Backcasting from long-term desired visions (that are based upon new paradigms) transcends current paradigms and imagines new ones. Backcasting brings the new paradigms into the present and asks what are steps toward these new ways of living, working, playing etc. Backcasting is concerned not with what futures are likely to manifest (forecasting)... See more

Mutual aid refers to the voluntary, reciprocal exchange of resources and services among groups of people (communities, networks, societies) for mutual benefit and is one of the oldest forms of cooperation among people.

Mutual aid has been ubiquitous in indigenous communities and examples can be found throughout history such as medieval craft guilds, American fraternity societies that existed during the Great Depression (providing health and life insurance and funeral benefits). In more recent times, mutual aid organizations, projects and initiatives have formed... See more

How the Past can Inform the Future: Commoning & Mutual Aid

What is the role of the designer in drawing together matters of concerns, rather than mere matters of facts, and help articulating individual interests in such a way as to constitute common interests? What would it mean for designers to embrace differences, even conflict, as inherent to the political project that is design?

What would an economy based upon cooperation rather than competition, and a framing of prosperity based on well-being rather than growth look like? What are some of the ways in which everyday life would change? How would it change the way designers work?

The term mutual aid was popularized by anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin who argued that cooperation and not competition was the driving force behind human evolution.

Kossoff’s Domains of Everyday Life framework is a systems/holistic approach for doing this.. The Domains framework places an emphasis on everyday life as the context within which people satisfy their needs and therefore the context within which future visions are developed.