In 2019, Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy teachings became a target in Brazil as right-wing politics rose. In response, Brazilian academics founded the Design & Oppression network in 2020 to discuss how design can react to and combat oppression. The network hosted online discussions using Theater of the Oppressed techniques to examine oppression in design and development work. Currently, the network focuses on design by the oppressed for the oppressed, with the goal of fighting all forms of oppression.

1. Designing against oppression
Frederick van Amstel @fredvanamstel
Industrial Design Academic Department (UTFPR)
Design & Oppression network, Brazil
fredvanamstel.com

2. In 2019, public universities and the prominent educator Paulo
Freire became two of the main targets of right-wing politics.

3. Paulo Freire was no longer alive, but his books on critical pedagogy
were being widely read and discussed in public universities.

4. Oppressor
Historically privileged
social groups
Oppressed
Historically
underprivileged social
groups
underestimation
exclusion
dehumanization
reaction
resistance
conscientization
Critical pedagogy became a target because it teaches how
to react to oppression.
aesthetic
interactions

5. The academic community reacted but we could not organize street
demonstrations after the 2020's pandemia.

6. Together with likeminded academics in several universities of
Brazil, we founded the Design & Oppression network in 2020.
Van Amstel, Frederick; Batista e Silva, Sâmia; Serpa, Bibiana Oliveira; Mazzarotto, Marco; Carvalho, Ricardo Artur; Gonzatto; Rodrigo Freese.
(in press). Insurgent design coalitions: the history of the Design & Oppression network. Proceedings of the II PIVOT 2021 Virtual Conference.
Design Research Society.

7. The first action of the network was to open up a weekly reading
group in a Discord Server, which has now +500 members.

8. The network hosted a series of live streams that discussed the
relevance of authors who theorized oppression to design.

9. While reading Augusto Boal, we adapted Theater of the Oppressed
Games to Discord: whose hand is this one? (2021)

10. We experimented doing Image Theater with 3D body modeling in
Magic Poser (2021).

11. We used an online whiteboard to examine the oppressors that live
inside us in The Rainbow of Desire (2021).

12. We held online Theater-Forum sessions on platform work and
design precarity with USP students (2020).
Artificial Intelligence
that distributes client
demands through the
digital work platform
Precarious designer
working for a digital
platform
Precarious
designer who
sees himself as
an entrepreneur

13. In another Theater-Forum, we addressed methodological
colonialism in design for development (2021).
Local artisan who
needs to develop a
business but
wonders what is and
how design thinking
can help with that
Gringo Design
Thinker who act as
a consultant to
development
programs
Brazilian designer who
translates, applies, and
eventually question
what the gringo says

14. Thinking on people who do not speak Portuguese, we offered the
Designs of the Oppressed international course (2021).

15. The best part of this course was perhaps the playlist we fed to the
Discord music bot with the finest Brazilian protest songs.

16. What can
design do for
the oppressed?
This is how it started This is how it is going
What can the
oppressed do
with design?

17. The Design & Oppression
network is currently interested in
design by the oppressed
for the oppressed
with eventual allies,
against all forms of oppression.

18. Thanks!
Frederick van Amstel @fredvanamstel
Industrial Design Academic Department (UTFPR)
Design & Oppression network, Brazil
fredvanamstel.com