Renata Leitao | Cornell University (original) (raw)
Papers by Renata Leitao
Design and Culture, 2022
What is pluriversal design? For us, the co-convenors of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest G... more What is pluriversal design? For us, the co-convenors of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Design Research Society (DRS), it involves redesigning the terms and forms of interaction between different modes of being for mutual understanding and appreciation. A pluriverse is not a world of independent units but a world based on radical interdependence (Escobar 2020; Mignolo 2018). This special forum emerged from Pivot 2020, 2 a virtual conference organized by the DRS Pluriversal Design SIG and the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking at Tulane University. Three authors deepened their reflections on pluriversality and submitted new papers for this special forum. Two years ago, we launched a call for papers inviting design researchers to jointly reimagine a world of many centers. We intended to go beyond the critique of modernity and colonialism, encouraging people to consider a thought-provoking set of questions: What does a world of many centers look like? What is needed to create this reality? Who is needed to create this? How does it operate?
Design and Culture, 2022
This paper makes the case that a Pluriversal Social Design should be desire-based. It suggests th... more This paper makes the case that a Pluriversal Social Design should be desire-based. It suggests that the creation of meaningful social change requires moving the focus of design processes from needs to agentic desires. The author understands agentic desire as the creative impulse towards human flourishing. In social design, the current emphasis on needs makes designers continually reproduce the Eurocentric model of life, hindering the creation of genuine alternatives. Moreover, centering collaborative relationships (designing with) on people’s basic needs is often disempowering. Desire-based design is a transformative practice that aims to break with normalcy and orthodoxy (i.e., the familiar way of doing things) to create and recognize alternatives. In the typical process, the designer starts with a need or problem and looks for a desirable solution. This paper suggests the opposite, engaging with desire as a starting point, in an open-ended exploration, and emphasizing people’s agency.
AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, 2023
This essay examines the concept of pluriversality, which refers to the human power to build world... more This essay examines the concept of pluriversality, which refers to the human power to build worlds differently and envision different models for inhabiting the planet. The Pluriverse, 'a world where many worlds fit' , is a decolonial vision created by the Zapatista movement that contrasts with the supposed universality of the Western Modern world. Our planet is still home to many 'worlds' that have resisted the cultural homogenization promoted by colonialism and imperialism. Pluriversality proposes a path for transformational world-building that begins with the belief that alternatives to capitalist modernity are possible. This essay investigates the relationship between the narratives and metaphors a society adopts and the kind of world we design. Pluriversality is focused on creating and nurturing new models of life and reweaving our reality, not on destroying the old. Recognizing and making visible and viable alternatives that enable healthier relationships with nature and each other, particularly the ones created by Indigenous and marginalized communities and peoples of color, is at the core of what pluriversality is about.
Proceedings of Pivot 2021: Dismantling/Reassembling, 2021
The Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society (DRS) and the Public... more The Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society (DRS) and the Public Visualization Lab of OCAD University invited designers, scholars, artists, and changemakers for two days of intercultural conversations about decoloniality and societal transformation. Pivot 2021 aimed to identify tools and practices of dismantling and reassembling that could favor ways of reshaping human presence on Earth and concrete cases of alternative future-making from all around the world.
The Little Book of Designer’s Existential Crises in 2022, 2022
And if you are in social design, we think you should be in an existential crisis right about now!... more And if you are in social design, we think you should be in an existential
crisis right about now! If you’re not in an existential crisis as a designer in
Social Change in 2021, you’re not doing it right!
Depending on when you first became a designer, the profession you are
currently in may look radically different from the profession that you entered.
What has changed around you?
PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020 DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE June 4, 2020, held... more PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020 DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE June 4, 2020, held online. Organized by the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking at Tulane University and the DRS Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group https://taylor.tulane.edu/pivot/ Editors: Renata Marques Leitão, Lesley-Ann Noel and Laura Murphy Editorial assistant: Shaymaa Abdalal Cover design: Renata Marques Leitão Cover illustration: Oksana Pasishnychenko ISBN: 978-1-912294-42-8 Introduction. Laura MURPHY Editorial Renata M. LEITÃO, Lesley-Ann NOEL FULL PAPERS Section: Deconstructing Narratives & Unlearning Hegemony Pluriversal design and desire-based design: desire as the impulse for human flourishing Renata M. LEITÃO Worlds and words: interrogating type and map as systems of power and embodied meaning-making Jane TURNER; Manuela TABOADA Racist Motifs in Design Omari SOUZA The intellectual transformation of modern design discourses in the Eastern Mediterranean Region Qassim SAAD Linguistic Integration in India: A Persistence of Hegemony Jayasri SRIDHAR Section: Decolonizing Design Education Envisioning a pluriversal design education .Lesley-Ann NOEL (De)institution Design: decolonizing design discourse in Uruguay. Lucia TRIAS CORNÚ Opening up our Gated Community. Arvind LODAYA Exploring participatory learning beyond the Institution. Leigh-Anne HEPBURN Defining the Value of Educational Equilibrium for Immigrant and At-Risk Youths Through Art Education in the 2020s and Beyond. Clovis Benjamin NELSON Section: Initiatives & Socio-Technical Tools for the Pluriverse The story of ‘The Spirit of the Hibiscus’: worldmaking activities from Bali. Britta BOYER Speculation of the Purpose of Life in 2050 from Kyoto: Case Study on Transition Design in Japan . Masaki IWABUCHI; Daijiro MIZUNO Bridging Design Prototypes & Autonomous Design. Gloria GOMEZ Prototyping a Micro-pluriverse: Performed Cosmologies to Decolonize Augmented Reality. Selwa SWEIDAN; Jessica ESCOBEDO SIBRIAN Re-defining Domestic Craft-Making: Cultivation of New Craft Practices and Identity Through the Social Media. Pelin EFİLTİ; Gizem ÇELEBİ The Role of Socio-technical Instruments in Craft and Design Practice in Indonesia. Prananda Luffiansyaha MALASAN; Meirina TRIHARINI; Muhammad IHSAN SHORT PAPERS Embracing Many Worlds: The Wixárika Calendar. María ROGAL Democratization of Design. Tanaya LAL New worlds with some tinkering.... Sucharita BENIWAL Like the Palm of My Hand: memories to redesign the city . Andréia Menezes DE BERNARDI; Edson José Carpintero REZENDE; Juliana Rocha FRANCO Starting a Feminist Design Think Tank . Isabel PROCHNER Transforming through imaginations of Otherness. Laura POPPLOW TRANSCRIPTS A Glossary for the Pluriverse. Laura MURPHY Designing to Shift Power. Alexandra ALDEN Navigating Multiple Centers of Power in R&D for Public Education. Colin ANGEVINE Social Innovation Labs for Climate Action: South to South Collaboration to Tackle Climate Change. Gabriela CARRASCO; Waldo SOTO Creating New Futures: Collaborative Design Practice. Jose COTTO; Nick JENISCH; Emilie Taylor WELTY; Rashidah WILLIAMS; Ann YOACHIM Participating in the Pluriverse from within the Academy: Design Thinking Assessment & Research. Danielle LAKE Inequalities in the participation in social learning and open innovation during crisis.Nicole LOTZ Using Cultural Probes in Design Research: A Case Study from Bungoma, Kenya. Susan WYCHE
Proceedings of Pivot 2020: Designing a World of Many Centers, 2020
Formakademisk, 2020
This article argues that, in collaboration with Indigenous [and non-Western local] communities, s... more This article argues that, in collaboration with Indigenous [and non-Western local] communities, social designers should approach "culture" not only as a form of heritage that should be preserved and transmitted, but also as a project that weaves together heritage, current material circumstances, and desirable ideas for the future. We therefore examine the notion that every culture is intrinsically oriented towards the future, representing a trajectory that links the past to a projected ideal of well-being. Thus, cultural diversity leads to numerous trajectories and distinct futures, contrary to the colonial ideology according to which only one trajectory is possible: that which adheres to the project of eurocentric modernity. Based on a participatory research action project called Tapiskwan, which focused on the aspirations of the Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok, we propose that the ultimate goal of social designers should be to nurture local communities' capacity to (re)create their own autonomous trajectories, in pursuit of the good life as their culture defines it.
