Ideas-Arrangements-Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice

by Design Studio for Social Innovation, Lori Lobenstine, Kenneth Bailey

Ideas are embedded in social arrangements, which in turn produce effects.

With this simple premise, DS4SI makes the case for arrangements as a rich and overlooked terrain for social justice and world building. Unpacking how ideas like racism and sexism remain sturdy by embedding themselves in everything from physical and social infrastructure to everyday speech and thought habits, this book gives readers the tools to sense, intervene in and imagine new arrangements. Using diverse examples from their work and others, DS4SI offers readers a roadmap for using social interventions to invite the larger public into imagining and creating a more just and vibrant world.

Genres: Design

184 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read, and I think essential for anyone even remotely involved in activism. The framework in this text is valuable, and the case studies all welcome and thought provoking. I only wish there was more! But I'll definitely be referring back to this text across my work in art, activism, and communications. I'd recommend anyone I know (or don't) to do the same.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one I'm going to have to return to to fully process, but the idea is simple—an overlooked site for creating change is arrangements.

By focusing on how Ideas (like racism/capitalism/productivity) lead to Arrangements (police state, classrooms, coffee dates) lead to Effects (mass incarceration, climate change, poverty, lack of health insurance) [and this is non-linear and can go in other directions) as opposed to putting the focus on People (Ideas->People->Effects), this book offers a helpful reminder that by re-imagining the ways we live together, we can change effects and create new ideas (rather than getting bogged down in endlessly pointing at people w/o creating real systemic change). Also offers useful design principles and community-engaged prototyping practices.

Sort of book, like theater practice, you can only learn by doing, so look forward to re-encountering this and trying some ideas out in days to come.

[Tiarnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant little book about design activism and social innovation. Equal parts theory and actionable methodology, with practical case studies. Foucault’s Biopower meets Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, meets Design Activism. I come away feeling like the IAE framework should be disseminated more widely than design and social innovation.

[Trevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Intervening at the scale of arrangements helps us get to solutions that might be more robust or transformative, while also reminding us that re-arranging the social is both possible and required."

I found this book to be a powerful, accessible, and actionable discussion of how to examine and positively intervene in social contexts. I highly recommend this book for designers, but also for anyone who works with any sort of systems.

[Emily Nordhaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

(read for ENGL 461). I really liked this book! I thought the diagrams throughout the book made it more engaging and more exciting to read about. This book gave me a new way to view social issues in a way that is more tangible than I have ever thought about. I will definitely take the content into my life going forward.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely has me thinking about advocacy in a fresh way.

[chayce cornette · Rating 5 out of 5]

must read for anyone curious about their role in social change