Design Justice, Sasha CostanzaChock
Design Justice, Sasha CostanzaChock
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Design Justice
Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need

Author: Sasha Costanza-Chock

Narrator: Megan Tusing

Unabridged: 10 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/24/2021


Synopsis

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 explicitly 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 listeners 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.

About Sasha Costanza-Chock

Sasha Costanza-Chock (they/them or she/her) is associate professor of civic media at MIT, a faculty associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, a board member of Allied Media Projects (alliedmedia.org), and the author of numerous articles and two books. Their first book is Out of the Shadows, Into the Streets!: Transmedia Organizing and the Immigrant Rights Movement.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Chelsea on October 16, 2020

Thought-provoking, if sometimes tedious read on how to make the design process more inclusive and responsible. The anecdotes represent a good mix of failures and successes. One point I thought was especially interesting was in the example of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation slum toilet challenge......more

Goodreads review by Renee on May 22, 2024

Very compelling and understandable book that is a great resource for designers engaged with justice in any way, whether it is by tackling oppression, surfacing marginalised voices or critically examining existing power structures. I will definitely use it a lot as a reference material for teaching a......more

Goodreads review by Lawryn on July 27, 2022

Very good book with lots of great stuff everyone should know. But it also made me feel stupid and it was very hard for me to understand. I will probably have to reread this one to get everything.......more

Goodreads review by Jan on May 02, 2020

This is an excellent book for academics and design practitioners alike and I guess it is well readable for both. The book is concerned with design ethics today including context like large digital cooperation, globally distributed (click-) work, design thinking and hackathons. The perspective is int......more

Goodreads review by Takuya on May 04, 2023

Starting from the famous affordance theory, Design Justice sheds light on structural inequality today’s society holds; many “best practices” of the design process led by white supremacy, settler colonialism, and capitalist society simply reproduces the skewed power dynamics, and they keep encouragin......more