by Lesley-Ann Noel, Renata Leitao, Qassim Saad, Dr Leigh-Anne Hepburn, Jayasri Sridhar, Britta Boyer PhD, Masaki Iwabuchi, Pelin Efilti, Gizem Çelebi, Prananda L Malasan, Meirina Triharini, Maria Rogal, Sucharita Beniwal, Nicole Lotz, and Andréia De Bernardi
Pivot 2020 Designing a world of many centers - Virtual Conference Proceedings, 2020
PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020 DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE June 4, 2020, held... more PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020
DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS
VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
June 4, 2020, held online.
Organized by the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social
Innovation and Design Thinking at Tulane University and
the DRS Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group
https://taylor.tulane.edu/pivot/
Editors: Renata Marques Leitão, Lesley-Ann Noel and Laura Murphy
Editorial assistant: Shaymaa Abdalal
Cover design: Renata Marques Leitão
Cover illustration: Oksana Pasishnychenko
ISBN: 978-1-912294-42-8
Introduction. Laura MURPHY
Editorial Renata M. LEITÃO, Lesley-Ann NOEL
FULL PAPERS
Section: Deconstructing Narratives & Unlearning Hegemony
Pluriversal design and desire-based design: desire as the impulse for human flourishing Renata M. LEITÃO
Worlds and words: interrogating type and map as systems of power and embodied meaning-making Jane TURNER; Manuela TABOADA
Racist Motifs in Design Omari SOUZA
The intellectual transformation of modern design discourses in the Eastern Mediterranean Region Qassim SAAD
Linguistic Integration in India: A Persistence of Hegemony Jayasri SRIDHAR
Section: Decolonizing Design Education
Envisioning a pluriversal design education .Lesley-Ann NOEL
(De)institution Design: decolonizing design discourse in Uruguay. Lucia TRIAS CORNÚ
Opening up our Gated Community. Arvind LODAYA
Exploring participatory learning beyond the Institution. Leigh-Anne HEPBURN
Defining the Value of Educational Equilibrium for Immigrant and At-Risk Youths
Through Art Education in the 2020s and Beyond. Clovis Benjamin NELSON
Section: Initiatives & Socio-Technical Tools for the Pluriverse
The story of ‘The Spirit of the Hibiscus’: worldmaking activities from Bali. Britta BOYER
Speculation of the Purpose of Life in 2050 from Kyoto: Case Study on Transition Design in Japan . Masaki IWABUCHI; Daijiro MIZUNO
Bridging Design Prototypes & Autonomous Design. Gloria GOMEZ
Prototyping a Micro-pluriverse: Performed Cosmologies to Decolonize Augmented Reality. Selwa SWEIDAN; Jessica ESCOBEDO SIBRIAN
Re-defining Domestic Craft-Making: Cultivation of New Craft Practices and Identity Through the Social Media. Pelin EFİLTİ; Gizem ÇELEBİ
The Role of Socio-technical Instruments in Craft and Design Practice in Indonesia.
