Introduction - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

Introducción

Designers and design scholars are engaging in various ways
with the societal challenges of our time. Evident in several recent
elecciones, these challenges include an escalation in political polar-
ización, ideological extremism, diminishing trust of citizens in
their governments, and rising inequality. This has prompted reac-
tions from the design community such as the open call to “Stand
Up for Democracy” in 2017 by Victor Margolin and Ezio Manzini.
Such responses are arguably part of a much longer and larger shift
in design toward societal concerns echoing, Por ejemplo, a través de
the manifestos and movements of the 20th century. Societal agen-
das are by now widespread, evident in well-recognized design ap-
proaches amended as “participatory,” “humanitarian,” “inclusive,"
and “social.” As design expands and rises to meet societal chal-
lentes, constituent political and economic dynamics also become
central to design, as elucidated through this special issue titled
“Mapping Design Inequalities.”

Spanning many forms and methods of design, examples in
this special issue include urban plans and places, online platforms
and computer programs, housing and community participation.
Across these, design is examined in terms of effects on access,
belonging, expresión, interacción, and representation. A striking
example is that of the “curb cut” in Elizabeth Petrick’s article. Curb
cuts into sidewalks at crosswalks enable accessibility for wheel-
chairs and prams—the curb cut has since spread beyond urban
design as a powerful metaphor and movement for accessibility
within computing and technology. In some of the examples, societal
agendas may be explicit and intentional, for example in self-pro-
claimed “social design.” However, the authors’ argument is more
fundamental and far-reaching: design is always entangled within
political and economic dynamics, including their structural inequal-
ities. From different points of view, each article elaborates on how
design affects social in- and exclusion.

In addition to elucidating the inequalities affected at the
micro- and human-scale (such as the curb cut), authors also engage
with macro-scale political and economic implications. In their
artículo, Guy Julier and Lucy Kimbell draw our attention to the
limits of social design. Despite its best intentions, social design
operates within and typically cannot transcend the structural
inequalities of neo-liberal governance and capitalist logics. Más
attending to such inequalities in terms of geography, Adam Kaasa’s
auto-ethnography turns the workings of an international design

https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_e_00558

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competition inside out. Detailing its institutional networks, entry
requirements, and jury composition, he draws out the exclusions,
oppressions, and colonial logics. These two articles reveal the pro-
fession and institutions of design as entangled and often complicit
with structural inequality.

Notablemente, the editors and authors of this special issue include
many sociologists, and the co-editors have largely been based at the
London School of Economics and Political Science. This illustrates
the expansion of design as a subject and matter of concern for many
disciplines. Design has shifted to include societal concerns and, vicio
versa, those disciplines for which society is the primary subject
have turned their attention toward design. In her introduction to
this special issue, Mona Sloane draws our attention to sociologist
Lucy Suchman’s query, “Has design now displaced development
as the dominant term for deliberative, transformational change?"
As design takes on—or, incluso, takes over—societal challenges,
designers and design scholars must engage seriously with issues
such as inequality.

Bruce Brown
Richard Buchanan
Carl DiSalvo
Dennis Doordan
Kipum Lee
Víctor Margolín
Ramia Mazé

Errata
The following members were inadvertently omitted from the
Editorial Advisory Board list in the previous issue (volumen. XXXVI, No. 3
Verano 2019). We apologize for this oversight.

Anne Boddington

Kingston University, Londres
Cheryl Buckley

Universidad de Brighton
Lin-Lin Chen

Eindhoven University of Technology
Sabine Junginger

Lucerne Univeristy of Applied Sciences & Arte, Suiza
Marco Vinicio Ferruzca Navarro

Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana
Nassim (JafariNaimi) Parvin

Georgia Tech
Alejandro Tapia

Universidad Anáhuac, México

Problemas de diseño: Volumen 35, Número 4 Otoño 2019