Transitional Design

Center people and relationships at every point in the process to build public trust.

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

five forms of oppression: 1) Exploitation; 2) Marginalization; 3) Powerlessness; 4) Cultural Dominance; 5) Violence.

This new, emerging paradigm emphasizes empathy, relationship, participation and self-organization, calls for new mindsets and postures of openness, speculation, mindfulness and a willingness to collaborate.

mindsets and postures often go unnoticed and unacknowledged but they profoundly influence what is identified as a problem and how it is framed and solved within a given context. Transition Design argues that it is important to understand the dominant worldview which underpins many wicked problems in order to envision new socio-economic- political-e... See more

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.

Relationships of conflict or alignment can occur in a number of areas such as use of natural resources, economic issues, political/governance issues, technology and infrastructure but can also center around beliefs, values and cultural norms. Since all of these contribute to the problem in question, they can also become leverage points for positive... See more

Remember that some stakholder groups will be non-human (other species) or even non-living (such as rivers, mountains, soil, etc.).