PhD Candidature presentation

1. Decolonising design with
indigenous artisans in Mexico for
ethical consumption.
Diana Albarrán González
Supervised by Thomas Mical and Johnson Witehira

2. Content
1. Crafts
2. Decolonisation
3. Design
4. Design of study

3. Crafts for
development
Improve life and
working conditions of
communities.
Protect crafts traditions.
Stimulate the creation
of original pieces.

4. Diseño Artesanal

5. Designer-artisan collaboration
“Are designers the new anthropologists or
missionaries, come to poke into village life,
understand it and make it better—their
modern way?” (Bruce Nussbaum, 2010,
para. 6)
http://www.disup.com/proyecto-palma-moises-hernandez-mexico/

6. The reality
Colonisation of indigenous peoples’
knowledge.
Lack of reference to the cultural context
of the objects.
Ethicalwashing
Reduction of the artisan’s role to a
producer of the designer’s creations
(Margolin, 2007).
Challenging to distinguish
ethical/collaborative initiatives that
seeks the artisan’s benefit (Murray,
2010).

7. Decoloniality,
towards
decolonisation
“Decoloniality is the dismantling of
relationships of power and conceptions
of knowledge that foment the
reproduction of racial, gender, and
geo-political hierarchies that came into
being or found new and more powerful
forms of expression in the
modern/colonial world.” (Maldonado-
Torres, 2006, p. 117).
http://azls.blogspot.co.nz/2011/10/12-octobre-519-ans-dameriques-abya-yala.html

8. Decolonising Design
“mainstream design discourse on global platforms has always been dominated by a
focus on Anglocentric/Eurocentric practices and ways of knowing and dealing with
the world” Decolonising Design, Editorial Statement (Ansari et al., 2016, para. 2).
https://www.solidsmack.com/resources/read-this-famous-product-designers-share-their-favorite-reads/https://theredlist.com/wiki-2-18-393-1395-view-eclecticism-profile-starck-philippe-3.html

9. Design alternatives,
supporting the “pluriverse”
Design by/for the South (Gutierrez Borrero, 2015; Fry, 2017)
Design for Autonomy (Escobar, 2016)
Design in the borderlands (Kalantidou & Fry, 2014)
Design with other names (Gutierrez Borrero, 2015)
Kokoro of Design (Akama, 2017)
Respectful Design (Tunstall, 2013)
Transition Design (Irwin, Kossoff, & Tonkinwise, 2015)
http://rufianrevista.org/?portfolio=entrevista-a-beatriz-aurora

10. Decolonising the designer and its identities
“They showed us an archetype of
designer that I definitely, as a human
being, Latin American, woman, with a
special skin colour, with a special hair, I
could not fulfil...I did not fit the archetype
of the European or North American
designer” (Velez, 2016, 5:34)
Decolonising mestizos, “ch’ixi” (Rivera
Cusicanqui, 2017)

11. http://www.proceso.com.mx/361396/hemos-cometido-errores-errores-grandisimos-2http://www.adriftskateshop.com/chiapas-map.html
“The Zapatismo brought new forms to respond socially, they wanted to break the
tradition with the classic. The Zapatistas said we are freer and we will not continue
as before, they changed the bloused of Larrainzar from red to purple and it has
kept changing…” Pedro Meza (Perez Canovas, 2014, p. 77).
Context is important

12. https://escapadas.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/andador-real-de-guadalupe.html
http://www.turismochiapas.gob.mx/sectur/mercado-artesanal-en-la-plaza-de-santo-domingo

13. ChamuchicMalacate Taller Experimental Fábrica Social

14. Gaps in the existing knowledge
Western centric research on design and crafts applied in the Mexican context.
Co-design and participatory design methods for social innovation, but not
specific to work with indigenous artisans.
Decolonisation recognise the importance of the pluriverse and the respective
connection of “the other worlds” with their contexts, epistemology and
territories (Mignolo, 2009; Santos, 2015; Smith, 1999).
Context-based decolonising approaches.

15. elcaminodelosaltos.blogspot.co.nz/
Movimiento Nacional de Tejedoras Ruchajixik ri qana’ojbäl
From Social Design to
Decolonising Design

18. Sanders & Stappers, 2013

19. “We don’t have to fear the decolonisation of design. It is not required
among those who are white to abandon our whiteness, just the assumption
that our forms, thoughts, and ways of designing are superior and singular.
It is not required among those who are male to abandon our maleness, just
the assumption that our forms, thoughts, and ways of designing are
superior because of our gender. It is not required among those who are
urban to abandon our urban-ness, just the assumption that our forms,
thoughts, and ways of designing are superior because we live in cities”
Matt Muñoz (Tunstall, 2016, 8:23)
…thank you, gracias…

20. References
Akama, Y. (2017). Kokoro of Design: Embracing Heterogeneity in Design Research. Design and Culture, 9(1), 79–
85.
Ansari, A., Abdulla, D., Canli, E., Keshavarz, M., Kiem, M., Oliveira, P., … Schultz, T. (2016). A Statement on the
Design Research Society Conference 2016. Retrieved from
http://www.decolonisingdesign.com/statements/2016/editorial/
Escobar, A. (2016). Autonomía y diseño. La realización de lo cumunal.
Fry, T. (2017). Design for/by “The Global South.” Design Philosophy Papers, 15(1), 3–37.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14487136.2017.1303242
Gutiérrez Borrero, A. (2015). Resurgimientos: sures como diseños y diseños otros. Nómadas, (43), 113-129.
Irwin, T., Kossoff, G., & Tonkinwise, C. (2015). Transition Design Provocation. Design Philosophy Papers, 13(1), 3–
11. https://doi.org/10.1080/14487136.2015.1085688
Kalantidou, E., & Fry, T. (Eds.). (2014). Design in the Borderlands. Routledge.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2006). Cesaire’s gift and the decolonial turn. Radical Philosophy Review, 9(2), 111–138.
Margolin, V. (2007). Design for development: towards a history. Design Studies, 28(2), 111–115.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2006.11.008
Mignolo, W. (2009). Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom. Theory, Culture &
Society, 26, 159–181. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409349275
Murray, K. (2010). Outsourcing the hand: An analysis of craft-design collaborations across the global divide. craft+
design enquiry (Vol. 2). Retrieved from http://www.craftaustralia.org.au/cde/index.php/cde/article/view/14

21. References
Nussbaum, B. (2010). Is Humanitarian Design the New Imperialism? Retrieved July 17, 2017, from
https://www.fastcodesign.com/1661859/is-humanitarian-design-the-new-imperialism
Perez Canovas, K. (2014). La transformación de la artesanía textil a través de su mercantilización entre diseñadores
y tejedoras en los Altos de Chiapas (master’s thesis). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, San Cristóbal de
las Casas, Chiapas, México.
Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2017, July 1). Seguir mirando a Europa es apostar por un suicidio colectivo.
Iberoamerica Social. Retrieved from http://iberoamericasocial.com/seguir-mirando-europa-apostar-
suicidio-colectivo/
Sanders, E. B. N., & Stappers, P. J. (2012). Convivial design toolbox: Generative research for the front end of
design. BIS.
Santos, B. de S. (2015). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge.
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed books.
Tunstall, E. (2013). Decolonizing design innovation: Design anthropology, critical anthropology, and indigenous
knowledge. Design Anthropology: Theory and Practice, 232–250.
Tunstall, E. (2016). Respectful Design Video. Retrieved August 17, 2017, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sESVWI5aAHA
Velez, S. M. (2016). Artesanía y Diseño: diseño horizontal y de doble vía. Inexmoda. Medellín. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xhVH7gDAqw&spfreload=1