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The Tower of Consumerism in India: Consumerism and its impact on socioeconomic growth and environmental sustainability in India
Get PDFIndia’s pursuit of economic growth to improve citizens’ quality of life presents a challenge in balancing development with environmental sustainability. Navigating the socio-cultural and economic complexities and India’s performance in the Environmental Performance Index requires finding a sustainable equilibrium. However, the allure of consumerism as a quick-fix solution to generate jobs and improve financial conditions can perpetuate inequality and lead to environmental degradation.
This research paper explores consumerism in India using systemic design. Our comprehensive gigamap visually represents the complex dynamics at play. The gigamap features a tower-like illustration depicting consumerism, with sections reflecting society’s socioeconomic hierarchy and power dynamics. This visual context offers valuable insights into the challenges of achieving a sustainable balance between economic growth and environmental well-being.
The gigamap incorporates leverage points identified through causal maps and system synthesis maps. These leverage points represent critical intervention areas with significant potential for impact. By mapping out actors and barriers within the gigamap, we gain insights into complexities and potential solutions for promoting sustainability.
To enhance our understanding, we integrate Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Model of Economics, developed at the University of Oxford. This holistic economic model considers the ecological ceiling and social foundation necessary for human well-being. By integrating the Doughnut Model into our gigamap, we propose a comprehensive framework for achieving sustainable development in India.
Our research aims to provide policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders with a holistic understanding of the consumerism system in India and the challenges it poses to socioeconomic growth and environmental sustainability. The gigamap serves as a powerful visual tool, guiding discussions and interventions and enabling the design of effective strategies for a more sustainable and equitable future in India
Objects in the Familiar: Systemic contexts of production
Get PDFThe importance of systems thinking is often emphasised in the context of current global challenges, but the discussion around systemic interrelationships can often have an abstract and inaccessible feel. This paper starts as an invitation to have a discussion around concepts related to systems thinking in a more accessible setting. It does this by bringing ideas around systemic perspectives into an embodied mode while exploring the design process of a familiar artefact, i.e., biscuits. The familiarity with the process frees the designer-researcher to focus on the interrelationships and wider considerations in the process of conceptualisation and production. This then offers a way to easily access the notion of complexity and introduces complementary ideas around visually mapping relationships. The paper visually traces the internal dialogue inherent in creating biscuits as edible design objects and also as products of a process. In doing so, it helps contextualise the ways in which designers design objects that take part in systems and, in turn, the ways systems often influence how the product is produced. The intermingling of design and research modes is used as a reflexive learning opportunity following a developmental approach and has synergies with Research through Design (RtD). Practice, research, and visual documentation bring to light the presence of a set of pre-acquired, dynamic yet blurry knowledge constructs that seem to be part of implicit processes of negotiation and selection, which I call pre-sets.
Pre-sets consist of both explicit and implicit knowledge constructs that influence choice-making in variable proportions in the design process. While significant research was conducted on materials and methods during the process, final decisions included knowledge constructs that were present before this research. Pre-sets seem to be combinations of preconceptions, previously gained practical and conceptual knowledge, and previous lived experience that can be continually changed or modified due to various factors. They are present throughout the conceptualization process, can guide experience and interaction with various systemic levels, and are operationalized in varying degrees through the process of designing. Since the object needed to be produced in certain ways that satisfied notions of sustainability, which in themselves are changing, the exploration also lays out the negotiation and tensions present in creating sustainability-oriented products
Practicing Architecture In The Distinction
Get PDFSystemic design concerns itself with understanding the difference made by placing and framing boundaries. Systemic practices such as boundary critique and gigamapping provide methods for dealing with the inherent complexity this consideration entails. Similar questions arise in the practice of architecture on both literal and abstract terms, such as determining the edge of a building or deciding who and which stakeholders should be included in a design consultation meeting.
What is unique to architectural practice is that it has the capacity to make the boundary spatial, thus enabling it to be experienced phenomenally. Ranulph Glanville recognises this in his concept of zero space, a space between the inside and outside, the thickness of walls. For Glanville, zero space was a way of making architectural his thinking and work on distinctions which form the theoretical grounding for the work presented here.