Prananda Luffiansyaha MALASAN; Meirina TRIHARINI; Muhammad IHSAN
SHORT PAPERS
Embracing Many Worlds: The Wixárika Calendar. María ROGAL
Democratization of Design. Tanaya LAL
New worlds with some tinkering.... Sucharita BENIWAL
Like the Palm of My Hand: memories to redesign the city . Andréia Menezes DE BERNARDI; Edson José Carpintero REZENDE; Juliana Rocha FRANCO
Starting a Feminist Design Think Tank . Isabel PROCHNER
Transforming through imaginations of Otherness. Laura POPPLOW
TRANSCRIPTS
A Glossary for the Pluriverse. Laura MURPHY
Designing to Shift Power. Alexandra ALDEN
Navigating Multiple Centers of Power in R&D for Public Education. Colin ANGEVINE
Social Innovation Labs for Climate Action: South to South Collaboration to Tackle Climate Change. Gabriela CARRASCO; Waldo SOTO
Creating New Futures: Collaborative Design Practice. Jose COTTO; Nick JENISCH; Emilie Taylor WELTY; Rashidah WILLIAMS; Ann YOACHIM
Participating in the Pluriverse from within the Academy: Design Thinking Assessment & Research. Danielle LAKE
Inequalities in the participation in social learning and open innovation during crisis.Nicole LOTZ
Using Cultural Probes in Design Research: A Case Study from Bungoma, Kenya. Susan WYCHE
DRS 2018 Design Research Society International Conference Proceedings, 2018
DRS 2018 Design Research Society International Conference Proceedings, 2018
This paper aims to contribute to the debate around the cultural dimension of the transitions by s... more This paper aims to contribute to the debate around the cultural dimension of the transitions by shedding a light on myths at the core of the modern civilizational project. The term myths is used to talk about stories that embody the values of the modern project, which became a certainty in people's minds. Transitioning to a sustainable civilization entails that we create and adopt new storylines. In order to do so, designers must be story-listeners and recognize the myths that are hindering the transformation of our ways of life. The modern world is, arguably, a world with only one storyline that separates the world in two (e.g., developed and developing). I argue that designing new societal projects demands the collaboration between multiple cultures. In the modern world, however, we do not have an epistemology that enables such collaborations. Therefore, several myths of modernity need to be recognized and dispelled to allow for new epistemologies to emerge, so that we can purposefully create new stories for a new civilization.
Drafts by Renata Leitao
This paper presents Tapiskwan, a project focused on developing design workshops for indigenous ar... more This paper presents Tapiskwan, a project focused on developing design workshops for indigenous artisans that aim to encourage their empowerment by bridging tradition and innovation. Developed in partnership with members of the Atikamekw First Nation (Québec, Canada), this approach to design workshops is the result of a long-term commitment to community-based social innovation. Our design team has been collaborating with artisans, artists and community leaders since 2011 to address the challenge of producing crafts as a source of socioeconomic development. Our main activity has been the organization of intergenerational workshops to create contemporary products based on Atikamekw traditional iconography. Over the last four years, we developed an approach that motivates the participants and enhances their creativity, self-confidence and autonomy, and, at the same time, increases the participants' appreciation of their cultural heritage. This paper describes Tapiskwan's guiding principles, which could inspire similar initiatives within other indigenous communities. We suggest that such projects should be conceived as processes of collective discovery, in which designers and artisans learn together the challenges, opportunities and resources available, therefore aligning the intentions of several different stakeholders to the creation of a common vision.
Assimilation has drastically transformed the material life of numerous indigenous communities. Th... more Assimilation has drastically transformed the material life of numerous indigenous communities. This article offers the theoretical foundation to support the idea that design practice might contribute to the empowerment of indigenous individuals and communities by enhancing their power to act upon and ultimately change the material circumstances in which they live. It illustrates these concepts and principles, and their articulation, through
the example of a participatory action research project involving design workshops. Design can be understood as an inherent capacity of humans to create and transform the material culture. We work with the definition of empowerment proposed by Kabeer (2001): empowerment is the expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them. We argue that choices are only truly
“strategic” when they are linked to a project. Since the practice of design entails making projects and bringing them to material reality, the ability to make strategic life choices can be enhanced by design training and practice.
Books by Renata Leitao
The Little Book of Designer’s Existential Crises in 2022, 2022
This book is an outcome of the collective efforts of the Design Research Society (DRS) Special In... more This book is an outcome of the collective efforts of the Design Research Society (DRS) Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in Global Health, Pluriversal Design SIG, Sustainability SIG, SIGWELL and Education. We thank the DRS as well as all the members of our SIGs and all the contributing authors to this volume.
