Afford—Ability Research + Design Process

AFFORD —ABILITY

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RESEARCH & DESIGN / BY KELSEY MCDONALD / 2018-2019

AFFORD —ABILITY RESEARCH & DESIGN / BY KELSEY MCDONALD / 2018-2019

INDEX

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CONTENTS 06 Introduction

56 Concept

08 Research

58 Precedents

20 Reflection

64 Aesthetic

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66 Experimentation

Problem Space

40 Thesis

70 Outcomes

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Opportunity Space

82

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Target Audience

84 Conclusions

Exhibit Design

46 Ideation

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52 Development

92 Acknowledgments

Works Cited

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INTRODUCTION

“TIME AND SPACE FOR REFLECTION REQUIRE THE LUXURY OF ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE, SOMETHING NOT EASILY AFFORDED IN PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE AND EVER-TIGHTENING TIME-TO-MARKET CYCLES OF CONSUMER PRODUCTS”

Craig Badke, “Design Sleepwalking”

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DEAR READER, Prior to attending Emily Carr University, I began my post-secondary studies at The University of the Fraser Valley, in pursuit of a Bachelor of Arts degree with the intent to major in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy or Psychology. Even in the past, with uncertain career goals, I was always solid in my desire to enact positive change or help people in one way or another.

After a year of post secondary studies, I decided my interest in those fields was more leisurely and that I could incorporate those interests into a design practice. Not knowing my exact interests or strengths in design, I entered into a multidisciplinary design program at Langara College which helped me discover and develop my interest in communication design.

Throughout my time at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, I have developed my communication design skills and created a foundation of critical and cultural theory which enables me to embolden my practice through often philosophical, political, and cultural lenses.

I have a passion for design for social change and I particularly enjoy art direction and photography.

I plan to pursue a career in communication design, focusing on projects that emphasize design for social change. I believe that design has a unique ability to affect positive change by appealing to both the rational and creative aspects of the mind. With this ability, I aspire to create work that is positive, meaningful, and progressive — especially for those who are underserved or marginalized in their communities.

In this particular case, my hope is to find a way to allow people to act in accordance with their morals without having to sacrifice their basic rights, needs, or social standing.

This could mean addressing the surface issue of affordable, accessible, ethical shopping options — or delving deeper into the root issues of sociocultural standards that alienate people based on factors such as appearance, class, race, sex, or gender.

So why should other people care? This is a morally complex issue that touches on cultural phenomena ranging from ideology and interpellation to representation (class consciousness, projection), postcolonialism, otherness, and alterity. Essentially, it is entangled in the ways in which the general public is expected to act in order to maintain social institutions and climb the proverbial social ladder in order to live a comfortable and ‘successful’ life. Often, the morals we hold are conflicted by the complexity of the systems we engage in and exist within. I want that to change.

In this case, I feel a dissonance between how I would like to act and how I am able to act due to financial and social restraints. This issue is most concerning to me because it causes me to contribute to the perpetuation of a system that I do not want to support and I know that I am not alone in this.

The following pages detail my journey towards creating Afford—Ability, a critical educational campaign focused on collective political power and the rejection of the commodification of social movements for capital gain.

Kelsey McDonald 5

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS AFFORD Afford—Ability is a campaign that is designed to inspire, educate, inform, and activate Vancouverites and other North American’s to come together against the commodification of social movements for capital gain and the unfair judgment of those who have effectively been “priced-out” of ethical living due to systemic barriers.

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ABILITY? Simply, the way we evaluate social standing within the world has changed drastically within the current divisive political landscape, especially in North America. Even more so, we may be ignoring some vital factors when judging the morality and behaviour of others.

expected to uphold a number of specific ethical and moral values. But, in an effort to do so, those who are socially and economically disadvantaged are often left to make a sacrifice to either pay their bills and put food on the table, or to remain “ethical” in their living and consumption habits.

To many, a person’s politics are one of the most telling indicators of one’s ethical and moral values — ranging from environmental concerns to complex sociocultural issues. With these subjective values, people have become quick to judge a person’s moral character without considering the implications of the sacrifices one might need to make in order to adhere to such values.

So, while social awareness movements and activism aim to tackle complex political and environmental issues such as sustainable consumption, they often ignore the implications that capitalist-oriented engagement in these ‘causes’ can result in serious financial or even social strain for those who are economically or otherwise disadvantaged.

Specifically, in cities such as Vancouver, BC, Canada, concern for issues surrounding affordable housing, sustainability, and environmentalism are common amongst residents (and possibly even more so among young adults). Regardless of financial prosperity or social privilege, we are

By encouraging people to consider the realworld implications of their ethical standards and demands while dealing with the sociopolitical implications of class structure, capitalism, affordability, and morality I hope to change the conversation around “sustainable consumption” and what constitutes a “good person”.

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RESEARCH

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

ABRAHAM MASLOW An American psychologist, best known for creating Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, which culminates at the point of self-actualization.

Source: www.verywellmind.com

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Through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Afford—Ability questions the implications that stem from sociopolitical institutions of classism, to capitalism, neoliberalism and affordability—while exploring ideas of guilt, responsibility, morality, and judgment.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs. Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. Knowing this, we can understand that by asking the public (and especially the economically disadvantaged to simply “buy better” or “vote with their dollars” is an inherently undemocratic attempt to solve the problem of sustainable consumption through capitalism—while also being wholly ineffective.

The following is an excerpt from SimplyPsychology.org, written by Saul Mcleod, which outlines the key differences between deficiency needs and growth needs: “This five-stage model can be divided into deficiency needs and growth needs. The first four levels are often referred to as deficiency needs (D-needs), and the top level is known as growth or being needs (B-needs).

Deficiency needs arise due to deprivation and are said to motivate people when they are unmet. Also, the motivation to fulfill such needs will become stronger the longer the duration they are denied. For example, the longer a person goes without food, the more hungry they will become.

