Sasha Costanza-Chock talk on Design Justice

Design Justice

Wednesday, May 5, 2021, 12:00 - 1:00PM CT on Zoom

Abstract: Design is key to our collective liberation, but most design processes today reproduce inequalities structured by what Black feminist scholars call the matrix of domination. Intersecting inequalities are manifest at all levels of the design process. Design justice focuses on the ways that design reproduces, is reproduced by, and/or challenges the matrix of domination (white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and settler colonialism). Design justice is also a growing community of practice that aims to ensure a more equitable distribution of design’s benefits and burdens; fair and meaningful participation in design decisions; and recognition of community based design traditions, knowledge, and practices.

In this talk, Dr. Costanza-Chock presents an overview of their new book, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, published by the MIT Press in 2020. The book is an exploration of how we might re-imagine design to be led by marginalized communities as a tool to help dismantle structural inequality, advance collective liberation, and support ecological survival. More information about the book can be found at https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/design-justice.

Sasha Constanza-Chock

Bio: Sasha Costanza-Chock (they/them or she/her) is a researcher and designer who works to support community-led processes that build shared power, move towards collective liberation, and advance ecological survival. They are known for their work on networked social movements, transformative media organizing, and design justice. They are a Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, Senior Research Fellow at the Algorithmic Justice League (ajl.org), and a Steering Committee member of the Design Justice Network (designjustice.org). Sasha’s newest book, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, is available from the MIT Press (Open Access: https://design-justice.pubpub.org). You can find more of Sasha’s work at http://schock.cc.

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