Design and Culture, 2022
What is pluriversal design? For us, the co-convenors of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest G... more What is pluriversal design? For us, the co-convenors of the Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Design Research Society (DRS), it involves redesigning the terms and forms of interaction between different modes of being for mutual understanding and appreciation. A pluriverse is not a world of independent units but a world based on radical interdependence (Escobar 2020; Mignolo 2018). This special forum emerged from Pivot 2020, 2 a virtual conference organized by the DRS Pluriversal Design SIG and the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking at Tulane University. Three authors deepened their reflections on pluriversality and submitted new papers for this special forum. Two years ago, we launched a call for papers inviting design researchers to jointly reimagine a world of many centers. We intended to go beyond the critique of modernity and colonialism, encouraging people to consider a thought-provoking set of questions: What does a world of many centers look like? What is needed to create this reality? Who is needed to create this? How does it operate?
Design and Culture, 2022
This paper makes the case that a Pluriversal Social Design should be desire-based. It suggests th... more This paper makes the case that a Pluriversal Social Design should be desire-based. It suggests that the creation of meaningful social change requires moving the focus of design processes from needs to agentic desires. The author understands agentic desire as the creative impulse towards human flourishing. In social design, the current emphasis on needs makes designers continually reproduce the Eurocentric model of life, hindering the creation of genuine alternatives. Moreover, centering collaborative relationships (designing with) on people’s basic needs is often disempowering. Desire-based design is a transformative practice that aims to break with normalcy and orthodoxy (i.e., the familiar way of doing things) to create and recognize alternatives. In the typical process, the designer starts with a need or problem and looks for a desirable solution. This paper suggests the opposite, engaging with desire as a starting point, in an open-ended exploration, and emphasizing people’s agency.
AM Journal of Art and Media Studies, 2023
This essay examines the concept of pluriversality, which refers to the human power to build world... more This essay examines the concept of pluriversality, which refers to the human power to build worlds differently and envision different models for inhabiting the planet. The Pluriverse, 'a world where many worlds fit' , is a decolonial vision created by the Zapatista movement that contrasts with the supposed universality of the Western Modern world. Our planet is still home to many 'worlds' that have resisted the cultural homogenization promoted by colonialism and imperialism. Pluriversality proposes a path for transformational world-building that begins with the belief that alternatives to capitalist modernity are possible. This essay investigates the relationship between the narratives and metaphors a society adopts and the kind of world we design. Pluriversality is focused on creating and nurturing new models of life and reweaving our reality, not on destroying the old. Recognizing and making visible and viable alternatives that enable healthier relationships with nature and each other, particularly the ones created by Indigenous and marginalized communities and peoples of color, is at the core of what pluriversality is about.
Proceedings of Pivot 2021: Dismantling/Reassembling, 2021
The Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society (DRS) and the Public... more The Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group of the Design Research Society (DRS) and the Public Visualization Lab of OCAD University invited designers, scholars, artists, and changemakers for two days of intercultural conversations about decoloniality and societal transformation. Pivot 2021 aimed to identify tools and practices of dismantling and reassembling that could favor ways of reshaping human presence on Earth and concrete cases of alternative future-making from all around the world.
The Little Book of Designer’s Existential Crises in 2022, 2022
And if you are in social design, we think you should be in an existential crisis right about now!... more And if you are in social design, we think you should be in an existential
crisis right about now! If you’re not in an existential crisis as a designer in
Social Change in 2021, you’re not doing it right!
Depending on when you first became a designer, the profession you are
currently in may look radically different from the profession that you entered.
What has changed around you?
PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020 DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE June 4, 2020, held... more PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020 DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE June 4, 2020, held online. Organized by the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking at Tulane University and the DRS Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group https://taylor.tulane.edu/pivot/ Editors: Renata Marques Leitão, Lesley-Ann Noel and Laura Murphy Editorial assistant: Shaymaa Abdalal Cover design: Renata Marques Leitão Cover illustration: Oksana Pasishnychenko ISBN: 978-1-912294-42-8 Introduction. Laura MURPHY Editorial Renata M. LEITÃO, Lesley-Ann NOEL FULL PAPERS Section: Deconstructing Narratives & Unlearning Hegemony Pluriversal design and desire-based design: desire as the impulse for human flourishing Renata M. LEITÃO Worlds and words: interrogating type and map as systems of power and embodied meaning-making Jane TURNER; Manuela TABOADA Racist Motifs in Design Omari SOUZA The intellectual transformation of modern design discourses in the Eastern Mediterranean Region Qassim SAAD Linguistic Integration in India: A Persistence of Hegemony Jayasri SRIDHAR Section: Decolonizing Design Education Envisioning a pluriversal design education .Lesley-Ann NOEL (De)institution Design: decolonizing design discourse in Uruguay. Lucia TRIAS CORNÚ Opening up our Gated Community. Arvind LODAYA Exploring participatory learning beyond the Institution. Leigh-Anne HEPBURN Defining the Value of Educational Equilibrium for Immigrant and At-Risk Youths Through Art Education in the 2020s and Beyond. Clovis Benjamin NELSON Section: Initiatives & Socio-Technical Tools for the Pluriverse The story of ‘The Spirit of the Hibiscus’: worldmaking activities from Bali. Britta BOYER Speculation of the Purpose of Life in 2050 from Kyoto: Case Study on Transition Design in Japan . Masaki IWABUCHI; Daijiro MIZUNO Bridging Design Prototypes & Autonomous Design. Gloria GOMEZ Prototyping a Micro-pluriverse: Performed Cosmologies to Decolonize Augmented Reality. Selwa SWEIDAN; Jessica ESCOBEDO SIBRIAN Re-defining Domestic Craft-Making: Cultivation of New Craft Practices and Identity Through the Social Media. Pelin EFİLTİ; Gizem ÇELEBİ The Role of Socio-technical Instruments in Craft and Design Practice in Indonesia. Prananda Luffiansyaha MALASAN; Meirina TRIHARINI; Muhammad IHSAN SHORT PAPERS Embracing Many Worlds: The Wixárika Calendar. María ROGAL Democratization of Design. Tanaya LAL New worlds with some tinkering.... Sucharita BENIWAL Like the Palm of My Hand: memories to redesign the city . Andréia Menezes DE BERNARDI; Edson José Carpintero REZENDE; Juliana Rocha FRANCO Starting a Feminist Design Think Tank . Isabel PROCHNER Transforming through imaginations of Otherness. Laura POPPLOW TRANSCRIPTS A Glossary for the Pluriverse. Laura MURPHY Designing to Shift Power. Alexandra ALDEN Navigating Multiple Centers of Power in R&D for Public Education. Colin ANGEVINE Social Innovation Labs for Climate Action: South to South Collaboration to Tackle Climate Change. Gabriela CARRASCO; Waldo SOTO Creating New Futures: Collaborative Design Practice. Jose COTTO; Nick JENISCH; Emilie Taylor WELTY; Rashidah WILLIAMS; Ann YOACHIM Participating in the Pluriverse from within the Academy: Design Thinking Assessment & Research. Danielle LAKE Inequalities in the participation in social learning and open innovation during crisis.Nicole LOTZ Using Cultural Probes in Design Research: A Case Study from Bungoma, Kenya. Susan WYCHE
Proceedings of Pivot 2020: Designing a World of Many Centers, 2020
Formakademisk, 2020
This article argues that, in collaboration with Indigenous [and non-Western local] communities, s... more This article argues that, in collaboration with Indigenous [and non-Western local] communities, social designers should approach "culture" not only as a form of heritage that should be preserved and transmitted, but also as a project that weaves together heritage, current material circumstances, and desirable ideas for the future. We therefore examine the notion that every culture is intrinsically oriented towards the future, representing a trajectory that links the past to a projected ideal of well-being. Thus, cultural diversity leads to numerous trajectories and distinct futures, contrary to the colonial ideology according to which only one trajectory is possible: that which adheres to the project of eurocentric modernity. Based on a participatory research action project called Tapiskwan, which focused on the aspirations of the Atikamekw Nehirowisiwok, we propose that the ultimate goal of social designers should be to nurture local communities' capacity to (re)create their own autonomous trajectories, in pursuit of the good life as their culture defines it.