Maslow (1943) initially stated that individuals must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. However, he later clarified that satisfaction of a needs is not an “all-or-none” phenomenon, admitting that his earlier statements may have given “the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 percent before the next need emerges” (1987, p. 69).

When a deficit need has been ‘more or less’ satisfied it will go away, and our activities become habitually directed towards meeting the next set of needs that we have yet to satisfy. These then become our salient needs. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even become stronger once they have been engaged.

Growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person. Once these growth needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.

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RESEARCH

Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on.

The original hierarchy of needs five-stage model includes:

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Physiological needs—these are biological requirements for human survival, e.g. air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, warmth, sex, sleep.

If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot function optimally. Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until these needs are met.

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Safety needs—protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, and freedom from fear.

3. Love and belongingness needs—after physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behavior.

Examples include friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).

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Esteem needs—which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige).

Maslow indicated that the need for respect or reputation is most important for children and adolescents and precedes real self-esteem or dignity.

5. Self-actualization needs—realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. A desire “to become everything one is capable of becoming”(Maslow, 1987, p. 64).”1 1 https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

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Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs

SelfActualization

Esteem

Love + Belonging

Safety Needs

Physiological Needs

FIGURE 1. Diagram of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Source: www.simplypsychology.com

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RESEARCH

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR The unfair or unjust judgment of those who cannot afford to participate in a socially-approved ethical lifestyle, can be due to fundamental attribution error.

Fundamental attribution error can cause unintentional misjudgment of people on the basis of an assumed personality, attitude, or particular disposition. Often, this means ignoring situational or environmental factors that are not directly impacted by personal factors.

In the context of this project, fundamental attribution error can be best explained through a thought process. In the first instance, Person A does not live in a particularly sustainable or ethical manner. Person B asks, “Why is Person A such an unsustainable consumer? Don’t they care about the environment?”. Person C suggests that Person A is “lazy” and “doesn’t care about the environment”. This is a dispositional judgment and can lead to fundamental attribution error, in which the influence of situational factors on behaviour or choice are ignored—while personality traits are emphasized.

In the second instance, Person A does not live in a particularly sustainable or ethical manner. Person B asks, “Why is Person A such an unsustainable consumer? Don’t they care about the environment?”. Person C suggests that there are external factors that factor into Person A’s choice/behaviour. Person A faces substantial institutional and financial factors, and risks making sacrifices that compromise their health, safety, or security.

Person A can’t financially afford sustainable products, nor do they have the time to carry out do-it-yourself sustainable alternatives.

How we tend to judge:

personal & political views

subsequent ethics + values

judgment of character

What we’re ignoring:

institutional power inequities (classism, racism, sexism)

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financial obstacles

sacrifice of health, safety, or security

“WHEN WE ARE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND AND EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENS IN SOCIAL SETTINGS, WE TEND TO VIEW BEHAVIOR AS A PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT FACTOR. WE THEN TEND TO EXPLAIN BEHAVIOR IN TERMS OF INTERNAL DISPOSITION, SUCH AS PERSONALITY TRAITS, ABILITIES, MOTIVES, ETC. AS OPPOSED TO EXTERNAL SITUATIONAL FACTORS. THIS CAN BE DUE TO OUR FOCUS ON THE PERSON MORE THAN THEIR SITUATION, ABOUT WHICH WE MAY KNOW VERY LITTLE. WE ALSO KNOW LITTLE ABOUT HOW THEY ARE INTERPRETING THE SITUATION. WESTERN CULTURE EXACERBATES THIS ERROR, AS WE EMPHASIZE INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY AND ARE SOCIALIZED TO PREFER DISPOSITIONAL FACTORS TO SITUATIONAL ONES. WHEN WE ARE PLAYING THE ROLE OF OBSERVER, WHICH IS LARGELY WHEN WE LOOK AT OTHERS, WE MAKE THIS FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR. WHEN WE ARE THINKING ABOUT OURSELVES, HOWEVER, WE WILL TEND TO MAKE SITUATIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS.”

Changing Minds (http://changingminds.org/explanations/ theories/fundamental_attribution_error.html)

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RESEARCH

CULTURAL & HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The business practice of using personification and “brand as an identity” is an exploitative tool to appeal to the emotions of consumers. Borne out of the industrial age, the goals of increased revenue for decreased compensation continue to drive corporations to value productivity in pursuit of economic prosperity without care or concern for anything other than “the bottom line”.

Our role as consumers is often portrayed as one with considerable power over the ‘market’, yet as mentioned in the documentary “The Corporation”, the concept of “voting with our dollars” is an inherently undemocratic and classist ‘solution’ due to the fact that those with more money will always have more sway. So in part, voting with your dollars or loyalty to a brand, can be effective - I just don’t think it should have to come to that point in order for a corporation to act in the best interest of all people. Considering that “the corporation is legally bound to put its bottom line ahead of everything else, even the public good” it is not surprising that social responsibility is only taken into account when it is marketable (“The Corporation”).

In fact, the public perception that corporations have moral values and even personalities to identify with are marketing tactics to appeal to consumers and maintain an image of a curated personified entity.

People of colour and other minorities have been exploited for the gain of those more privileged for centuries. During the Civil War era, corporations exploited the 14th amendment for more economic and political power. The amendment, which granted 14

African American people, many of whom were recently freed slaves, equal rights in which “no state can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law” (“The Corporation”). It was intended to protect and empower minorities. But instead, with the help of the Supreme Court, the amendment was exploited by corporations to attain the status of a legal person (aka. corporate personhood), to essentially enact a new form of covert, legal slave labour which we now recognize in the form of third-world sweatshops and the like.

