Ben Waber reviewed Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock
A Compelling but Somewhat Overreaching Critical Text
4 stars
This book provides robust criticism of design practices that ignore the social, political, economic, and historic context of the process itself. This is extremely compelling, and Costanza-Chock provides voluminous call outs to some of the foundational texts in this area, which at a minimum offers an excellent reading list for those interested in this approach. They show how traditional methodologies fall short and what makes the design justice approach different.
As with many critical studies books, however, this one contains a grab bag of shifting, philosophical terminology that mostly obscures the meaning of the text and renders certain concepts meaningless (e.g. using neoliberalism, hetero-patriarchy, and settler colonialism interchangeably). There are also some extraneous digressions on how we don't need governments (?) and economic systems. Beyond that, there's almost reflexive critique of theorists who don't neglect a subset of perspectives, which IMO should be reserved for the most extreme circumstances …
This book provides robust criticism of design practices that ignore the social, political, economic, and historic context of the process itself. This is extremely compelling, and Costanza-Chock provides voluminous call outs to some of the foundational texts in this area, which at a minimum offers an excellent reading list for those interested in this approach. They show how traditional methodologies fall short and what makes the design justice approach different.
As with many critical studies books, however, this one contains a grab bag of shifting, philosophical terminology that mostly obscures the meaning of the text and renders certain concepts meaningless (e.g. using neoliberalism, hetero-patriarchy, and settler colonialism interchangeably). There are also some extraneous digressions on how we don't need governments (?) and economic systems. Beyond that, there's almost reflexive critique of theorists who don't neglect a subset of perspectives, which IMO should be reserved for the most extreme circumstances instead of nearly every non critical studies work. Ultimately these sections somewhat overwhelm what is otherwise an essential book.