by Lesley-Ann Noel, Renata Leitao, Qassim Saad, Dr Leigh-Anne Hepburn, Jayasri Sridhar, Britta Boyer PhD, Masaki Iwabuchi, Pelin Efilti, Gizem Çelebi, Prananda L Malasan, Meirina Triharini, Maria Rogal, Sucharita Beniwal, Nicole Lotz, and Andréia De Bernardi
Pivot 2020 Designing a world of many centers - Virtual Conference Proceedings, 2020
PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020 DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE June 4, 2020, held... more PROCEEDINGS OF PIVOT 2020
DESIGNING A WORLD OF MANY CENTERS
VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
June 4, 2020, held online.
Organized by the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Social
Innovation and Design Thinking at Tulane University and
the DRS Pluriversal Design Special Interest Group
https://taylor.tulane.edu/pivot/
Editors: Renata Marques Leitão, Lesley-Ann Noel and Laura Murphy
Editorial assistant: Shaymaa Abdalal
Cover design: Renata Marques Leitão
Cover illustration: Oksana Pasishnychenko
ISBN: 978-1-912294-42-8
Introduction. Laura MURPHY
Editorial Renata M. LEITÃO, Lesley-Ann NOEL
FULL PAPERS
Section: Deconstructing Narratives & Unlearning Hegemony
Pluriversal design and desire-based design: desire as the impulse for human flourishing Renata M. LEITÃO
Worlds and words: interrogating type and map as systems of power and embodied meaning-making Jane TURNER; Manuela TABOADA
Racist Motifs in Design Omari SOUZA
The intellectual transformation of modern design discourses in the Eastern Mediterranean Region Qassim SAAD
Linguistic Integration in India: A Persistence of Hegemony Jayasri SRIDHAR
Section: Decolonizing Design Education
Envisioning a pluriversal design education .Lesley-Ann NOEL
(De)institution Design: decolonizing design discourse in Uruguay. Lucia TRIAS CORNÚ
Opening up our Gated Community. Arvind LODAYA
Exploring participatory learning beyond the Institution. Leigh-Anne HEPBURN
Defining the Value of Educational Equilibrium for Immigrant and At-Risk Youths
Through Art Education in the 2020s and Beyond. Clovis Benjamin NELSON
Section: Initiatives & Socio-Technical Tools for the Pluriverse
The story of ‘The Spirit of the Hibiscus’: worldmaking activities from Bali. Britta BOYER
Speculation of the Purpose of Life in 2050 from Kyoto: Case Study on Transition Design in Japan . Masaki IWABUCHI; Daijiro MIZUNO
Bridging Design Prototypes & Autonomous Design. Gloria GOMEZ
Prototyping a Micro-pluriverse: Performed Cosmologies to Decolonize Augmented Reality. Selwa SWEIDAN; Jessica ESCOBEDO SIBRIAN
Re-defining Domestic Craft-Making: Cultivation of New Craft Practices and Identity Through the Social Media. Pelin EFİLTİ; Gizem ÇELEBİ
The Role of Socio-technical Instruments in Craft and Design Practice in Indonesia.
