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Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need

Authors:
Sasha Costanza-Chock
Sasha Costanza-Chock
Sasha Costanza-Chock
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Abstract

An exploration of how design might be led by marginalized communities, dismantle structural inequality, and advance collective liberation and ecological survival. What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims expilcitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world. This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people—specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)—and invites readers to “build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.” Along the way, the book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices, each grounded in a particular social movement. Design Justice goes beyond recent calls for design for good, user-centered design, and employment diversity in the technology and design professions; it connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival. The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Knowledge Unlatched and the MIT Press Frank Urbanowski Memorial Fund.
Available via license: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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Acknowledgments
This book reflects the labor of a great many people. First, there would
be no design justice theory or practice as we know it without years
of work from the many Design Justice Network organizers, especially
Una Lee, Victoria Barnett, Wes Taylor, Carlos (L05) Garcia, Nontsikelelo
Mutiti, Adrienne Gaither, Taylor Stewart, Ebony Dumas, Danielle
Aubert, Victor Moore, and Gracen Brilmyer, as well as the hundreds of
people who have organized and taken part in design justice workshops
at the Allied Media Conference since 2016. The authors of the first ver-
sion of the Design Justice Network Principles are Una Lee, Jenny Lee,
Melissa Moore, Wesley Taylor, Shauen Pearce, Ginger Brooks Takahashi,
Ebony Dumas, Heather Posten, Kristyn Sonnenberg, Sam Holleran,
Ryan Hayes, Dan Herrle, Dawn Walker, Tina Hanaé Miller, Nikki Roach,
Aylwin Lo, Noelle Barber, Kiwi Illafonte, Devon De Lená, Ash Arder,
Brooke Toczylowski, Kristina Miller, Nancy Meza, Becca Budde, Marina
Csomor, Paige Reitz, Leslie Stem, Walter Wilson, Gina Reichert, and
Danny Spitzberg. Nor would this book be possible without everyone
from the Tech for Social Justice Project (T4SJ), the #QTPower crew, and
my Allied Media fam. Diana Nucera, especially, you’re a guiding light
in the community technology movement: House of Cyborg forever!
Thanks also to all the staff, research assistants, students, and commu-
nity partners from the Collaborative Design Studio, too numerous to
list here (explore https://codesign.mit.edu for more info).
Next, profound thanks to my editors at the MIT Press, Sandra Bra-
man and Gita Devi Manaktala, as well as to Melinda Rankin, Michael
Sims, and Kathy Caruso, who helped greatly improve the text. Mariel
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x Acknowledgments
García- Montes, Katie Louise Arthur, and Annis Rachel Sands each spent
many hours working with me on the manuscript as research assis-
tants and deserve special recognition. Maya Wagoner’s thesis project
greatly informed my thinking about design pedagogy. Also, the #More-
ThanCode report and the T4SJ project, the findings of which are woven
throughout this book, would never have happened without the work of
Maya and Berhan Taye to plan, facilitate, and conduct interviews with
key practitioners across the country. That project was also built through
the hard work of Caroline Rivas and Chris Schweidler. Chris, thank you
for all that you do to advance participatory action research. Sky House
continues to be a sanctuary.
Special thanks to readers of early, often painfully dense draft chapters,
especially Lilly Irani, Ruha Benjamin, Lisa Parks, Catherine D’Ignazio,
Una Lee, and Alessandra Renzi. Justin Reich and Eric Klopfer provided
invaluable comments on design pedagogy, and Cathy Hannabach and
Summer McDonald at Ideas on Fire gave thoughtful early suggestions
on the first chapter. Laura Forlano and all the organizers of the design
feminisms track at Design Research Society 2018 created a space where
I was able to openly discuss and further develop many of this book’s
themes. Lisha Nadkarni responded to the earliest draft of the book pro-
posal with key suggestions. Casey Thoreson created the index.
This book would also never have happened without support from
many of the faculty and staff at Comparative Media Studies/Writing
(CMS/W) and across MIT, especially Lisa Parks, Jim Paradis, T. L. Tay-
lor, Lara Baladi, Vivek Bald, Kat Cizek, Ian Condry, Karilyn Crockett,
Paloma Duong, Fox Harrell, Eric Klopfer, Lorrie LeJeune, Ken Manning,
Nick Montfort, Justin Reich, Ed Schiappa, William Uricchio, Jing Wang,
Andrew Whittaker, Sarah Wolozin, and Ethan Zuckerman. The MIT Pro-
gram in Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) has also been very kind
to me, especially Helen Lee and Emily Hiestand, as has MIT CoLab, in
particular Dayna Cunningham, Phil Thompson, and Ceasar McDowell.
Others who provided great support and encouragement along the way
include Arturo Escobar, Sadie Red Wing, Lina Dencik and the Data Jus-
tice project, and Joy Buolamwini.
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Acknowledgments xi
Gracias a Shey Rivera, Dey Hernández, Luana Morales, Jasmine
Gomez, Luis Cotto, y a todo el corillo de boricuas brillantes que da vida,
amor y rabia en la lluvia con nieve de Boston.
Thank you to my mothers, Carol Chock (who provided a much-
appreciated final round of review) and Barbara Zimbel, and my fathers,
Peter Costanza and Paul Mazzarella. You’ve all been so wonderful and
supportive over the years.
A Yara Liceaga Rojas: gracias en todas las dimensiones posibles e
imposibles. También a Sol, Elías, e Inarú, semillas de un futuro mejor.
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