Many corporations manipulate the law to get what they want, and when they can’t get what they want they ignore the law. In seeing how easily governmental institutions can be swayed by the power of the corporation, it is clear that the law is not an accurate guide for morality. From their perspective, the decision of whether to obey the law is a simple business decision or “a matter of whether it’s cost effective…if the chance of getting caught or the penalty are less than the cost to comply” (“The Corporation”). For corporations, morality is only a part of the equation if it adds up to more money. But ultimately, is a decision still ethical/moral if its motive is corrupt or prompted by fear? 3

As a result of the way that we, as a society, view complex social and environmental issues as a moral and ethical choice that each person must take on individually — in the sense that we are all individually responsible for fighting, for example, climate change — there is a complete lack of genuine responsibility on the part of governments and corporations concerning such issues. More so, there is an even greater lack of awareness and criticality from the public regarding the role that governments and corporations play in perpetuating and exploiting economic and political ideologies which promote hyper-individualism and the deterioration of a social collective.

How can we, the public, become more critical of how we are interpellated into this system and the ways in which it exploits our cultural disposition towards “doing our part” in pursuit of social good? How can we overcome the idea that competitive self-interest and hyper-individualism are infallible virtues to strive towards? How has the “stigmatization of

compassion...frayed our collective bonds”, and how can we begin to repair them?

“Steeped in a culture telling us to think of ourselves as consumers instead of citizens, as selfreliant instead of interdependent, is it any wonder we deal with a systemic issue by turning in droves to ineffectual, individual efforts?” 4 This is a systemic issue. Despite this pervasive era of hyper-individualistic capitalist consumerism, on this finite Earth, we are all interdependent. No individual act is truly independent.

“These pervasive exhortations to individual action — in corporate ads, school textbooks, and the campaigns of mainstream environmental groups, especially in the west — seem as natural as the air we breathe...This is the con-job of neoliberalism: to persuade us to address climate change through our pocket-books, rather than through power and politics.” 5

3 Joel Bakan, “The Corporation", Film, 2003 4,5 Martin Lukacs, “Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals”

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RESEARCH

IDEOLOGY + INTERPELLATION

KARL MARX & FRIEDRICH ENGELS Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, social scientist, journalist and businessman.

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Through the lens of critical theory, we are able to understand ideology as a product of circumstance (Pauker “Ideology and Interpellation”).

Affected by the ideas, values, and opinions of the sociopolitical doctrines we subscribe to, ideology can also be described as a “product of Marxist thought” (Pauker “Ideology and Interpellation”).

In the texts, The German Ideology by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” by the French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser, ideology is presented as inherent and unavoidable; existing simultaneously as everpresent, despite being essentially invisible. As ideology interpellates people as subjects in order to solidify their subscription to the state, the masses reinforce ideologies that uphold the status quo designed for the benefit of the few, at the sacrifice of themselves (the many). Concurrently, Marx, Engels, and Althusser present ideology as a causally constructed system in which, ironically, ideology itself is framed through the naturalization of it being an inherently inescapable, universal, and inevitable aspect of life and the human condition.

In The German Ideology (written 1846; published 1932), German Marxist philosophers Marx and Engels contend that “the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it” because “the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force” (47). Meanwhile, Althusser’s 1970 essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” proposes the idea that ideology is not an aspect of reality, but rather an “imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence” that is produced and upheld through ideological mystification and interpellation (52-53).

Marxist “ideals of a more equitable society” are what drive Marx, Engels, and Althusser to deconstruct ideology and come to similar conclusions about the

governmental and societal structures that permit ideology its power (“Ideology and Interpellation”).

Although, the difference between the two theories can be likened to Althusser’s critique of (repressive) State Apparatuses and the distinction between consent and coercion (Pauker “Ideology and Interpellation”). With this in mind, I find a similar distinction between the ideas of Althusser in contrast to Marx and Engels.

While Marx and Engels propose the idea that ideology is something that thrives by going unnoticed and being passively accepted, Althusser argues that ideology and the Repressive State Apparatus achieve hegemony through the active compliance of individuals as subjects (of the state) (Marx and Engels 48; Althusser 57). Marx and Engels challenge the notion that ideas are autonomous, positioning people as “passive and receptive” who, due to the division of labour, are unable to contribute to the construction of illusions and ideologies, thus remaining submissive in their subscription (or consent) to the status quo (Marx and Engels 48). On the other hand, Althusser holds that people are only subjects and not individuals, which are constructed entirely in relation to the context or culture in which we exist (Pauker “Ideology and Interpellation”).

Pauker explains that “the pressure to conform produces compliant subjects in order to keep the status quo in place”, effectively working as a coercive interpellation tactic, because interpellation is “an effect of being in relation with others” 17

RESEARCH

IDEOLOGY [AHY-DEE-OL-UH-JEE] THE BODY OF DOCTRINE, MYTH, BELIEF, ETC., THAT GUIDES AN INDIVIDUAL, SOCIAL MOVEMENT, INSTITUTION, CLASS, OR LARGE GROUP. IN PHILOSOPHY,THE STUDY OF THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF IDEAS.

INTERPELLATION [IN-TER-PUH-LEY-SHUH N] A PROCESS IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER OUR CULTURE'S VALUES AND INTERNALIZE THEM. INTERPELLATION EXPRESSES THE IDEA THAT AN IDEA IS NOT SIMPLY YOURS ALONE (SUCH AS “I LIKE BLUE, I ALWAYS HAVE”) BUT RATHER AN IDEA THAT HAS BEEN PRESENTED TO YOU FOR YOU TO ACCEPT.

and is therefore, unavoidable (“Ideology and Interpellation”). Is such the case in modern North American societies, among others?

