RADDAR N°3: design politics (Dec 2020)

Contact: publishing@tpworkunit.fr 

Deadline for submissions: 1 Dec 2020

This issue of RADDAR addresses the theme of design politics (Keshavarz, 2016, 2019) that focuses “on the ontological conditions of design as a form of acting in the world and the effects it generates in different environments” (Keshavarz, 2016, p.86). Design politics seeks to move beyond the separation of design and politics characterised by the proliferation of terms to describe activities including design activism, socially responsible design, sustainable design, design for social change, and social design to name a few. These descriptors, while addressing deeply political issues, are characterised by cause-specific cases (focused on issues and problems) and proposed interventions and alternatives (i.e. taking action) (Markussen, 2013; Thorpe, 2011), and nonetheless do not address politics, or if they do, they are designs featuring explicitly political content or design serving a particular political party (Keshavarz, 2019).

Moreover, the placement of a descriptor such as ‘activism’ after ‘design’ separates any other forms of design from politics, denying that politics is everywhere and that design is always, at its very enunciation, political. These approaches displace the question of politics into specific forms of designing, framing them as alternative practices, as if any other form of design has no relation to politics, and that the material world of objects, services and infrastructures is not political.

Unlike these descriptors design politics does not have a specific criteria. It understands that design and designing is more than the creation of a single thing (an object, a service, or an experience), and it situates and defines all design activity as inherently political activity. Design shapes ways of being: it influences how we think, who we are, and how we behave in material forms (Forty, 1995[1986]). By viewing design as a practice that shapes ways of being in the world (Willis, 2006) where the creation of new material practices and futures brings on certain consequences, acknowledges that design is political despite how and what it does because of its ability to manipulate different environments simultaneously and shape ways of being for human and non-human actors. Therefore, the term design politics understands the designed world–that is services, objects and experiences–as possessing and exemplifying politics and moves beyond the essence of designed objects, services and experiences being simply about their form and function.

This issue of RADDAR invites papers from all design specialisms and a wide range of disciplines that address aspects of this subject. Themes could include, but not restricted to:

• The transformation of how design defines itself and operates (moving beyond defining design as a service provider)
• A study of design artefacts from any design specialisation and discipline through the design politics lens – papers discussing the politics that generate the design and use of objects, and papers discussing the politics generated by the designed object, service, and experience.
• The unintended consequences of design beyond their intended function leading to a wide and disparate range of social, economic and political effects (for e.g. the organisation and wayfinding of hospitals contributed to new systems of social control, or Mary Quant’s snipping six inches off a skirt that transforms the economy)
• Long term activism: case studies where designers have been engaged in long-term activism projects
• An analysis of past and/or present ‘design activism’ projects through the design politics lens

Proposals for contributions should not exceed 4,000 characters (maximum) and should be sent to publishing@tpworkunit.fr by 30 August 2020. At this stage, proposals should be written in either French or English and include a reference list and/or a proposed bibliography (max. one A4 page) mentioning whether these have been or are currently being consulted. The editorial board will reply by end of September 2020 after consultation with the scientific committee.

Articles written in the preferred language of the applicant (English, French, German, Italian), between 15,000 and 20,000 characters will then be submitted by 1 December 2020. They will be published in French and English. The editorial board will discuss any other preferred language.

Texts will be written according to the protocol sent with the commission for the text by the editorial board, who reserves the right not to publish if the protocol has not been respected, if copyright for images is not settled, or if the scientific level and rigour appears to be insufficient after revision of the text by two members of the scientific committee and the guest publication manager.

Images to accompany the article should be provided for by the author and submitted by 1 December 2020 in a printable format (CMYK or greyscale; TIFF format [avoiding compressed formats such as JPEG, PNG, etc.], minimum size: 200 x 125 mm, 300 DPI, 587 x 353; 60 PX) with the associated copyright or written permission. Captions for each image must accompany the article. Specific cases related to copyrights will have to be reported to the editorial board right from the start. A minimum of 10 images is required for each article. For the bibliography in the proposal, please use the Turabian manual or Chicago Style Guide.

REFERENCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY

• AHMED, S., What ’s the use? on the uses of use. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019.
• DILNOT, C., Ethics? Design? In: S. TIGERMAN, (ed.) The Archeworks Papers, Volume 1, Number Two. Chicago: Archeworks, 2005.
• FORTY, A., 1995. Objects of desire: design and society 1750-1980. London: Thames & Hudson.
• FRY, T., Design as Politics. Oxford: Berg, 2011.
• KESHAVARZ, M., Design-Politics. PhD. Malmö University, 2016.
• KESHAVARZ, M., The Design Politics of the Passport: Materiality, Immobility, and Dissent. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019.
• KIRKHAM, P., The Gendered Object. Manchester: St Martins / Manchester University Press, 1996.
• MARGOLIN, V., The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002.
• MARKUSSEN, T., The Disruptive Aesthetics of Design Activism: Enacting Design Between Art and Politics. Design Issues, 29(1), 2013, p.38–50.
• PATER, R., The Politics of Design. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2016.
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• RICHARDSON, A., The Death of the Designer. Design Issues, 9(2), 1993, p. 34–43.
• SCHULTZ, T., D. ABDULLA, A. ANSARI, E. CANLI, M. Keshavarz, M. KIEM, L. PRADO DE O. MARTINS and P. VIEIRA DE OLIVEIRA, What is at stake with decolonizing design?
• A Roundtable. Design and Culture, 10(1), 2018, p. 81–101.
• THORPE, A., Defining Design as Activism, 2011. Available at: <https://designactivism.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Thorpe-definingdesignactivism.pdf>.
• VAN HELVERT, M. (ed.), The Responsible Object: A History of Design Ideology for the Future. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2016.
• WILLIS, A.-M., Ontological Designing — laying the ground. Design Philosophy Papers, 4(2), 2006, p.69–92.
• YANEVA, A., Five Ways to Make Architecture Political: An Introduction to the Politics of Design Practice. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.