Social design, whitening and epistemicide: a Mexican case

Abstract

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to analyze the colonial viewpoint that underlies Design, Social Design and their methodology, Design Thinking. We study this theoretical scaffolding and its application in eight projects carried out by designers in the city of Puebla, Mexico, with Indigenous Peoples from different communities in the country. We explore the approach to Social Design and Design Thinking from their historical configuration in articulation with empirical information obtained through interviews with professors of Social Design, the designers of the 8 projects, and with a design studio. Design has been conceived as a neutral discipline although it presents its social dimension as the answer to various problems facing society. This article argues that design has a modern-colonial core that permeates its sub-disciplines, orienting them towards the cultural whitening of populations. The findings show that when implemented, Social Design becomes a practice of cordial racism and a form of epistemicide that give continuity to the attempts to make invisible, eradicate or appropriate the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples. The findings also show that the methodology used by Social Design, Design Thinking, has a fundamental role in contributing and possibly masking this epistemicide.