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Current co-design practices are problematic when applied in non-western contexts as they need to become fairer, more respectful and appropriate to the flourishing of the Global South. In response, my work aims to increase co-design abilities to create pluriversal futures. Before design can be used for emancipation, it must first be emancipated itself. From this stance an inquiry arises: how could we make space to unlearn hegemonic co-design practices? In this short paper I introduce the conceptual basis of my research which integrates key elements of Critical Latin American studies and the Degrowth movement: emancipation, conviviality, care, pluriverse, and sentipensar. With a practice-based approach, I outline the already implemented course of research as well as my plans to further explore this conceptual framework through Situated Practical Explorations with Global South communities in Mexico. I conclude with the expected outcomes of my research having a socio-cultural shift as a meta objective. 

Este texto recopila las reflexiones y el aprendizaje de el trabajo de investigación que hemos realizado los últimos 10 años; trabajo que originalmente inició orientado al diseño sustentable, pero que, al entender de manera sistémica los problemas atendidos en campo, terminó incluyendo, casi de manera natural el tema de la innovación social.  En la primera parte de este trabajo, se exploran desde la perspectiva teórica los cambios ocurridos en el diseño, hasta llegar al diseño de sistemas servicio-producto sustentable, como una posibilidad para incidir en el bienestar de las comunidades, cambiando así el rol del diseñador. En la segunda parte, concluimos el texto con los aprendizajes que nos deja un caso de estudio donde se llevaron al campo los planteamientos de nuestra reflexión teórica, apuntando a las posibilidades y a las barreras de los diseñadores como agentes de cambio social.

In a globalized world that promotes universal desires, southern epistemologies struggle to flourish against westernized notions of values, beauty and life goals. This manifestation of Coloniality (Grosfoguel, 2006) is strengthened by the mainstream systems of production and consumption of both goods and knowledge, where design is a driving force. Design, has been taught from generations in academy under the same Eurocentric canons that disseminate the values of capitalism and search for economic growth. Designers, have been worldwide trained to think, value and act according to the standards of aesthetics, progress and development set in the North. However, the current global unsustainability crises make more evident the global power dynamics, and the need to maintain diverse and contextualized forms of seeing and acting with the world.

Our own experience of being trained as designers in the south, and now relocated to the north is making us aware of our life desires imposed by contemporary coloniality. However, this relocation also builds on the advantages of coloniality, for instance, by being in contexts that have a stronger voice in international disciplinary communities. As others in our situation, we don’t want to be colonizers by being the “north in the south”. In this presentation we show journeys of deconstructing design, sustainability and their values and worldviews through transitioning between south and north. These journeys are motivated by the intention of creating mutual learning between south and north. We aim at supporting the transition of our discipline from Eurocentric worldview to more diverse worldviews and systems of values.

The current unsustainability crises have called on design to pay greater attention to the social, political, cultural and environmental dynamics of designing. These include the processes, relations, consequences, and response-abilities of design. As design practices continue to move out of the studio and engage with 'the social', the character of these design practices and their relation to the contexts in which they operate come into focus. The basic orientation of design—to approach with an intention to bring about change—can strongly activate and reveal the colonial ethos of design in these contexts, and raise questions of how to navigate different and even incommensurable value systems and types of knowledge. These issues are brought into sharp relief in our current project of working with Sami people in a project that is part of an advanced professional industrial design education. The project is motivated by an ambition to challenge ourselves and our students to open up to change through engaging with diversity. These engagements have required those involved to rethink their worldviews, values and understanding of knowledge. Situating design in this context, we must also ask: at what point does situating become imposing? Who gets to situate? Who are we to suggest something to this community as outsiders? Who gets to decide value? What does design have to offer? And, more hopefully: how might we shift from imposing our methods and values to a more transformational process of learning to design (and live) together, negotiating and sharing through an interweaving of partial perspectives?