Writing

Designers can enhance and extend the efforts for social change by transforming concepts of equity and justice into material, informative, and interactive experiences. The framework introduced here outlines six orientations for evoking future outcomes in the present moment. 

This paper describes how a reparative futures approach alters the orientations and methods of institutional DEI work and generates a different set of affective, joyful outcomes. New paths forward emerge when past injustice is examined to imagine better futures. This activity resulted in novel perspectives on what a holistic, inclusive, anti-racist campus community could look like someday.

Principles of what makes a more equitable world are held in the hearts and minds of people working toward change. To understand how those working toward racial equity think about long-term visions of equitable worlds in their work, we conducted an initial investigation using interviews with fourteen people.

What makes visions of new possibilities powerful is creating tension between the present state and a potential future.

This paper describes how a reparative futures approach alters the orientations and methods of institutional DEI work and generates a different set of affective, joyful outcomes. New paths forward emerge when past injustice is examined to imagine better futures. This activity resulted in novel perspectives on what a holistic, inclusive, anti-racist campus community could look like someday.