Response: Design for/by [and from] the ‘global South.’

Abstract

This paper is intended as a contribution to the development of a framework for design for, by, and from the Global South. After discussing briefly the need for such a framework, the papers outlines the rudiments of a specific subset of this sub-field, drawing on the conceptualization and struggles for autonomy by some Latin American social movements. Key to the conceptualization of this design for autonomy perspective are renewed notions of the communal and relationality, and the growing emphasis on the need for significant cultural and ecological – in some versions, civilizational – transitions between patriarchal capitalist modernity. Design for autonomy and transition design are presented as parallel and interconnected projects for both the South and the North.

Keywords:

• Design
• global south
• autonomy
• the communal
• civilizational transitions

Notes

1. Moreover, this historicity could be traced back to the development of patriarchy, since it was patriarchy that started the steady erosion of the place-based and relational life ontologies; see Escobar 2016 for a summary of this argument.

2. I develop this argument at length in a recent book, Autonomía y diseño: la realización de lo comunal (2016) A version of this book should be published in English at the end of 2017 by Duke University Press This section is based on Chapter 6 of the book

3. Insights for thinking about relationality are also found within certain post-dualist trends in academic circles of late, often described as ‘the ontological turn.’ I will not deal with these in this short paper, but see Autonomía y diseño for a full discussion of the literature.

4. The constitution of transition design as a new area of design research and practice is a pioneering project that is currently being discussed and implemented as a doctoral area of study at Carnegie Mellon’s Design School, led by Terry Irwin, Cameron Tonkinwise, Gideon Kossoff, and Peter Scupelly. The CMU and Manzini’s frameworks are discussed at length in Escobar (2016, Chapter 5). See, for instance, http://design.cmu.edu/content/program-framework. I will not discuss transition design further here.

5. See http://www.cgtchiapas.org/denuncias-juntas-buen-gobierno-denuncias/jbg-morelia-denuncia-ataque-orcao-con-arma-fuego-bases.

6. The theoretico-political expressions of autonomy and the communal stem from a variety of grassroots collectives and movements first of all. This is being conceptualized by a number of intellectuals and activists, including Gustavo Esteva, Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, Xochitl Leyva, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Raúl Zibechi, Manuel Rozental, Vilma Almendra, Patricia Botero, Astrid Ulloa, John Holloway, Carlos Walter Porto Gonçalves, el Colectivo Situaciones, Luis Tapia, Catherine Walsh, Janet Conway and Jerôme Baschet; the aymara intellectuals Pablo Mamani, Julieta Paredes, Felix Patzi and Simón Yampara; and the diverse group of researchers, intellectuals and activists centered in the city of Popayán around the interdisciplinary graduate program in development studies at Universidad del Cauca, with the active participation of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities from the larger region. Many of these actors converged at the recent meeting in Puebla, Mexico, the First International Congress on Comunalidad, convened by Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar and collaborators. Ver: http://www.congresocomunalidad2015.org/. The doctoral program in Latin American cultural studies at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito, headed by Catherine Walsh – a bastion of decolonial thought – is also important in this regard. See Escobar (2016) for a full list of sources.

7. Cited in Macy (2007, 17).