Communities of Practice: Doing Design Differently
Abstract
This paper reflects on the role of communities of practice in building and supporting critical alternatives to conventional, Dominant Design (Akama, 2021; Rosner, 2018). Dominant Design refers to design practices cultivated within our industrialised, imperialist, patriarchal, capitalist modernity. Discourses and practices addressing this include decolonising design, stemming from modernity/coloniality critique and Indigenous knowledge systems, and anti-oppressive frameworks for design, based in anti- racism and Black feminist scholarship. These discourses at the margins of the dominant discourse and practice recognise the need for critical alternatives to design practices (Abdulla et al., 2019; Costanza-Chock 2018; Mignolo 2007; Schultz et al., 2018). This paper considers communities of practice as one way of practicing with the challenges of overwhelm, fear and lack of understanding and resources when pursuing decolonising and anti-oppression discourse and practice. The paper discusses the importance of practice as an ethic, and the role of spaces for rehearsing, experimenting with new types of doing, while being held accountable in community.
Communities of Practice: Doing Design Differently
This paper reflects on the role of communities of practice in building and supporting critical alternatives to conventional, Dominant Design (Akama, 2021; Rosner, 2018). Dominant Design refers to design practices cultivated within our industrialised, imperialist, patriarchal, capitalist modernity. Discourses and practices addressing this include decolonising design, stemming from modernity/coloniality critique and Indigenous knowledge systems, and anti-oppressive frameworks for design, based in anti- racism and Black feminist scholarship. These discourses at the margins of the dominant discourse and practice recognise the need for critical alternatives to design practices (Abdulla et al., 2019; Costanza-Chock 2018; Mignolo 2007; Schultz et al., 2018). This paper considers communities of practice as one way of practicing with the challenges of overwhelm, fear and lack of understanding and resources when pursuing decolonising and anti-oppression discourse and practice. The paper discusses the importance of practice as an ethic, and the role of spaces for rehearsing, experimenting with new types of doing, while being held accountable in community.