Counter design: praxis in eco-social movements

Counter-Design: Praxis in Eco-social Movements is a reflective booklet on the findings and process of the ‘Counter-Framing Design: Radical Design Practices for Sustainability and Social Change’ project. Here, we explain our approach to counter-design as we continuously (re-)developed it, least of all in response to the project disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. We consider what this upheaval means for design research practice in the face of the inevitable next disruption. Our research findings imply how community structures become ingrained by the very ways in which wider social norms are challenged by a community. This seems to speak to long-standing issues and critiques in environmental social movements studies, whereby well-intentioned actions to mobilise for change may ultimately serve to entrench obsolete knowledge practices that perpetuate false solutions. Our counter-design approach thus implies ways through which we can support anticipating such potential outcomes in future research and practice on sustainable economics, resource politics, and eco-social design movements. Counter-design then is a design praxis (in research and application) that seeks to foreground processes of countering and challenges to existing systems in the pursuit of alternatives and possibilities, in broader socio-political spheres but also in design as a practice, as it is embedded in socio-political contexts.

This work is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant Number: AH/T002875/1).