In this presentation, I discuss two architectural design research projects from my practice that tease out the potential of architecture for understanding what is at stake from the placement of boundaries and their relative position to an observer. The projects ask to what extent can architecture, as a form of systemic design practice, lead to new ways of marking distinctions (making and placing boundaries) which resist the reduction of others
Shifting Perceptions: Transforming anti-racism praxis into prototypes
Get PDFThe Edmonton Shift Lab is a unique social innovation lab from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, that is doing ground-breaking antiracism work through a combination of systems thinking, design thinking and Indigenous epistemologies. For the last five years, the Shift Lab has worked with volunteer community members from the human services sector in Edmonton to explore anti-racism approaches that could be impactful and scalable. Fighting racism requires a systemic approach and keen insights into behavioural science. Our findings challenge the established diversity, equity, and inclusion workshop approach and improve upon it through the creation of tangible, actionable prototypes that are being adopted by community partners. These prototypes include a subscription box service, a public safety brochure, a tabletop board game, an app and an educational curriculum for landlords. Each shows promise in making systemic change to the attitudes and actions that contribute to racist behaviours. We have begun collecting and tabulating feedback about what works and what doesn’t, and we are eager to share these observations in the context of systemic design
Systemic Design For Elderly Healthcare: Analysis of the current responses in China, Italy and Japan
Get PDFAccompanied by the continuous changes in society, environment, culture, science and technology, the changing demographic structure of the world is also leading all countries to face multi-level cross-cutting and comprehensive challenges from the social, economic and environmental perspectives because of the increasing ageing of the population. Few studies use a systemic design approach to discuss the gaps in healthcare policy under different political regimes, thus expanding the discussion of the complex social, economic and environmental problems that elderly people face in community care. The knowledge generated through ageing research has huge potential for improving individual lives and society (Editorial,2021). In contrast, cross-cutting policy gaps are especially relevant to improving the quality of life of elderly people, the quality of healthcare – and the quality of nursing staff in community care. The paper adopts a deductive research methodology, starting from the general perspective of cross-cutting policy gaps, criteria-specific gaps and systemic design contribution, and outlines the systemic challenges of population ageing in China, Italy and Japan. The research cross-analysed models of cross-scale community care and community care stakeholder map derived from differences in healthcare policies and levels of sustainability under different political regimes in China, Italy and Japan. A holistic vision of sustainable healthcare should not consider only the treatment’s social, economic and environmental impacts. It should also take into consideration the care seekers and care providers in relation to their context by analysing the interactions they establish among them and with the context itself, assessing the influences from and consequences they generate on it. The systemic design approach is built around four additional key principles that contribute to environmental, social and economic sustainability (Silvia B. & Agnese P.,2017). Therefore, this paper attempts to add key criteria for whether healthcare policy considers elderly care, which mainly considers whether community care can reduce the burden on home care stakeholders brought about by long-term care and whether it considers effective age-appropriate design
Constructivist Approaches to Sense-Making About Design Theory
Get PDFThis exhibit contains exemplar concept maps from the Northeastern University course: Information Design Theory & Critical Thinking.
Over the course of the semester, 12 students produced nearly 200 concept maps representing a close reading of a variety of design theoretical readings.
Graduate students attempting to engage meaningfully with the body of design theory are like people who have come too late to a party with a new group of people. The histories that preexist the party are opaque. Who has dated who, who have been friends for years (or enemies), who worked together for a decade or more, who share common ideas, who share common background knowledge or ways of working — these nuances of relationship are hidden and can only be discovered through engagement, over time. In the context of an evening party, conversations have been ongoing, interest groups have been formed, and people have chosen their place in the conversation.
In the context of Design Theory, first stepping into reading theoretical work can be similarly disorienting. A number of techniques drawn from literature-based fields can be useful: close reading (North 2013), text annotation, note-taking, and critical analysis. These are all techniques that can be used successfully with a variety of students and are familiar to most. Yet these approaches do not leverage visual and spatial sense-making capacities that a design education seeks to build upon. Map-making can be a successful alternative to linear note-taking approaches and offers opportunities for students to build their analytical skills using visual and spatial approaches. (Novak, Gowin 1984) Through this practice, Information Design students gain additional opportunities to represent meaningful relationships graphically. In the Spring semester of 2022, 12 graduate students in Information Design took the course Information Design Theory & Critical Thinking.
In this course, students explored concept mapping (Dubberly 2009, 2010) as the key approach to engage with a range of design- and design-related theoretical design readings drawn from architecture, linguistics, anthropology, and cybernetics. Over the semester, students produced 16 weekly maps (at a typical pace of 2/week) that modelled ideas represented in each reading, as well as a larger, more comprehensive concept map that engaged with a theoretical issue for the course final
Gamifying the Concept of Wâhkôhtowin to Rebuild Relations
No full textWâhkôhtowin is a Cree word that loosely translates as “kinship”. More broadly, it means being interwoven into relationships, communities, and natural systems. From an Indigenous perspective, Wâhkôhtowin establishes a road map for guiding human actions and connections. As a product, the Exploring Wâhkôhtowin board game is designed to foster dialogue about Indigenous relations in Canada in an engaging and meaningful way. It aspires to spark non-Indigenous people to start thinking about the meaning and impact of the treaties signed between Indigenous Nations and the British Crown (later, the Dominion of Canada) stemming from the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and how we can improve our relations under them.
