Dear Luiza et. al,

Regarding the rejection of your papers by the DRS, you said:

*“The creation of this platform was, in part, triggered by the rejection,
on clearly political grounds, of a paper five of us submitted which
discussed some of these issues.”*

I don’t know what the DRS reviewers said, but nevertheless, perhaps their
replies were political because your paper was also political? Notice that,
if your editorial statement is anything to go by, your paper was probably
biased towards specific political ideas:

*“In short, our goal is systematic rather than additive change. It is not
sufficient for design studies and design research to simply include a
greater ‘diversity of perspectives’ as a means to delay and offset demands
for radical systemic change.”*

Demanding “radical systemic change” is the kind of thing one reads in
political manifestos.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of this; all of us should
discuss our opinions in public and try to have our papers published and all
that, but you realise that your rhetoric is somewhat antagonistic (e.g.
Global South vs Academy in the North, Eurocentric vs the rest of the world,
and so on) and therefore you shouldn’t be surprised if the DRS replies were
also politically charged.

I think there is much to be done concerning the design history of countries
outside of Europe and the US; as well as their contemporary practice.
However, I agree with Terence, there is no other, we are all equal. It is
particularly dispiriting to read such divisive rhetoric in a week when some
in Europe seem to be forgetting what it is that united all of us...

Let’s focus on what is common, on our shared humanity, not on arbitrary
divisions.

'best,
João







On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 3:43 PM, SUBSCRIBE PHD-DESIGN DecolDesign <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Dear list members,
>
> Thank you for the supportive responses to Luiza's original post. It's
> wonderful to hear about the connections to and resonances with similar work
> that other people have been doing. There is much to follow up on. As
> outlined in our disclaimer page of the site,
> http://www.decolonisingdesign.com/disclaimer/, we welcome you to email us
> with your interests.
>
> We acknowledge and encourage dialogue surrounding the multiple contexts
> through which decolonising design might be explored. However redirection or
> appropriation to normative discourses on coloniality (i.e. acknowledging
> but treating it as if it is a minor consequence) and/or enframing the
> editorial statement in entirely unrecognisable descriptions of the thinking
> that has directed the development of this platform is destructive to the
> hard and urgent work of decolonising design. Therefore if there is an
> interest in understanding more the thinking related to the authors'
> positions, we would recommend following up the previous work and
> theoretical influences of the individuals listed at the bottom of the
> editorial statement.
>
> Best regards,
> decolonisingdesign.com
>
>
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-- 
*João Ferreira*
00351 967089437
0031 0619808750

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