Alterity & Inclusivity (10/7)
Following up on Monday’s discussion on design justice, Silvana ended this week with a lecture on alterity and inclusivity in design. She began with a few key terms and ideas on design justice. Towards the end of the class, she led a discussion regarding microaggressions and our own personal experiences with racism/oppression.
When we talk about design justice, we move beyond just “good intentions” and think about ways of inclusivity for those who are excluded or marginalized. Design justice reimagines existing processes to be more inclusive to distribute a more equitable system for all. We as designers shape the world through our processes and practices. By following this movement, we can design for a better future with outcomes that could be tools for liberation and overcome social and community challenges people may face.
Matrix of Domination & Intersectionality
The matrix of domination is a framework that emerged from intersectionality and was first introduced by Patricia Hill Collins. She states that there are systems of oppression varying from race, class, gender, age, etc. that are found in different levels of people, communities, and societies. They interlock and converge, exemplifying how these aspects affect each other. Silvana then led our focus to the dynamics of privilege when viewed through the lens of intersectionality. Intersectionality demonstrates how we are all privileged and oppressed in relation to different social locations (such as race, gender, class). Our identity is not created from one social location but from a combination. Therefore the degrees of our privilege and oppression vary due to these overlapping social locations. See: Kimberly Williams Crenshaw
Difference, Diversity, & Stereotypes
Some of the issues relating to diversity come from a myth that everyone is frightened by difference, but this isn’t quite true. The fear of difference is learned behavior. It is also backed up by a system that encourages people to use difference in positive and negative manners, such as excluding, rewarding, oppressing, or valuing certain groups of people. However, diversity is normal. We all come from different backgrounds with varying physical and mental characteristics. However, we may be influenced by opinions of others about certain social locations, such as race and sex. This can lead to pre-formed stereotypes before even starting a project.
Then we touched upon the concept of stereotypes. Stereotyping is sometimes necessary or useful when dealing with the constraints of designing. Most examples she gave were systemic ones such as highway lanes and the direction of the thermostat. However, stereotypes are usually problematic and should be introduced carefully with managed application into your design considerations. While certain stereotypes are well conserved across cultures or regions, one shouldn’t assume too heavily based on a stereotype.
Universal Design
One reaction to address the problems in trying to make these kinds of decisions based on stereotypes is to eliminate specialized designs is the sub-discipline and approaches of Universal Design. Silvana did note that both Inclusive and Universal design have challenges in their approaches. Current thinking critiques these approaches for focusing on the usability of single artifacts to the detriment of addressing the social distribution of usability in the wider society.
How to be fair to users if we acknowledge all the differences? How is usability equally distributed? The trick is to promote equal rights and more participatory involvement in the decision making of a design process. Then, we can determine what is mostly needed from multiple perspectives.
Allyship
Toward the end of class, we had a discussion that centered around what we as designers can/should do to address some of these issues. As we are aware, inequalities are growing in most parts of the world, both in world superpowers and developing countries. Designers can influence the rate at which the gaps are increasing. By including more voices and rethinking processes, our design practice becomes more fair and meaningful. We may be oblivious from these differences, but we can reproduce new designs for inclusivity and progress.
The CMU School of Design DEI Committee
Andrew Twigg (acting as co-chair) joined us to talk about the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee, an initiative that started in October 2019. He took us through some of the current initiatives, areas of focus and extended an invitation for engagement -details to be communicated in the near future.
To reach out to Andrew directly, his email is atwigg@andrew.cmu.edu
