Abstract

Design can be both a practice of freedom or a practice of oppression, depending on who designs and whose intentions are prioritized. When this practice underestimates, excludes, disrespects, or deceives people who are part of oppressed groups, it intensifies oppression. Design as a practice of freedom takes more than a new design method. It requires the union of the oppressed. This paper describes the weaving of the Design & Oppression network, which responded to the growth of political authoritarianism and naive consciousness in design. The network's goal is to establish bonds of solidarity between all struggles against oppression that cut across design. Its critical pedagogy draws from the Latin American tradition of critical thinking in Education, Arts, and Sociology, promoting both professional training and concrete social actions.

Keywords

design, oppression, freedom, critical pedagogy

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Conference Track

Research Paper

Share

COinS
 
Jun 25th, 9:00 AM

Weaving design as a practice of freedom: Critical pedagogy in an insurgent network

Design can be both a practice of freedom or a practice of oppression, depending on who designs and whose intentions are prioritized. When this practice underestimates, excludes, disrespects, or deceives people who are part of oppressed groups, it intensifies oppression. Design as a practice of freedom takes more than a new design method. It requires the union of the oppressed. This paper describes the weaving of the Design & Oppression network, which responded to the growth of political authoritarianism and naive consciousness in design. The network's goal is to establish bonds of solidarity between all struggles against oppression that cut across design. Its critical pedagogy draws from the Latin American tradition of critical thinking in Education, Arts, and Sociology, promoting both professional training and concrete social actions.

 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.