Abstract
Migration and diaspora are phenomenons that are continuously shaping the world, and that are caused and informed by colonial structures. The communities in diaspora are held together by particular ways of imagining and relating with the homeland, the host culture, and themselves, touching back into the local. In the experience of migrating and becoming part of a diaspora, our identities shift, as we enter a state of tension between total assimilation and resistance, questioning our national hegemonic values and ways of being. As a designer with migrated roots, I would like to share some experiences and thoughts about working in codesign processes with migrant communities: How do we matter our worlds from a diasporic situatedness, and what does this mean in terms of encouraging decolonial processes in design? Which strategies might help us challenging our assumptions as designers? Ultimately, I want to continue conversations about the role of design into materialising dissent and contestation towards the hegemonic systems, centering migrant and diasporic ways of being. How might these reflections inspire us for future practices in design?
Keywords
migration and diaspora; decolonial design; social design; codesign
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0033
Citation
Castillo Muñoz, Y.(2021) Staying Diasporic: Centering migrant and diasporic ways of being in design, 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.2021.0033
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Staying Diasporic: Centering migrant and diasporic ways of being in design
Migration and diaspora are phenomenons that are continuously shaping the world, and that are caused and informed by colonial structures. The communities in diaspora are held together by particular ways of imagining and relating with the homeland, the host culture, and themselves, touching back into the local. In the experience of migrating and becoming part of a diaspora, our identities shift, as we enter a state of tension between total assimilation and resistance, questioning our national hegemonic values and ways of being. As a designer with migrated roots, I would like to share some experiences and thoughts about working in codesign processes with migrant communities: How do we matter our worlds from a diasporic situatedness, and what does this mean in terms of encouraging decolonial processes in design? Which strategies might help us challenging our assumptions as designers? Ultimately, I want to continue conversations about the role of design into materialising dissent and contestation towards the hegemonic systems, centering migrant and diasporic ways of being. How might these reflections inspire us for future practices in design?