Chrono-disruption: anarchafeminist (game) design for social innovation

In discussions of social change, the temporal dimension often remains a silent observer, flattened by a singular focus on future outcomes that bypasses a richer canvas for designing and enacting impactful innovations.

With this short theoretical reflection, I want to underscore the pivotal role of time (and its disruption) in Design for Social Innovation (DSI), critiquing its prevalent forward-gazing narrative deeply entrenched in a linear model of progress aligned with neoliberal and colonial imaginaries. And yet, at the same time, radical critiques, while effective in challenging dominant discourses and deconstructing current social hegemonies, keep the analysis anchored in the past, creating a space-and-time stalemate of inaction.

Amidst this seemly irreconcilable temporal tension between the futurist-futuring projection of DSI, and the over-backwards gaze of critique, I found anarchafeminist perspectives as crucial and long overdue alter-narratives of change. On the one hand, the anarchist component, by advocating for the immediate enactment of future ideals (prefiguration) and repurposing of past elements for contemporary use (constitutionalising), seeks to collapse traditional temporal boundaries in the here-and-now. On the other hand, the contemporary feminist and queer calls to engage with the ‘queer time’ of performativity and ‘stay with the trouble,’ invites us to reimagine social innovations within novel fluid temporal dimensions and, still, grounded into actionable presents.

Central to this anarchafeminist exploration of DSI theory, which harmonizes the lessons of the past, the urgencies of the present, and the possibilities of the future, is, therefore, the quest for coherent methodological orientations. In this sense, I conclude by advancing the application of games and play as time warp machines, enabling explorations and performances of social change not as a distant ideal or a static critique but as a lived reality co-created in the spirit of anarchafeminist play.