Design for the Margins

Our country is in a demographically complex and sensitive moment. Our hope is that in beginning to design new civic systems and platforms from the place of the marginalized, we can create a society where everyone’s voice is heard and accounted for.

As we live together in our democracies and societies, we may face a hard truth. The systems and processes that help some to succeed don’t help everyone equally. The reality is our country’s political, economic, and social systems aren’t designed for everyone. Some people may find themselves at society’s far corners. They are powerless to achieve success or reshape society.

We at The Move believe that there is great potential and power in redesigning society and public processes for and with the excluded. These people — who need to be just as involved and included in our communities, government, and economy — are outsiders looking in. They are seatless at the table, not because they’re undeserving, but because of our society’s structural failures.

Those at the margins of society aren’t defined by any one category. They are those ignored by and underrepresented in decision making processes. They’re dismissed by society due to age, race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship, religious or ethnic identity, past failures and mistakes, physical disabilities, or even for holding non-mainstream opinions. Marginalized people are those whose interests are underserved and often silenced in traditional processes.

But that doesn’t make excluded people victims. Marginalized members of society have much to offer. They are adaptive and creative. They know the problems of our systems well. They have knowledge to add to the discussion: unique insights that come from an intimately lived experience with our society’s failures. In fact, when minorities and the most vulnerable in society are missing in planning and policies, we create a system that only serves the majority. And it is those who are at the margins who will suffer its social, political, and economic failures. We can only build a fair, just and equitable society with their full participation.

Designing political process and power dynamics with the marginalized in mind from the beginning will benefit all of society. Only in recognizing and fixing our failures at their source can we begin to create a system that benefits all people, regardless of their differences.

Originally published at themove.mit.edu on June 29, 2018.