Ultimately Althusser’s position argues that people are constantly being interpellated and subsequently positioned in relation to ideology under the false pretense that maintaining the status quo is in the best interest of all people (Pauker “Ideology and Interpellation”). Similarly, Marx and Engels, suggest the importance of ideology is to “present its interest as the common interest of all the members of society…expressed in ideal form” in an effort to convince society that it is “the only rational, universally valid” ideology (Marx and Engels 48). So, despite their differences, each text depicts ideology as a conscious construction of a false or misleading reality, empowered by those that it (ideology) misleads into accepting and upholding the values and ideals of its oppressive creators and enforcers.

According to Althusser, people are only subjects and not individuals, and further, that we are constructed entirely in relation to the context of a culture in which we exist. So, is culture, ideology, or individuality is the dominant determinant of whether we exist as individuals or subjects?

In the context of modern Western society, the general public’s affinity towards capitalist consumption, combined with the cultural significance and socioeconomic status that seems attached to material possessions we can clearly see how capitalist ideology has largely shaped citizen behaviour and how we continue to think about and structure our society.

What does this say about our values? How can our values shape and re-shape society for the better?

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Works Cited Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” A Critical and Cultural Reader. Eds. Antony Easthope and Kate McGowan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. 50-57. Rpt. in SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory Coursepack. Ed. Magnolia Pauker. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2018. PDF. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. The German Ideology. In A Critical and Cultural Reader. Eds. Antony Easthope and Kate McGowan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988. 47-49. Rpt. in SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory Coursepack. Ed. Magnolia Pauker. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2018. PDF. Pauker, Magnolia. “Ideology and Interpellation.” SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design. May 12, 2018. Lecture.

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REFLECTION

STRENGTH IN INTERSECTIONALITY: FEMINISM(S), OTHERING, & DOMINATION

bell hooks An American author, professor, feminist, and social activist.

Several of her writings have been focues on the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination.

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A response to “feminism: a transformational politic” (published 19819) by American author, feminist, and social activist bell hooks, in an examination of intersectionality, feminism(s), othering, and domination.

Feminism, in “feminism: a transformational politic” (published 1989), is a part of what the American author, feminist, and social activist bell hooks identifies as a “world crisis” that is “governed by politics of domination” (19). Within the “notion of a superior and inferior” hooks argues that all people, regardless of gender, sex, race, class, ability etc. are implicated by a dynamic of dominance (19). So, in understanding first and second wave feminismS as what Magnolia Pauker explains as primarily white, middle class movements, we can begin to understand the importance of intersectionality in third wave feminism (“FeminismS + Transformation(s)”).

In the context of bell hooks’ essay, intersectionality is an act of inclusion and consideration that, in its diversity, works to liberate women from the “politics of domination”, in pursuit of equality (19).

By shifting the focus away from women as they relate to men (and “patriarchal domination”) and refusing to accept the narrative of ‘dominator’ and ‘dominated’, hooks argues that women will enable themselves to work towards “identify[ing] both individually and collectively the specific character of [their] social identity” (23, 25).

Similar to Pauker’s assertion that feminism is a process that requires acknowledging the “ways in which we are all situated differently”, hooks identifies sexism, racism, classism and all other forms of dominance as equally problematic in relation to feminism (“FeminismS + Transformation(s)”; 21). Knowing that the system of oppression is upheld through domination, “calling attention to interlocking systems of domination” can empower people to come together through the “complexity of female experience” and their “relationship to power and domination” (hooks 21). So, because “we all have the capacity to work in ways that oppress, dominate, wound (whether or not that power is institutionalized)”, the “feminist struggle to end patriarchal domination should be of primary importance to women and men globally” because “it is that form of domination we are most likely to encounter in an ongoing way in everyday life” (hooks 21).

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Through the practice of intersectional discourse, we begin to establish “allegiances, [and] global solidarities in the daily struggles against the various and intersecting forms of exploitation that we each experience” (Pauker “FeminismS + Transformation(s)”). Similarly, it is within intersectional discourse that we can begin to identify the changes we need to make in order to transform the world, beginning with ourselves and working outwards.

In order to transform “the world outside of the self” and resist domination, it is imperative to first assume “responsibility for transforming ourselves and society”, and acknowledge the “need for transformation of self, [and] of relationships” (hooks 22, 20).

As Pauker advocates, we should “refuse the discourse of ends and final solutions, instead embracing difficulty, multiplicity, and the irresolvable tensions involved in living and thinking together” in an act of solidarity (“FeminismS + Transformation(s)”).

Solidarity can only be achieved through the intersectional “common political goal” of “ending sexism and sexist oppression” (Pauker, “FeminismS + Transformation(s)”). Ultimately, feminism works “collectively to confront difference”, and it must persist through difference to achieve solidarity, or otherwise risk feminists and their respective feminismS remaining “estranged and alienated from one another” within the oppressive system of dominance (hooks 25).

Other-ing and other forms of estrangement via language, ideology, or variations in cultural context can deepen the divide between feminist and non-feminist thinking.

Considering the diversity of experience of all people (from sex, gender, race, class, ability and so on), in what ways can we empathize and find common ground so as to collectively confront difference (not in spite of difference, but rather because of the incredible range that difference and diversity allow for)?

Is the idea of ‘difference’ culturally constructed, and if so, how might we address this?

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Works Cited hooks, bell. “feminism: a transformational politic.” Talking Back: Thinking Feminist,Thinking Black. Boston: Between the Lines, 1989. pp. 18-27. Rpt. in SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory Coursepack. Ed. Magnolia Pauker. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2018. PDF. Pauker, Magnolia. “FeminismS + Transformation(s).” SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design. May 15, 2018. Lecture.

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REFLECTION

ORIENTALISM THROUGH THE LENS OF POSTCOLONIALISM, OTHERNESS, & ALTERITY

GAYATRI CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK An Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic.

She is a Professor at the Columbia University and a founding member of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. As an influential postcolonial intellectual, Spivak is best known for her essay Can the Subaltern Speak?

