‘Dismantle, change, build’: Designing abolition at the intersections of local, large-scale, and imagined infrastructures – Design Studies special issue on Participatory Design, 2018

This article grows from ongoing research and organizing with Critical Resistance (CR) in Oakland, California, which I’ve also shared at the Participatory Design Conference. You can learn more about the work, access organizing resources, and get updates on the Oakland Power Projects at www.oaklandpowerprojects.org.

ABSTRACT
As a theory and practice within the field of participatory design, infrastructuring holds complex intersections between people, groups, technologies, systems, and ideologies in view. Building on other researchers in participatory design, this article argues for an approach to infrastructuring that focuses on how we do, and create capacity to do, the work of infrastructuring locally with people and groups affected by and working in relation to the systems we seek to engage. These dynamics are explored in the literature and through a case story of an embedded design engagement with a social justice organization, where our focus and the relational practices we designed through long-term work together were shaped by the intersections of local, large-scale, and imagined infrastructures central to their organizing work.

Shana Agid, ‘Dismantle, change, build’: Designing abolition at the intersections of local, large-scale, and imagined infrastructures, Design Studies, Vol 59, 2018, Pg. 95-116, ISSN 0142-694X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2018.05.006.

Access the article through Design Studies here.

If you do not have library access to Design Studies, you can also download a PDF of the preprint here (the text will be the same).