Design as a practice of care: Feminist perspectives on preventing harm and promoting healing through design

Abstract

Design as a discipline has traditionally positioned itself as an enterprise in service to capitalism, perpetuating the domination of wealth and the exploitation of labor and resources, but recent discourse in the field has increasingly raised questions around design's social and environmental impact. These discourses typically address themes of inclusion, sustainability and ethics, but some have gone further to explore the potential for care to play a role in the design process. More than ever, an interrogation of the connection between design and care is needed, as issues such as climate change, social inequality, global pandemics and aging populations require designers to negotiate relational values in order to address systemic problems. This paper aims to explore and elucidate design as a practice of care through a critical, intersectional feminist lens by interrogating existing design practices and norms, and reimagining the role that care could play in inclusive design. An analysis of case studies is presented to document a plurality of ways in which concepts of care are shaping present modes of design, and to propose methodologies and pedagogies that are necessary to make care an integral part of design.