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An anaylsis of “Orientalism” by Edward Said and “Who Claims Alterity” by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak with a personal anecdote of the impact of orientalism, postcolonialism, otherness, and alterity in the Western context.

As Edward Said explains in Orientalism, “for any European during the nineteenth century…Orientalism was such a system of truths” to the extent that, “every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was consequently a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric” (61). So in understanding Orientalism in it’s ethnocentric, colonial, essentialist view, we can also understand how the “social relations of production—forming a particular society” creates a binary opposition in which “‘society’ is shorthand for the dominance of (a) particular mode(s) of production of value” (Spivak 1121). Further, we can understand that the notion of the ‘other’ exists entirely in relation to the Eurocentric, heterogeneous, and colonial idea of what is normal or right which is, in this case, Western whiteness (Pauker “Postcolonialism/Otherness/Alterity”).

Magnolia Pauker explains Saussure’s “notion of difference” which addresses “how meaning is created by differences amongst signs, and what defines a word is its relationship to other words” (“Postcolonialism/ Otherness/Alterity”). Moreover, Pauker clarifies that “postcolonial theory often aims to deconstruct the logic of the binary opposition”, and works to “embrace the complexities in communities while maintaining a critique of colonialism (“Postcolonialism/Otherness/Alterity”). Further, postcolonialism “is the persistent evaluation and re-evaluation of meaning and value with regards to racialization, class, gender, and geographic location” (Pauker “Postcolonialism/Otherness/Alterity”). Within postcolonialism, Spivak introduces the subaltern, which “refers to persons socially, politically, and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure” that is enforced institutionally by governments, in language, and in the ways that histories are written and interpreted (Pauker “Postcolonialism/Otherness/Alterity”).

As a person of mixed-race, I find that representation in the interpretations of history and culture in (often heterogeneous or otherwise ‘othering’) ‘common’ language has an immense effect on my perception of my self and how my identity fits into the existing

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social constructs of what is considered normal, ideal, or acceptable.

While I acknowledge that being mixed-race, has afforded me what is referred to as “passable whiteness” and “proximity to whiteness”, I acknowledge that I am also afforded certain privileges—though I deal with a considerable amount of fetishization that ranges from praising either my whiteness (as if in spite of my “Asian-ness”) or how “exotic” I seem to some. On the other hand, my interactions with many of my Caucasian (and some Asian) friends and family in from a young age left me effectively feeling like I must abandon or detach myself from a significant part of what I consider ‘me’. Growing up, and to this day, I still feel pressured to ‘choose’ one over the other, as if I can somehow live half of my life as an Asian (Chinese) person, and half of my life as a Caucasian (Canadian/European) person—which is not the case.

Often, my ‘mixed’ identity causes people to dismiss me based on their perception that I am neither ‘white enough’ nor ‘Chinese enough’.

I have repeatedly been dismissed me from belonging to either (and any commonly recognized) race on the basis that I do not fit into the Western, reductive, essentialist, and/or colonially induced notions of what constitutes being Chinese (ie. being good at math, pursuing a career in law or engineering, etc.). These socially/culturally fostered concepts are not inherent of a race or their genes. More importantly, “the Western representation of the Orient…reflects a general process of stereotyping and othering” which diminishes or “homogenizes” any sense of difference, uniqueness, or complexity among who or what is considered ‘other’ (Pauker “Postcolonialism/ Otherness/Alterity”). Alternatively, difference “whether in semiotics, feminism, or postcolonial studies, maintains the need to acknowledge differences, rather than to remove them” (Pauker “Postcolonialism/ Otherness/Alterity”). Overall, despite the view that race or cultural identity are constructed, it does not dismiss the fact that they are a reality that I live my life within, and æffect the way I interact with the social, cultural, and political aspects of the world. I am not exclusively Chinese or Canadian, Asian or Caucasian, I am an amalgamation of the two—but more importantly, my identity consists of more than socially constructed ideas of race and culture. This so-called ‘hybridity’ “critiques essentialist notions of identity and the idea of purity” while acting as a “double-articulation of identity” and suggests “the occupation of in between spaces” (Pauker “Postcolonialism/Otherness/Alterity”).

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In Pauker’s explanation of multiculturalism within Canadian society, she acknowledges the idea that it’s ‘acknowledgment’ of diversity “may also homogenize all difference” as it “has a silent underlying structure which shapes our perspective” while simultaneously implying that “other cultures are always already recognized as ‘other’ from an implicitly colonial position” (Pauker “Postcolonialism/ Otherness/Alterity”).

How can governments address the issues of ethnocentrism, essentialism, colonialism in a way that does not perpetuate the aforementioned issues? Should the government be involved? If yes, how so? If no, why not?

Works Cited Pauker, Magnolia. “Postcolonialism/Otherness/Alterity.” SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design. June 5, 2018. Lecture.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. 1978. 59-65. Rpt. in SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory Coursepack. Ed. Magnolia Pauker. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2018. PDF. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Who Claims Alterity?” 1942. 1119-1124.

Rpt. in OCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory Coursepack. Ed. Magnolia Pauker. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2018. PDF.

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MINIMIZING IMPACT: THE JOURNEY TOWARDS DEGROWTH & STRONG SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION

An essay on the journey towards social acceptance of the concept of degrowth in a society that currently revolves around capitalist ideals of growth as progress.

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In a society where growth equals progress and progress is perceived as an innately positive quality, degrowth can be a difficult concept to understand and accept. To the public, ‘degrowth’ is often perceived as an inherently negative political movement that threatens economic prosperity and overall quality of life. On the contrary, degrowth is a political, social, and economic movement that challenges consumerist and capitalist ideals in pursuit of ecological prosperity, social equity, and the improvement of immaterial manifestations of quality of life. Due to a fundamental lack of understanding of what degrowth really means, semantic ambiguity, inaccessibility to comprehensive information, and common misconceptions created by capitalist rhetoric, the mainstream perception of degrowth has become taboo. Communication design, as an inherently political practice, has the ability to clarify these common misconceptions, democratize information, and shape political narratives concerning sustainability – ultimately paving the way for change on a larger scale.

