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Designing Against Oppression: A conceptual framework for an anti-oppressive design praxis

Format: Papers, RSD10, Topic: Culture & Society, Topic: Methods & Methodology

Jessica Jacobs and Hillary Carey

Design is often complicit in upholding inequitable structures, allowing bias and oppression to go unchallenged. While there has been substantial progress in challenging the agnostic orientations of design, many still ask, “How do I apply this to my work as a professional?” We seek to address this gap by offering a systematic description of five activity nodes that can inform and transform design practice. This paper connects critical theories to professional design practice by offering a framework for anti-oppressive design praxis. The resulting conceptual model—a scaffolding for bringing a critical awareness of power into design methods—can support designers to take action in their daily design work.

Keywords: design justice, design theory, equity, systems design, political economy

Citation Data

Author(s): Jessica Jacobs and Hillary Carey
Year:
Title: Designing Against Oppression: A conceptual framework for an anti-oppressive design praxis
Published in: Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design
Volume:
Article No.:
URL: https://rsdsymposium.org/
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Symposium Dates:
First published: 3 September 2021
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Copyright Information

Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design (ISSN 2371-8404) are published annually by the Systemic Design Association, a non-profit scholarly association leading the research and practice of design for complex systems: 3803 Tønsberg, Norway (922 275 696).

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Open Access article published under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License. This permits anyone to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or form according to the licence terms.

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Author(s). (20##). Article title. Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design, RSD##. Article ##. rsdsymposium.org/LINK

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