Design Justice: towards an intersectional feminist framework for design theory and practice
Open accessAbstract
Design is key to our collective liberation, but most design processes today reproduce inequalities structured by what Black feminist scholars call the matrix of domination. Intersecting inequalities are manifest at all levels of the design process. This paper builds upon the Design Justice Principles, developed by an emerging network of designers and community organizers, to propose a working definition of design justice: Design justice is a field of theory and practice that is concerned with how the design of objects and systems influences the distribution of risks, harms, and benefits among various groups of people. Design justice focuses on the ways that design reproduces, is reproduced by, and/or challenges the matrix of domination (white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and settler colonialism). Design justice is also a growing social movement that aims to ensure a more equitable distribution of design’s benefits and burdens; fair and meaningful participation in design decisions; and recognition of community-based design traditions, knowledge, and practices.
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Because community members are full, equal members of the design team in RPD, community members have full participation and full co-leadership, two of three characteristics of design justice.
“Because community members are full, equal members of the design team in RPD, community members have full participation and full co-leadership, two of three characteristics of design justice (Costanza-Chock 2018, 2020).”
From An introduction to radical participatory design: decolonising participatory design processes (2022) · cites this paper as Costanza-Chock 2018
Section 9, “Accountability: ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us’” (page unavailable), identifies full inclusion of directly affected people as central to design justice and says they should lead design processes. The paper thus supports participation and leadership as design-justice principles, but our copy does not define them as two of exactly three characteristics. It also does not establish how RPD operates; that is the citing authors’ own premise. (LLM, conf=0.82)
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- Authors
- Costanza-Chock, S.
- Affiliations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Venue
- Proceedings of DRS
- Publisher
- Design Research Society
- Published
- 2018-06-25
- ISSN
- 2398-3132 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2806852743
- Cited by
- 325
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 60 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 77.03
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Proceedings of DRS (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Design Education and Practice
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
- Keywords
- design justice, intersectionality, Black feminism, matrix of domination, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, settler colonialism, community-based design, participatory design, social movements
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