Treaty, as a concept understood by the Indigenous Nations that signed them, in this case, the Confederacy of Treaty 6 Nations in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, is not a historical relic but a living, sacred document that governs the exercise of sovereignty in cooperation with (rather than subjugation to) the Canadian state on a nation-to-nation basis. These agreements were systemic in nature and intended to last for “as long as the sun shines, the rivers flow and the grass grows” (Confederacy of Treaty 6 Nations). Abrogation, dismissal and violation of Treaty responsibilities by the Canadian government have led to horrendous consequences for Indigenous (i.e. First Nations, Metis and Inuit) people. For example, the creation of the abusive Indian Residential School system led to oppressive and deleterious impacts, which continue to be felt in the present day across the country.
The first step to rebuilding relationships, strengthening self-determination and exercising inherent rights is knowing the shared history of these territories and the impact of events, policy, and legislation on us all. As it has been made clear, “Indigenous knowledge has been relegated to the periphery, and Indigenous research is about making that paradigmatic shift to more inclusive and respectful practices” (O’Reilly-Scanlon, Crowe and Weenie, 2004). Thus, as a pedagogical tool designed for use in schools and libraries, Exploring Wâhkôhtowin represents opportunities to upend normative colonial and Westernized thinking about the settlement of Canada. It re-ascribes meaning to the 11 Numbered Treaties signed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is part of a broader systemic shift to decolonise curricula within primary and secondary educational systems.
This exhibit contains the game board, background document, cards and tokens that comprise the Exploring Wâhkôhtowin board game
Why We Buy: A Systems View of Consumerism
No full textModern life in urban North America is inextricably linked to the system of consumerism. Consumerism is a system that sustains and increasingly promotes purchasing behaviours beyond our basic needs. This profit-oriented system operates on continual efforts to decrease the costs of all the components within it. The shift from manufacturing to a service-based economy has resulted in populations becoming dependent on corporations and retailers to produce and sell products required to fulfil our basic needs. Seasonal purchasing cycles have created a social expectation of consumption, but the pressures this brings impact individuals’ emotional, environmental, and economic well-being. Additionally, the exponential growth and diversification of advertising have infiltrated our lives and perpetually send messages that individuals need to purchase more in order to find happiness and fulfilment in life. This dependence and emotional and social connection make the system difficult to overcome. Using the Systemic Design Toolkit as a guide, this map seeks to understand how the system of consumerism is upheld, how it affects individuals’ well-being and the possible areas for intervention. To guide our work, we aimed to answer the question: How might we leverage knowledge towards actionable change to encourage responsible and conscious consumption for societal well-being? Through this close examination, we sought to find potential points of intervention that could help people attain a healthy perspective and relationship with consumerism
Panarchy as a Sensemaking Tool
Get PDFWith the added complexity of the results of the Anthropocene, models like the adaptive cycle can be used to orient discussion and action on the intersection of ecosystems and social systems. The studio session includes the application of real-world scenarios. A special thanks to Pille Bunnell for coaching on how to frame and facilitate using the adaptive cycle (Bunnell 2017)
Play Circular Families and Discover the Circular Citizens
Get PDFBy 2050 cities across Europe aims to become fully circular by promoting a transition to a circular economy (CE) across urban sectors in collaboration with citizens, businesses and research. CE is a regenerative and restorative approach aiming at avoiding waste, extending product lifespans and regenerating natural systems enabling society, the economy and the environment to prosper sustainably. Until now, innovation for a CE has mainly focused on technological solutions with limited attention to social practices and behavioural change even though resource efficiency in cities is strongly connected to citizens’ behaviours.
This project explored how citizens can contribute to the transition to a CE in their cities and how they can be engaged. The proposed workshop aims to engage participants in a playful collaborative discovery on how they can take action for a CE in their cities.
The study analysed nearly 60 social innovation initiatives in cities which encourage citizens to change behaviour toward circular practices. Through deductive and inductive strategies by an “adapted version of the Grounded Theory approach” (Perry & Jensen, 2001), the study identified seven circular citizen types organized into communities, groups of interest, businesses, and social enterprises that implement different circular practices while aligning individual interests with social and environmental benefits (Marchesi & Tweed, 2021). Types are distinguished by different circular production or consumption practices and organized into three main motivation-focused categories. This taxonomy provides a systematic description of each type of circular citizen in terms of features, actions, challenges and impact (Marchesi, 2022).
Then, the study explored gamification as a method to facilitate citizens’ decoding of CE concepts and their engagement in taking action in their cities. The study applied the city gaming method Play the City (Tan, 2017) to develop a card game called Circular Families (Marchesi, 2022) (Fig. 1).
During a play session, each player aims to collect all 4 members from one of 13 ‘circular family’ groups that represent 5 urban sectors: construction, manufacturing, food, green infrastructure, and transport. To form a family, during each turn, players must decide on a circular action which could be ‘take’, ‘make’, ‘use’, or ‘recover’ to close the resource loop. Actions promote social innovation initiatives which engage in circular practices. After a game session, players can identify the circular citizen type they would like to become and discover features, actions, challenges and impacts