Social Relations – Transition Design Seminar CMU

1) Design’s strong relationship to the consumer-led marketplace has increasingly come to define designers’ role and potential; 2) the imperative to think and design in ever shorter horizons of time (time = money) and produce quick results encourages the de-contextualization of problems (all stakeholders are not served, social and environmental sust... See more

Identifies and considers all stakeholder groups: Understanding and addressing the social roots of a wicked problem demands that all stakeholder groups are identified and their concerns integrated into the problem frame.

We use the term “stakeholder” to refer to any group who is connected to or affected by a wicked problem

Transition Design argues that living in and through transitional times calls for self-reflection and ‘new ways of being’ in the world in order to act as a catalyst for societal transition. This will call for self-reflection and learning which lead to new mindsets and postures.

Oppression and injustice are human creations and phenomena, built into our current economic system, and therefore can be undone.

Oppression (e.g. racism, colonialism, class oppression, patriarchy, and homophobia) is more than just the sum of individual prejudices. Its patterns are systemic and therefore self-sustaining without dramatic interruptio

... See more

the hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which groups do not. It is about resources—which caste is seen as worthy of them and which are not, who gets to acquire and control them, and who does not. It is about respect, authority, and assumptions of competence—who is accorded these and who i... See more

The roots of many wicked problems are connected to relations of conflict and power imbalances among stakeholder groups. These complex stakeholder relations are also barriers to societal/organizational transitions

An imbalance in power relations among stakeholders affected by wicked problems is a barrier to problem resolution. Power dynamics permeate societal systems; its structures, cultural norms, material artifacts and technologies etc;

Transition Design attempts to reveal and map power relations among stakeholder groups in order to: 1) understand which groups have what types of power in the system (sometimes a group has the power/reason to keep the problem unresolved); 2) identify which groups have little power/are disenfranchised (the work is to help build their capacity and giv... See more

Fairness/Cheating; Care/Harm; Authority/Subversion; Loyalty/Betrayal; Sanctity/Degradation; Liberty/Oppression. We become polarized from each other when our moral foundations are too different from one another.