Prananda Luffiansyaha MALASAN; Meirina TRIHARINI; Muhammad IHSAN
SHORT PAPERS
Embracing Many Worlds: The Wixárika Calendar. María ROGAL
Democratization of Design. Tanaya LAL
New worlds with some tinkering.... Sucharita BENIWAL
Like the Palm of My Hand: memories to redesign the city . Andréia Menezes DE BERNARDI; Edson José Carpintero REZENDE; Juliana Rocha FRANCO
Starting a Feminist Design Think Tank . Isabel PROCHNER
Transforming through imaginations of Otherness. Laura POPPLOW
TRANSCRIPTS
A Glossary for the Pluriverse. Laura MURPHY
Designing to Shift Power. Alexandra ALDEN
Navigating Multiple Centers of Power in R&D for Public Education. Colin ANGEVINE
Social Innovation Labs for Climate Action: South to South Collaboration to Tackle Climate Change. Gabriela CARRASCO; Waldo SOTO
Creating New Futures: Collaborative Design Practice. Jose COTTO; Nick JENISCH; Emilie Taylor WELTY; Rashidah WILLIAMS; Ann YOACHIM
Participating in the Pluriverse from within the Academy: Design Thinking Assessment & Research. Danielle LAKE
Inequalities in the participation in social learning and open innovation during crisis.Nicole LOTZ
Using Cultural Probes in Design Research: A Case Study from Bungoma, Kenya. Susan WYCHE
DRS 2018 Design Research Society International Conference Proceedings, 2018
DRS 2018 Design Research Society International Conference Proceedings, 2018
This paper aims to contribute to the debate around the cultural dimension of the transitions by s... more This paper aims to contribute to the debate around the cultural dimension of the transitions by shedding a light on myths at the core of the modern civilizational project. The term myths is used to talk about stories that embody the values of the modern project, which became a certainty in people's minds. Transitioning to a sustainable civilization entails that we create and adopt new storylines. In order to do so, designers must be story-listeners and recognize the myths that are hindering the transformation of our ways of life. The modern world is, arguably, a world with only one storyline that separates the world in two (e.g., developed and developing). I argue that designing new societal projects demands the collaboration between multiple cultures. In the modern world, however, we do not have an epistemology that enables such collaborations. Therefore, several myths of modernity need to be recognized and dispelled to allow for new epistemologies to emerge, so that we can purposefully create new stories for a new civilization.
This paper presents Tapiskwan, a project focused on developing design workshops for indigenous ar... more This paper presents Tapiskwan, a project focused on developing design workshops for indigenous artisans that aim to encourage their empowerment by bridging tradition and innovation. Developed in partnership with members of the Atikamekw First Nation (Québec, Canada), this approach to design workshops is the result of a long-term commitment to community-based social innovation. Our design team has been collaborating with artisans, artists and community leaders since 2011 to address the challenge of producing crafts as a source of socioeconomic development. Our main activity has been the organization of intergenerational workshops to create contemporary products based on Atikamekw traditional iconography. Over the last four years, we developed an approach that motivates the participants and enhances their creativity, self-confidence and autonomy, and, at the same time, increases the participants' appreciation of their cultural heritage. This paper describes Tapiskwan's guiding principles, which could inspire similar initiatives within other indigenous communities. We suggest that such projects should be conceived as processes of collective discovery, in which designers and artisans learn together the challenges, opportunities and resources available, therefore aligning the intentions of several different stakeholders to the creation of a common vision.
Assimilation has drastically transformed the material life of numerous indigenous communities. Th... more Assimilation has drastically transformed the material life of numerous indigenous communities. This article offers the theoretical foundation to support the idea that design practice might contribute to the empowerment of indigenous individuals and communities by enhancing their power to act upon and ultimately change the material circumstances in which they live. It illustrates these concepts and principles, and their articulation, through
the example of a participatory action research project involving design workshops. Design can be understood as an inherent capacity of humans to create and transform the material culture. We work with the definition of empowerment proposed by Kabeer (2001): empowerment is the expansion in people’s ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them. We argue that choices are only truly
“strategic” when they are linked to a project. Since the practice of design entails making projects and bringing them to material reality, the ability to make strategic life choices can be enhanced by design training and practice.
The Little Book of Designer’s Existential Crises in 2022, 2022
This book is an outcome of the collective efforts of the Design Research Society (DRS) Special In... more This book is an outcome of the collective efforts of the Design Research Society (DRS) Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in Global Health, Pluriversal Design SIG, Sustainability SIG, SIGWELL and Education. We thank the DRS as well as all the members of our SIGs and all the contributing authors to this volume.