3132 research outputs found
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Alienation To-do： Using critical design to explore issues of alienation and involution for contemporary digital laborers in China.
Get PDFThis thesis project explores the overwork and involution of Chinese digital laborers
by quantifying these laborers’ level of alienation and take actions to reduce it using
critical design methods on a mobile app. Involution in China stands for the
unnecessary competition, which does not lead to productivity and improved
innovation in the workplace. Nowadays, young employees working in big cities in
China are suffering from the issue of overwork and involution. They not only
withstand expended working time and heavy workload but also experience
meaninglessness in work, as well as intense and useless competition from other
employees. As suggested by analyzing some working characteristics of Chinese
digital laborers, the situation may be manifestation of negative effects of capitalism
and labor exploitation, and the alienation of employees would be a core concept in
this issue and contributes to finding possible solutions.
The outcome of the thesis project is a critical app while adopting critical design as the
main design methodology: Alienation To-do. The app is an office and selfmanagement app that can enable users to manage time and tasks at work and quantify
the level of alienation of users by analyzing users’ data uploaded. Additionally, a
report reminds users of their level of alienation and gives advice on how to ease the
situation. Moreover, users will be encouraged to take suitable actions and record what
they do. Thus, their levels of alienation will be influenced. This thesis project aims to
clarify what an employee could do to get rid of alienation invite users to reflect on the real world
Exploring the composite intentionality of 3D printers and makers in digital fabrication
Get PDFIn this paper, we identify new relationships between technologies and people in the context of digital fabrication. Our research applies a postphenomenological lens to understand and identify such relationships by using the concept of intentionality, an idea that relates to how humans and technologies, in their corporeal sense, direct themselves at the world rather than their purpose of action. We conducted a study wherein we first modified four 3D printers that highlight technological intentionality by either reducing, redirecting, reshaping, or redistributing the CAD model and filament of a given print. Next, experienced makers were invited to print models with one of four printers and reflect upon the effects of the coupling between their intentionality and that of the 3D printer. We contribute descriptions for new ways to frame human-technology relationships within the context of digital fabrication and highlight three relationships with machines: anticipatory, itineration and resistance, and their implications
Global Elephants in the Room: A reflexive prospective following 50 years of the Global Problematique
Get PDFFifty years have passed since the original Limits to Growth report to the Club of Rome. Since then, many of the original controversies triggered by the dire scenarios produced by the MIT research team have been accepted as current outcomes of their prediction, anchoring its position as prescient in climate and economic policies, as well as in foresight studies. Yet many of the original critiques also remain justified, as several significant predictions were not realised. The World Model simulation project was the winning proposal of two programmes offered in response to the original Club of Rome prospectus, The Predicament of Mankind. Also known as the global problematique, the predicament was a multi-crisis problem framing Continuous Critical Problems produced by Hasan Özbekhan. After 50 years, the technocratic approaches of systems thinking still pervade methodology and design approaches to the megacrisis. The inherent assumptions of Western globalism in the problematique have rarely been, if ever, criticised. With rapidly developing, non-aligned economies in the Global South, these assumptions ought to also be reconsidered. I discuss alternative non-Western frames that indicate differences in priorities if the Global South is centred instead of the West. The original view of “the global” is critiqued as originating from the Club of Rome expert-centred framing, and the Western policy mindset is contrasted with a social systemic stakeholder-centred view
Infrastructure as Advocacy: Infrastructuring mid-level actors with student-led research projects
Get PDFViewed from a systemic perspective, social services hold complex and rich profiles. From a tactical perspective, services play an important role in addressing community needs. However, services also play an important role in fostering community infrastructure and advancing the advocacy mission of an organization. This paper presents the cases of three related projects to develop interactive services for a key social service organization to address specific challenges faced by parents, guardians, and caregivers of pre-K children in East Boston. Rather than discussing these cases solely from the perspective of how they might meet the needs of residents, these cases will be further analyzed from the systemic perspective of these projects as tools for both infrastructure and advocacy
A Study of Smart Cities for India
Get PDFWhat gives meaning to our life in urban scapes?
In this fast-developing world, our cities need to adapt fast to better technology, connectivity, and growth and somehow enable individual growth, i.e., cities have to be adaptive to their physical challenges and evolving aspirational needs. Today, there is increased migration towards the urban economic life (put migration data); at the same time, urbanisation is also travelling towards the hinterland, creating a loss of accountability and ownership of the ecosystem and its people. Everyone is getting connected faster, and the world is getting smaller, but something is amiss in this new way we live now.
What’s missing?
Sense of belonging
As the world shifts towards faster and digital, people get more out of touch with their ecosystems. People no longer know where their food comes from or how to build climate-resilient cities. There is gradual loss, even disinterest in knowledge sharing, because of broken trust networks. In the context of India, urbanisation has not taken into consideration contextual needs and knowledges, which has built opaque walls of development between people and the decision-making process that directly affects them.
Connectedness
Humans seek connectedness and they experience discomfort when they feel isolated from the larger ecosystem that they all are a part of. This includes the physical infrastructure, the natural ecosystem, the social fabric of the society, and how all of this combines to create a sense of belonging, responsibility, ownership, and connectedness. “The double role of living systems as parts and wholes requires the interplay of two opposite tendencies – an integrated tendency to function as part of a larger whole, and a self-assertive, or self-organizing tendency to preserve individual autonomy”.
