Lyon
Associate Professor in Social Sciences
Teaching designers to investigate, reframe their perspective and turn lived situations into design decisions.
MAGICAL THINKING
Founder of the Anthropology and Ethno-design Studio
Designing bespoke research for companies and institutions, from field immersion to actionable, shareable frameworks.
05 / RESEARCH
What I make visible.
Concepts for thinking about forces already at work, often beneath the surface.
01Industrial Animism
WHAT IT IS
The contemporary tendency to attribute intentions, affects or a will of their own to machines, to the point of delegating part of our responsibility to them.
HOW I USE IT
I examine human-machine relationships and the narratives that turn a tool into a quasi-presence, a partner or an authority.
TYPES OF STUDIES
Generative AI, robots, agents, connected objects · observation, interviews, narrative corpora and critical workshops.
02Anthropology of Constraints
WHAT IT IS
An approach that reads constraint not as a simple limit, but as a framework organising trade-offs, tactics and cultural transformation.
HOW I USE IT
I map material, economic, social and symbolic constraints, then translate them into criteria for design and decision-making.
TYPES OF STUDIES
Consumption, carbon, housing, health, work · qualitative, quantitative and comparative studies.
03Agentification of Work
WHAT IT IS
The transformation of work when AI systems are given a role, apparent autonomy and the ability to act within an organisation.
HOW I USE IT
I reveal the delegation, invisible labour, workarounds and new responsibilities produced by AI agents.
TYPES OF STUDIES
Chatbots, business AI, design studios, support functions · workplace ethnography, prompt journals and interviews.
04Boundary Objects
WHAT IT IS
Objects that materialise an unstable boundary: natural and artificial, permitted and forbidden, intimate and collective, human and technical.
HOW I USE IT
I use them to reveal controversy and as research artefacts that open discussion and test possible futures.
TYPES OF STUDIES
Food, health, connected homes, mobility · object biographies, workshops, prototypes and research through design.
05Contemporary Rituals
WHAT IT IS
The repeated gestures, sequences and performances through which a society stabilises uncertainty, belonging and change.
HOW I USE IT
I follow routines, their disruptions and their resumption to understand what makes an innovation acceptable, desirable or rejected.
TYPES OF STUDIES
Luck, food, consumption, work, living environments · filmed observation, interviews and ritual mapping.
06Scriptocracy
WHAT IT IS
A form of power exercised through scripts, prompts, interfaces, default rules and evaluation systems that silently steer action.
HOW I USE IT
I identify who writes the script, who can interrupt, challenge or rewrite it, and what the interface makes impossible to say.
TYPES OF STUDIES
Algorithmic governance, AI tools, digital services · interface audits, prompt analysis and organisational ethnography.
CURRENT PROGRAMMES
IMPROBABLE AIMythologies, practices and counter-narratives of artificial intelligence.
HUMANIMHuman-machine relationships, attachments and new forms of delegation.
06 / METHOD
Making transformations habitable.
A SITUATION.
Begin with reality: observe, listen and follow gestures, objects, hesitations and gaps.
A PERSPECTIVE.
Shift the frame: connect practices to constraints, beliefs and cultural systems.
A POINT OF LEVERAGE.
Make analysis actionable: produce a narrative, a criterion, a framework, a prototype or a decision.
IMMERSION & INQUIRYPRACTICE ANALYSISETHNO-DESIGNRESEARCH DIRECTIONACTION LEARNING
07 / WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER
Two ways
to begin.
Proprietary formats grounded in field research, designed to move rapidly from an abstract question to a situation that can be observed, discussed and transformed.
OFFER 01AI · ORGANISATIONS
HABIT.AI
Make AI habitable.
Three research-based frameworks for building understanding, diagnosing practices and supporting AI transformation from real work situations.
- 01Build understanding without oversimplifying
- 02Diagnose practices and constraints
- 03Design rules for inhabitation
OFFER 02ETHNO-DESIGN · FIELDWORK
THE POCKET
ANTHROPOLOGIST
An anthropologist in your team’s pocket.
A lightweight, mobile intervention focused on a specific situation: observe what is happening, shift the perspective and create an immediately shareable point of leverage.
- 01A situation to investigate
- 02An embedded anthropological perspective
- 03A synthesis that creates momentum
100 MYTHOLOGIES OF INDUSTRIAL AI
Before the tool,
the narrative that makes it possible.
A book-lab combining tales, fieldwork and protocols to understand the narratives that make a decision acceptable before it is even discussed.
Habit.AI, the cards and proprietary protocols extend this research. They make organisational mythologies tangible, comparable and debatable so that AI can be designed from real situations rather than abstract promises.
MAKE MYTHS VISIBLETEST UNCERTAINTIESDESIGN CRITERIA
THE POCKET ANTHROPOLOGIST · INTERFACE
Fieldwork
within reach.
An inquiry and analysis interface for recording situations, revealing everyday patterns and sharing an anthropological perspective with teams.
FIELD JOURNALCONVERSATIONCOLLECTIVE ATLAS
ALSO IN THE LAB100 MYTHOLOGIES OF AIA BOOK, CARDS AND PROTOCOLS FOR QUESTIONING THE NARRATIVES THAT DRIVE OUR DECISIONS.