Before any large scale changes can be made, it is imperative that degrowth is defined and clearly understood because “in a globalized culture where growth is seen to be essential for economic success and societal well-being [degrowth] seems to be a political non-starter even for those who may be sympathetic” (Assadourian, 2012, p. 22).

Essentially, degrowth is “the intentional redirection of economies away from the perpetual pursuit of growth” (Assadourian, 2012, p. 23).

Furthermore, “for economies beyond the limits of their ecosystems, [degrowth] includes a planned and controlled contraction to get back in line with planetary boundaries” that aims to create an economic system that respects Earth’s limits (Assadourian, 2012, p. 23). Ideally, degrowth could reduce the environmental and societal stress on the planet and improve quality of life for humans and the Earth. The principal challenge against degrowth is embedded in the social and cultural structure that supports consumerist and capitalist systems.

Ultimately, societal and environmental infrastructures create the limits for change, so ideological change is necessary for any further change to take place.

Similar to the challenges that capitalist rhetoric creates, productivism – the belief that measurable economic productivity and growth are the purposes for human organization (e.g., work), and that more (production) is better – prevails in industrialized and developed countries (Horn, 2013). This common belief can make degrowth seem unattractive, or even unachievable (Horn, 2013). Comparably, neoliberalism, which is “the idea that unfettered markets of privatized

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resources leads to prosperity”, contributes to productivist rhetoric (Horn, 2013, para. 12). These political narratives both share the common theme that – “that which is produced is good, and those who produce it should be rewarded” (Horn, 2013, para. 13). Consequently, issues of sustainability and growth remain concerns on our “finite planet” (Horn, 2013, para. 13). Unfortunately, the public often neglects to see flaws of the system in which they exist, thus failing to analyze the purpose behind their actions, and think critically about the longterm effects of the decisions that they make.

According to Lorek and Fuchs (2013), “studies have frequently shown that consumers report more ecological intentions than their actions show” (p. 39). These consumers, although well intentioned, are restricted by structural constraints and therefore are unable to fulfill their intentions (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013). Subsequently, individualized consumer responsibility “ignores the disincentives against sustainable consumption existing in consumer society” (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 39). In addition, Horn (2013) argues that “what we’re often sold as ‘green’ and ‘clean’ is actually neither”, because in truth, “there’s no such thing as clean energy” (para. 20).

THIS MISLEADING LANGUAGE CAN CAUSE CONFUSION AMONG CONSUMERS, LEADING WELLINTENTIONED PEOPLE TO MAKE ILL INFORMED DECISIONS. So, although sustainability is a positive and forward-thinking movement, the concept of “sustainable development is rooted in mainstream capitalist ideas that aim to increase capitalist growth and consumption” (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 38). So inadvertently, sustainability in its current form opposes degrowth – though it does not contradict it. But because degrowth is “fundamentally opposed to all forms of productivism” there is tension between the two movements (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 38).

To some, the concept of ‘sustainable consumption’ is problematic because consumption is (in most cases) inherently unsustainable.

Fortunately, the Oslo Symposium has created a comprehensive definition of sustainable consumption as:

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...the use of services and related products which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimising the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as emissions of waste and pollutants over the life-cycle so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations (as cited in Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 37).

This definition serves as a reminder that consumption is not necessarily negative, although, in highly developed nations (and especially in Western culture), the rampant nature of conspicuous consumption has become destructive (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013). Kallis and March (2015) emphasize that “our choice of language and words impacts on our capacity to develop alliances around shared images of the future” (p. 88). With this in mind it is clear that semantic inconsistencies create obstacles towards understanding. Therefore, clarity and accessibility of visual and written rhetoric are vital to the path towards change.

Achieving clarity and accessibility is not a simple task. The challenges of semantics transcend language and impact various other aspects of society, from politics to economics, which influences environmental, social, and even cultural practices on a global scale. Lorek and Fuchs (2013) acknowledge that “humanity is facing a variety of serious sustainability challenges” which include environmental issues such as “global warming and resource scarcity” as well as social challenges like “increasing inequity” between the social classes (p. 36).

Meanwhile, resource shortages and environmental issues compound these social challenges because they are entrenched in the use patterns, which vary drastically around the world (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013). For example, “an average inhabitant of Europe consumers three times as many resources as an inhabitant of Asia and more than four times as much as an African” (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 37).

This imbalance highlights the fact that “material abundance is not a universal requirement for well-being” (Kallis & March, 2015, p. 361). In many countries, the belief that more is better is so prevalent because, “capitalism produces relative scarcities by enclosures, by positional inequalities, and by the promise of unlimited choice” (Kallis & March, 2015, p. 363). So, by “framing scarcity as a universal, production related problem, capitalism is legitimized as the system best suited to expand the means of production” for a false problem they created (Kallis & March, 2015, p. 363).

This shortsighted pattern of behaviour has become normalized to the point that, “it is much more attractive for consumers, business, and

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therefore political decision makers to believe that they only need to buy and produce better products,” (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 39). According to Lorek and Fuchs (2013), people would all rather remain ignorant than to, “have to fundamentally change [their] lifestyles” or “buy and produce less goods” than to make any meaningful change (p. 39). For many people, convenience (time) and money are the main driving factors behind their compliance with the capitalist economic system (Carlsson, 2014). To combat the fetishism of growth and the ecological footprint that human labor creates, “there is passion in the labor movement’s slogan ‘working shorter to live longer’” (Murphy, 2013, p. 81). It is important that this information can be put into perspective in order to help the general public understand the impacts of their actions that extend beyond themselves and their myopic view of the world.

