Abstract
Design research is gettng interested in social movements in recent years. Organizing tactics like coaliSon-building have been taken from civil rights movements and turned into operaSve concepts such as designing coaliSons that point towards converging interests. As such, this concept cannot support social movements, which are not formed by common interests, but by pressing social needs ignored in official and everyday poliScs. This advances further the revision of the designing coaliSon concept based on feminist literature and on the authors' experience in weaving the Design & Oppression Network in Brazil. This network was formed in 2020 by design professors, students, and professionals from all over Brazil, as well as from other countries. From its incepSon, the network was concerned with the LaSn-American reality — colonized, culturally invaded, underdeveloped, and oppressed in various ways by the Global North. The network approaches design as a pedagogical and criScal process so that the producSon of design space becomes an opportunity for listening, reflecSon, dispute, synthesis, mutual care, and insurgence acSons against all forms of oppression. From this experience, we propose the alternaSve concept of insurgent design coaliSons to deepen design engagements with social movements.
Keywords
critical pedagogy; feminism; care; social movements
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0018
Citation
Van Amstel, F., Sâmia, B., Serpa, B.O., Marco, M., Carvalho, R.A.,and Gonzatto, R.F.(2021) Insurgent Design Coalitions: The history of the Design & Oppression network, in Leitão, R.M., Men, I., Noel, L-A., Lima, J., Meninato, T. (eds.), Pivot 2021: Dismantling/Reassembling, 22-23 July, Toronto, Canada. https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0018
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Insurgent Design Coalitions: The history of the Design & Oppression network
Design research is gettng interested in social movements in recent years. Organizing tactics like coaliSon-building have been taken from civil rights movements and turned into operaSve concepts such as designing coaliSons that point towards converging interests. As such, this concept cannot support social movements, which are not formed by common interests, but by pressing social needs ignored in official and everyday poliScs. This advances further the revision of the designing coaliSon concept based on feminist literature and on the authors' experience in weaving the Design & Oppression Network in Brazil. This network was formed in 2020 by design professors, students, and professionals from all over Brazil, as well as from other countries. From its incepSon, the network was concerned with the LaSn-American reality — colonized, culturally invaded, underdeveloped, and oppressed in various ways by the Global North. The network approaches design as a pedagogical and criScal process so that the producSon of design space becomes an opportunity for listening, reflecSon, dispute, synthesis, mutual care, and insurgence acSons against all forms of oppression. From this experience, we propose the alternaSve concept of insurgent design coaliSons to deepen design engagements with social movements.