08 / SELECTED WORK
Selected Fieldwork
Company, institution, home, hospital, territory: organisations change when the worlds they produce become perceptible.
CHANEL
Anthropological Atlas of Luck
A comparative research programme devoted to the objects, signs, rituals and techniques through which societies negotiate uncertainty.
SOMFY × Strate École de design Lyon
Living with Connected Objects
48 studies and projects examining how the smart home reshapes relationships, gestures and domestic imaginaries, then translating those findings into design criteria.
RENAULT × Strate École de design Lyon
An Ethno-design Fieldbook for Mobility
Five major themes explored through 54 studies, then transformed into artefacts, prototypes and situated design hypotheses.
MANAGIA CHAIR
Making AI Habitable
From field research to organisational learning: examining the agentification of work, AI mythologies and emerging forms of algorithmic authority.
MALAKOFF HUMANIS
My Health Companion
Research with patients and healthcare professionals to reveal routines, points of disengagement and the levers shaping chronic-care pathways.
GREATER LYON
Transitions as Lived
Greening residential environments, eco-citizen schools and territorial programmes: understanding the concrete conditions that foster engagement with public policy.
COCA-COLA × SHAKEUP FACTORY
The Nutritious Drink of the Future
An ethno-design exploration of practices, imaginaries and consumption situations, turning food foresight into tangible experiences.
NUTRITION & HEALTH
Meaning at the Table
A study of new dining rules, food choices and the ways products become vehicles for identity, morality and belonging.
PROJECTS TAKE FORM
From inquiry
to objects.
Fieldbooks, books, artefacts and prototypes: forms designed to make research visible, tangible and shareable.
SITUATED PROTOTYPE · TRAIN TESTA bubble of attention in motion.
The prototype materialises chosen isolation without disconnecting the person from the journey.
ALSO: GROUPE SEB · POLARIA · FRENCH MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR · NUTRITION & HEALTH · GRDF · BOUYGUES CONSTRUCTION
09 / CONSOMMATION
What
consumption
means.
Consumption is never merely a purchase.
It means positioning oneself, belonging, distinguishing, caring, accepting constraints, believing in progress or negotiating with anxiety. My research approaches consumption as a total social fact, connecting objects, food, technologies, bodies, norms and narratives of transformation.
OBJECTSFOODENERGYHEALTHLIVING ENVIRONMENTSTECHNOLOGIES
“Practices do not merely tell us what people do. They reveal the world they are trying to hold on to.”
An anthropology of the ecological paradox and new moralities of consumption.
Everyday transformations in how we live under carbon constraints.
Nutrition, future beverages, cultivated meat, housing and domestic objects.
10 / PUBLICATIONS
Writing to create
a point of leverage.
Books, essays, films and formats for carrying ideas beyond the field.
Method2026
Ethno-design
De Boeck Supérieur
01AI2025
A Guide to Generative AI
De Boeck Supérieur · 2nd ed.
02Inquiry2023
No Carbon
Payot
03Essay2022
Spoiled Children
Payot
04Essay2022
The Myth of Responsible Consumption
Marie B
05FILMS & DOCUMENTARY FORMS
Culture Makers and Entertainment · Canal+ · 2021Meaning at the Table · 2020The Ritual of the Poisoned Feast · 201711 / MEDIA
Listen.
Read. Watch.
Podcasts, articles and appearances bringing anthropology into public debate.
Under Constraints
Ten episodes exploring the tensions of the socio-ecological transition with Novethic.
NOVETHIC↗
Anthropology in Search of New Narratives
A conversation about transition, alternative narratives and the social divides they can create.
MUSIC FOR PLANET↗
The Humanoid Robot Sophia and Our Relationship with AI
An anthropological reading of beliefs, myths and the boundaries between humans and artefacts.
THE CONVERSATION↗
After Lockdown: Inventing New Rituals
How a collective rupture reshapes everyday gestures, distance and the rules of interaction.
THE CONVERSATION↗
Deconsumption on the 12:45 News
Decoding deconsumption and its contradictions on the RTS television news.
RTS↗
Responsible Consumption Is an Alibi for Hyperconsumption
An interview about Spoiled Children and the paradoxes of responsible capitalism.
NOVETHIC↗
12 / PROFILE
Research,
transmission,
action.
Download CV ↓SINCE 2024Managia Chair
Co-director and co-chair
SINCE 2020Strate École de design Lyon
Associate Professor
SINCE 2016University of Lausanne · ILTP
Research Associate
SINCE 2011Magical Thinking
Founder and Head of Research
2022 / 2026Polaria
Research & Innovation Director
2015 / 2018Groupe SEB
Anthropologist · Industrial Research
PHD IN ANTHROPOLOGY · PARIS-SORBONNE UNIVERSITY · HABILITATION TO SUPERVISE RESEARCH IN PROGRESS · LUMIÈRE LYON 2 UNIVERSITY
13 / CONTACT
What do you want
to make habitable?
I work with organisations that need to make transformation legible before deciding what they want to design.