The truth is, “we are so far from finding solutions” (Horn, 2013, para.

37). So, before we can find solutions, we must ask ourselves if we are asking the right questions (Horn, 2013). In Horn’s (2013) interview, Ozzie Zehner insists that, “we have to stop touting green growth, green jobs, green buildings, green businesses, and start to interrogate assumptions that undergird the belief that material growth will lead to long- term prosperity,” (para. 37). As presented by Lorek and Fuchs (2013), two main approaches to these sustainability challenges exist: the weak sustainable consumption approach (wSC), and the strong sustainable consumption approach (sSC).

According to Lorek and Fuchs (2013), the wSC approach, “assumes that sustainable consumption can be achieved via improvements in energy efficiency resulting from technological solutions, and, frequently, that these technical solutions will spread through markets due to consumer demand” (p. 37). Lorek and Fuchs (2013) have deemed wSC as the “weak” approach due to the surface-level approach to this vast sustainability problem (p.38). On the other hand, the sSC approach is described as being, “based on the assumption that changes in consumption levels and patterns are necessary to achieve sustainable consumption,” emphasizing the need for a “reduction in overall resource consumption,” (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 38). In this context, degrowth “doesn’t mean a crash in material well-being, but a self-designed reorganization of human activity so that we can work less, waste less, have everything we need and want, and enjoy life to the fullest” (Carlsson, 2014, p. 184). So, despite the negative connotations that the prefix “de” in degrowth can convey, degrowth remains to be a movement that aims to improve the overall quality of life for the present and future Earth (and it’s people).

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In order to move away from the perception of degrowth as a threat to quality of life, common beliefs concerning the innate qualities of degrowth vocabulary should be reconsidered. Why is progress perceived as being positive without question? Why are growth and prosperity thought of as codependent? Assadourian (2012) insists that “the idea of decoupling growth and prosperity is no longer a utopian dream but a financial and ecological necessity” (p. 36). On a similar note, Assadourian (2012) holds that it is important that degrowth is brought into the consciousness of the general public in order to facilitate a working dialogue between progressive politicians and citizens. Politicians have the ability to, “articulate positive visions of [degrowth]” and transform the concept “from the realm of the taboo to the more normal, creating a space for mainstream media and political parties to break away from assumptions that growth is always good” (Assadourian, 2012, p. 36). Aside from politicians, communication designers have a unique opportunity to transform this complex network of information and rhetoric into attractive and comprehensive materials for all people to access and understand.

ECO-SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS SUCH AS DEGROWTH REQUIRE A STRONG ETHIC OF EQUALITY AMONG SOCIETY THAT PRIORITIZES DISTRIBUTION OVERPRODUCTION. (Murphy, 2013). So, degrowth, “while emphasizing the goals of social equity,” also, “aims to solve the challenge of scarce resources and their use and distribution” (Lorek & Fuchs, 2013, p. 38). While aiming to improve social and environmental aspects of society, “degrowth addresses over-consumption measures that can suppress production” and often, “this can mean addressing the construction of needs and wants through controls of advertising” (Murphy, 2013, p. 78). In this way, communication design becomes vital to the transformation of degrowth from a taboo into an ideal.

Communication design, as opposed to the term ‘graphic design’, is an important distinction in this context. Saldanha (2003) describes “communication” as the term that defines communication design work as “functional and not just decorative” (para. 24). In addition, Saldanha (2003) emphasizes that “a ‘communication designer’ must not only be creative, but strategic as well,” while working to deliver a message that goes beyond a simple “look and feel” (para. 24).

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Communication design has an extensive history “as a commercial and creative practice” that has created a platform for designers to make “significant cultural and economic contribution[s] to societies” (Wragg & Barnes, 2016, p.30). Soar (2002) identifies graphic (communication) designers as “cultural intermediaries” that give traction to “contemporary routines” by articulating “values and tastes to the promotion of ideas” (p. 571).

AS CAPITALIST AND CONSUMERIST RHETORIC REMAIN UNCONTESTED, THE DEGROWTH MOVEMENT FACES DIFFICULTY TO BE ACCEPTED INTO MAINSTREAM POLITICAL IDEALS. Designers have an opportunity to challenge consumerism from a unique perspective of the “visual languages and resource of design” (Soar, 2002, p. 572). Dornfeld argues that the role of designers and other cultural producers within contexts constrained by “culture, ideology, and economy” help reorient society in a positive direction (as cited in Soar, 2002, p.585). Although designers and producers operate within “particular social locations and frameworks” they do not “[float] above society” and should act within their respective frameworks to improve society as a whole (Soar, 2002, p. 585).

In order to address the main societal concern with degrowth, communication design can function to clarify misconceptions about degrowth and create comprehensive information graphics to aid understanding. Social design, as Buchanan explains, is primarily about “facilitating the exchange of information and ideas that is essential for civil and political life” (as cited in Dennison, 2015, p.

93). Similarly, Arturo Escobar describes the goal of social design as a process that seeks “to make the processes and structures that surround us intelligible and knowable” in order to “construct alternative cultural visions as drivers of social transformation” (as cited in Dennison, 2015, p. 95).

In this way, communication design creates rhetoric that is visually engaging and appealing but also lends itself to a larger societal audience in which knowledge can be situated (Dennison, 2015). The visual appeal is secondary to the functionality of any design, but by creating an attractive visual tool, information can become more accessible and easily understandable for the public

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to decode complex political dialogue. Consequently, greater public understanding of what degrowth is likely to lead to wider acceptance of the movement.

