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"Politics Please, We're Social Designers," by Cameron Tonkinwise
Of course there is some work that local community groups and non-profits can do best - better than federal or state governments. Local non-profits continually engage with the community, designers help to make their work more efficient, but how do these non-profits and their programs afford to exist? A good deal of the youth, community revitalization, employment, and agricultural programs in Braddock are funded through allocations at the county, state, and federal government level. We owe a large portion of our volunteer staffing to AmeriCorps, a federal program. Many residents as well as those engaging in creative social innovation in the area rely on welfare programs such as food stamps and energy assistance to afford their volunteering. Private funds are liberatingly flexible and some non-profits are notoriously savvy fundraisers, but donor money has its limits. A sharing economy is a sort of luxury that can come into full effect once basic human needs are met - food, health, heat. Social innovators and non-profits alone will not be able to replace all government funding cuts, rather, government should recognize an opportunity in local groups and social innovators - efficiency, long-term sustainability, local management - and support them.
As you know, design and politics has been one of my fascinations. I'm finding that designers are having to fight really hard, sometimes in many 'smart and savvy' ways to counterbalance the conservatism of the government.
A quick example - the bushfire research project that I'm doing - there exists a massive problem with regards to community engagment on awareness raising because the government nor the fire agencies in Australia know how to talk to the communities in an engaging way. All they know is the militaristic command-and-control model of telling people what to do, leading to passive, disengaged and 'silent' community. Complete opposite of empowerment. So, we stepped in, protected in some ways under the 'University' and 'research' banner and undertook some novel design interventions on strengthening resilience with the local community in the Otways. Though when we asked the fire authorities to partner with us, they told us (off the record) that they were nervous about our approach, as it wasn't 'approved' or 'endorsed' - ie, they were anxious of litigation (and that's one of the outcomes from the Black Saturday Royal Commission as the fire authorities were heavily criticised).
If the fire authorities are unwilling to learn from the design research we are doing, it is questionable whether our approach will ever be sustainable, as it can't be scaled upwards.
So, in this literally 'hot' political climate, our team were having to do some fancy footwork - the stuff we did with the community was, in comparison, the 'easy' part - the hardest part was to trying to talk to the decision makers within the fire authorities - trying - being the optimal word.
Our research is being funded by the Bushfire CRC - and we already know that they're 'nervous' about this grass-roots community engagement methodology. Research is highly politicised and driven by government agenda - so we're going to 'mask' the real interventions and report the bits and pieces that they'd like to hear... so there's us attempting to being smarter and savvy.
As I do more design projects, it feels like the learning comes from going higher/deeper up the chain of origin/cause of the problem and bringing design to those places. The great thing about being part of DESIS is that it can provide us with some leverage (one day) to go further up that chain.
Yoko
I would like to know more about the criteria and language around which amplification/scaling is discussed. The entrepreneur/manager stance is all about scaling but do designers or people within DESIS conceive of and do this differently?
I am also wondering how your researchers/students engage with unintended consequences and over what timescales you are working.
Good call. I wasn't trying to imply that picking up the slack is automatically neoliberal, but that not having a position with regard to the role of government in relation to social innovation is to default to a neoliberal position. Neoliberalism, after all, is the attempt to convince people to tolerate existing situations without getting political, remaining happy instead with market-based agency (such as design innovation). The other problem is that there is increasingly no government funding for the alternative you're proposing. The extent of the cuts, rather than just funding redirection, behind the Cameron Administration's Big Society is now becoming apparent. Don't just cross your fingers that those behind the Pledge to America don't get control of big government.
Cameron
I really like your project at Parsons. Thanks for writing this... I have been thinking about it and had these thoughts:
I do agree that there are connections with getting involved in the community has political connotations, however I don't see the logic that by picking up the slack when budgets shrink means I support an American Republican position of "smaller government". Essentially if I design a means to ensure more senior citizen care, it still requires capital and funding. That would happen most likely in an NPO model which needs government-funded grants to survive, since a for-profit model seems counter-productive. Which in turn means that society needs more government funding for social services and grassroots initiatives. Hence "bigger government".
Thanks
Eric
a very useful articulation of the political implications of design. I've commented further and tied your remarks into 'design activism' in a post called 'Design for Social Impatct: is it Activism' over here:
www.designactivism.net/archives/262.
Wish I could get to your exhibit!