How can we then establish this connectedness, and what does it mean in our fast-changing world where aspirations are ever-evolving
From Perception to Power: Unravelling the infamous Indian voter and the dynamics of democracy
Get PDFIn this study, we embark on a captivating journey through Indian democracy, with a special focus on the enigmatic, Infamous Indian Voter. As new voters ourselves, we were drawn to the complexities of the electoral process and the power it bestows upon individuals. Through immersive research and data collection, we unveil the remarkable realm of Indian elections—a colossal spectacle driven by technology, deeply rooted in democracy, and guarded by a constitutional body. However, the true essence lies in the mysterious nature of the Indian voter. Known for their unpredictability, these voters defy conventional norms and prioritise factors beyond economic growth. Our aim is to decode their perspectives, motivations, and the immense influence they hold in shaping the nation’s future. Through qualitative and quantitative research methods, we explore the intricate tapestry of Indian democracy, interweaving the complexities of logistics, media, campaigns, ideologies, transparency, and more. The gigamap provides a comprehensive view of the interplay between leadership, governance, and the indomitable spirit of the Indian voter. By understanding the power of perception and acknowledging the volatile nature of voter behaviour, we unlock the potential to fortify the democratic framework and build a more inclusive society where every voice finds its place
Micro-Architectures V.2: A practical experiment on how to design with uncertainty
Get PDFIn this paper, we seek to build an interpretation of modularity as a cybernetic-oriented system architecture capable of accommodating the uncertainties inherent to life and, consequently, implicit in any design activity. Micro-Architectures was a socio-spatial framework conceived as a “system of systems” capable of dealing with emerging demands not previously specified—and, at the same time, questioning the very notions of function and purpose usually dominant in the fields of architecture and design. The resulting framework enabled a process of collaboration and conversation between designers and the self-organized residents of a squat in the central area of the largest city in the country as a practical design experiment within the context of the 11th São Paulo Architecture Biennial
Narrative Patterns and Exformative Design in Cooperative Learning
Get PDFFollowing up on the Brazilian educationist Paolo Freire’s call to liberate pedagogy from oppression (Freire, 1970), the present article proposes a new approach to the design and delivery of learning, no longer as an imposed curriculum of knowledge gathering and skills development, but as a systemic experience, lived in relationship with learning-nurturing communities. The “new normal of education” emerging from this exercise comprises strands of inspiration that reflect the broad interests and global lifestyle of the author—with elements from design theory and praxis, Japanese monasticism, Buddhist learning theory, cultural narratology, the post-romantic vision of Rabindranath Tagore, and much more. The educational design model appearing from the combination of these very different and culturally diverse elements is a hybrid, free-flowing framework ideally suited for systemic, organic, cooperative, and collaborative learning environments—challenging the systemic dualisms inherent in traditional teacher/student settings and other forms of societal and/or authoritative educational oppressions, of which Paolo Freire’s infamous “banking model” is only one
Navigating Designerly Systemic Approaches for Sustainability Transitions
Get PDFContemporary systemic challenges, such as social and environmental issues, force practitioners to rethink their approaches to problem-solving. Systems themselves are, by nature, resilient to change. Their structural and relational dynamics must be deeply understood to enable substantial, lasting change when addressing sustainability issues. Both private and public sectors are now acknowledging the complex, interconnected nature of their operations, which is increasingly reflected in the framing of innovation processes. Accordingly, an emerging field of sustainability research includes scholars investigating the opportunities within designerly approaches (i.e., design thinking, systemic design, and systemic innovation) as promising contributions to the planning and facilitation of sustainability transitions.
Thus, design practitioners increasingly find themselves recruited to central, orchestrating roles in complex sustainability transition processes. In the wake of current academic work on the intersection of sustainability and design, we observe a proliferation of designerly systemic approaches in the form of frameworks, methods, and tools made available to practitioners. So far, investigations into these nascent practical approaches are limited, arguably contrasting their promise to support facilitators and practitioners in application to contemporary challenges.
This paper evaluates three prominent designerly systemic approaches through a lens of key theoretical strands from sustainability-, systems theory- and design research. The author argues that such a structured, evaluative exercise offers an outline to inform the practice of future systemic changemakers and sustainability researchers
Transformation Systems for Socioeconomic Transition
Get PDFA systemic design approach to purposeful socioeconomic transformation moves beyond idealistic future interventions to address deeply-embedded issues that prevent change here and now. We identify the persistence of consistent “deep system challenges” faced by complex change programs discovered across a range of cases. In the case study of sustainable seafood practices at the industry level, we show the development of the transformation system process and its theoretical and methodological support.
These deep system challenges represent six knots of complex and interconnected problems demanding new organising approaches. These challenges were identified over a wide range of cases and have been studied since 2016 in an ongoing action research programme. The deeply-rooted social complexity of these systemic (wicked) challenges prevents the effectiveness of superficial attempts at quick-gain change in organisations and multi-stakeholder networks where these challenges exist and persist. Shifting these system dynamics is well beyond the capacity of any single or small set of change initiatives. Instead, we argue for an approach that involves catalysing what we call transformation systems into existence and greater transformative power – or a transformation system strategy. A transformation system strategy involves the development of capacities and infrastructures that absorb the complexity of these systems challenges across a network or organisation.
For such expansive contexts as socioeconomic and industry-level transformation, for example, in the present case, the complexly interrelated seafood industry, the organising potential of smaller, faster-paced change initiatives can be mobilised through purposeful transformation systems. These are developed by transformation catalysts that serve as experimental, evaluable system-change deployments that draw resources and prepare networks to form new structures that regenerate the transformation system itself