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Apologies for cross-posting.... Consider contributing to one of five panels below, for a special track in the upcoming Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) conference, March 19-23, 2019 - Portland, OR: Designs for Turbulent Times*. * Contact me directly for the panel focused on "Designs for Living in Common", or organizers listed for the other panels. Please send abstracts/expressions of interest in the next couple of days as we finalize the lineup! Thanks, Ursula Lang Rhode Island School of Design ---- *Society for Applied Anthropology 2019 -- Portland, OR* March 19-23, 2019 *CFP— Special Track: Designs for Turbulent Times* Lead organizer: Joshua Fisher, Western Washington University From apian architects to mythological bricoleurs, design has long shaped anthropological thought. The term calls to mind a dynamic connection between matter and form, vision and reality, and the creative capacity of human beings build and negotiate diverse worlds. Modern things like cellphones and diagnostic devices are of course the material result of complex design processes, as are the affects and experiences generated by architectural spaces or advertising campaigns. In exploring the products and processes of designs and their designers, however, the subfield of “design anthropology” has only scratched the surface of the concept’s import for applied anthropology. In *Designs for Turbulent Times*, a special track of the 2019 Society for Applied Anthropology meetings in Portland, Oregon, a diverse mix of panels and panelists will explore the emerging role of design in applied anthropology. Inspired in part by Arturo Escobar’s recent work on “ontological design” in *Designs for the Pluriverse *(2018, Duke University Press), among other venues, participants in five panels share a common orientation toward design that is less concerned with how things look and function, and more concerned with a diverse range of world-making activities. These activities are currently taking place in the “design-labs” of activists around the world, but they also characterize the work of many applied anthropologists. As such, by introducing design into the conversation, our collective goal is to push beyond a conception of “applied” anthropology that is too often framed as serving the world as it currently is. Instead, we propose to think about how anthropologists may engage with a multiplicity of world-making practices that are at once locally-significant and globally-relevant. In the first panel, *Designs for Alternative Developments*, panelists engage critically and constructively with questions about that first brought Escobar’s work into common discourse in anthropology and allied fields. Development programs are of course design schematics par excellence, and they come to bear with various effects on communities, economies, or even nation-states. Are alternative developments sufficient, or do we need a clean break with development itself — an alternative to development? In other words, is development in need of a “re-design,” or is it better to mobilize around new and emerging designs, based on new principles like socio-ecological harmony or “living well”? Contact: *Mary Mostafanezhad*, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Hawaii <[log in to unmask]> In the second panel, *Designs for Living in Common*, panelists engage with a parallel conversation regarding “the commons” and practices of “commoning." concepts that have activated wide-ranging interest in alternative capitalist and non-capitalist economies, social formations, and subjectivities. This panel explores how designs for “life-in-common” — including various forms of being-in-common and practices of commoning — take shape. What are these social formations, and how do they come about? How do these designs account for and negotiate difference within life-in-common? How might applied anthropologists, in particular, work to encourage new designs for commoning? Contact: *Ursula Lang*, Assistant Professor in Residence of Geography, Rhode Island School of Design <[log in to unmask]> In the third panel, *Designs for Teaching Other Worlds*, panelists examine pedagogical design as a world-making endeavor. In this panel, we hope to make visible those efforts in applied anthropology that work not through research and writing, but through teaching, while acknowledging the dynamic interchanges between these domains of practice. We argue that pedagogical design — as a kind of design for emerging worlds that works through the classroom — is a key path for applied anthropology, and we ask: How do we design pedagogies for anthropology that cultivate other kinds of imaginings and practices? How can we come to understand the classroom as a kind of experimental design-space for imagining, practicing, and realizing new worlds? Contact: *Vincent Lyon-Callo*, Professor of Anthropology, Western Michigan University <[log in to unmask]> *Boone Shear*, Lecturer of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst <[log in to unmask]> In the fourth panel, *Designs for an Artistry of Activism*, panelists explore the central design elements of activist practice. Art has of course been a central element in design discourse in anthropology, but its capacities to render the render the world as it is-not or could-be remain muted in considerations of activist practice. Here, we ask: How might the concept of design shed light on the multiplicity of world-making practices currently pursued by artist-activists, and how might scholar-activists harmonize their work with those efforts that share the highest values of anthropology? Contact: *Mauricio Magaña*, Assistant Professor of Mexican American Studies, University of Arizona <[log in to unmask]> In the fifth and final panel, *Designs for Applied Anthropology*, we take a step back and reflect upon the field of applied anthropology as a whole through the optic of design. This is in part a critical, deconstructive endeavor, aimed at illustrating that the discipline could be otherwise, but it is also a constructive endeavor concerned with designing a better applied anthropology. What does it mean to “apply” anthropology in turbulent times? How might we come to design an anthropological practice — in the field, at the keyboard, in the classroom, and in numerous other venues — that does not merely serve the world as it is, but that is capable of energizing, supporting, or participating in these world-making activities? Contact: *Josh Fisher*, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Energy Studies, Western Washington University <[log in to unmask]> Those interested in participating in one of these panels (and SfAA rules dictate that you may participate in only one panel) should *contact the panels chair with a short description of your contribution or a proposed scope of your participation*. Participants should take note that individual chairs may choose to “design” alternative panel formats, like roundtables, workshops, etc., and thus disrupt the typical paper format. The initial deadline for communicating interest with chairs is Oct 7, recognizing that *the current deadline for final submission to the conference is Oct 15*. Any questions about the special track as a whole may be addressed to me at [log in to unmask] Joshua Fisher Associate Professor of Anthropology and Energy Studies Western Washington University ________________________________ ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CRIT-GEOG-FORUM list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CRIT-GEOG-FORUM&A=1