Building off of Lorek and Fuchs (2013) idea that what consumers want are subsequently what businesses and political decision makers strive towards, it is clear that the most effective way to affect change is through the consumer. Therefore, degrowth advocates must acknowledge that reaching the public is the most important step towards collective recognition and acceptance of degrowth. In order to achieve this widespread acceptance, communication designers will play a vital role in shaping visual and written rhetoric around degrowth.

In congruence with Dennison’s (2015) remarks, working collaboratively with communication designers allows for the creation of effective imagery that is not confined by historically loaded imagery and rhetoric. In turn, these subsequent designs may foster dialogue between public, private and political spheres. It is important that the communication design objects are politically neutral and offers facts, fosters knowledge, and encourages dialogue in order to reach an attractive and effective solution that works for all people.

ULTIMATELY DEGROWTH IS A POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC MOVEMENT THAT CHALLENGES CONSUMERIST AND CAPITALIST IDEALS IN PURSUIT OF ECOLOGICAL PROSPERITY, SOCIAL EQUITY, AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF IMMATERIAL MANIFESTATIONS OF QUALITY OF LIFE. It aims to reduce the environmental and societal stress on the planet and improve quality of life for humans and the Earth.

Because the principal challenge against degrowth is embedded in the social and cultural structure that supports consumerist and capitalist systems, societal and environmental infrastructures that create the limits for change need to be reassessed by architects, engineers, industrial designers, and government officials. Radical

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ideological change is necessary for any further change to take place, and to do so, changing the mindset that opposes degrowth is the first and foremost challenge.

Communication design has the ability to integrate attractive and accessible information into the everyday lives of the public through a variety of mediums such as print, digital media, and environmental advertisements. This variety of mediums allows for people of all backgrounds and all lifestyles to interact with some aspect of what would likely become a social marketing style campaign. Printed equities could range from posters to billboards, pamphlets to direct-mail pieces, newspaper ads and articles to independent zines. In addition, digital media could reach people through social media, an organization website, apps, and television ads. Similarly, environmental advertisements have the ability to promote social, economic and environmental benefits of the degrowth movement to form responsible values and behaviour of consumers.

Ultimately, through communication design, degrowth has the opportunity to present itself on its own terms. With a true understanding of what degrowth means, acceptance will come – and with acceptance comes the opportunity for industrial designers, architects, and government to implement degrowth into society. Overall, acceptance of degrowth will lead to an increased quality of life for all, including the Earth.

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Works Cited Assadoruian, E. (2012). The Path to Regrowth in Overdeveloped Countries. In Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity (pp. 22-37). WA: Island Press.

Carlsson, C. (2014). Nowtopians. In Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era (pp. 182-184). New York, NY: Routledge.

Dennison, J. (2014). Situating Graphic Anthropology. Visual Anthropology, 28(1), 88-108. doi:10.1080/08949468.2015.973339 Horn, S. (2013, April 08). Power Shift Away From Green Illusions.

Retrieved March 15,2017, from http://www.truth-out.org/news/ item/15588-power-shift-away-from-green-illusions Kallis, G., & March, H. (2015). Imaginaries of Hope: The Utopianism of Degrowth. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(2), 360-368.doi:10.1080/00045608.2014.973803 Lorek, S., & Fuchs, D. (2013). Strong sustainable consumption governance –precondition for a degrowth path? Journal of Cleaner Production, 38, 36-43.doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.08.008 Murphy, M. P. (2013). Translating Degrowth into Contemporary Policy Challenges: A Symbiotic Social Transformation Strategy. Irish Journal of Sociology, 21(2), 76-89. doi:10.7227/ijs.21.2.6 Saldanha, E. (2003). Are You Beyond Graphic?: Evolution. Retrieved March 25, 2017,from http://www.beyondgraphic.org/index. html#6414013463736765344 Soar, M. (2002). The First Things First Manifesto and the Politics of Culture Jamming: Towards a Cultural Economy of Graphic Design and Advertising. Cultural Studies, 16(4), 570. doi:10.1080/09502380210139124 Wragg, N., & Barnes, C. (2016). Graphic Designers’ Sense and Knowledge of the User: Is thinking differently the groundwork for acting differently?. Visible Language, 50(3), 29-62.

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PROBLEM SPACE

“EVEN BEFORE THE ADVENT OF NEOLIBERALISM, THE CAPITALIST ECONOMY HAD THRIVED ON PEOPLE BELIEVING THAT BEING AFFLICTED BY THE STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS OF AN EXPLOITATIVE SYSTEM— POVERTY, JOBLESSNESS, POOR HEALTH, LACK OF FULFILLMENT—WAS IN FACT A PERSONAL DEFICIENCY. NEOLIBERALISM HAS TAKEN THIS INTERNALIZED SELF-BLAME AND TURBOCHARGED IT.” IT TELLS YOU THAT YOU SHOULD NOT MERELY FEEL GUILT AND SHAME IF YOU CAN’T SECURE A GOOD JOB, ARE DEEP IN DEBT, AND ARE TOO STRESSED OR OVERWORKED FOR TIME WITH FRIENDS. YOU ARE NOW ALSO RESPONSIBLE FOR BEARING THE BURDEN OF POTENTIAL ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE. OF COURSE WE NEED PEOPLE TO CONSUME LESS AND INNOVATE LOW-CARBON ALTERNATIVES—BUILD SUSTAINABLE FARMS, INVENT BATTERY STORAGES, SPREAD ZERO-WASTE METHODS. BUT INDIVIDUAL CHOICES WILL MOST COUNT WHEN THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM CAN PROVIDE VIABLE, ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS FOR EVERYONE—NOT JUST AN AFFLUENT OR INTREPID FEW.”

—Martin Lukacs 38

THE PROBLEM Although our ethical and moral values are generally well-intentioned, the reality is that many people simply cannot afford to uphold them in the ways that society expects—namely, through ‘purchasing power’.

Our society has placed so much value in what is deemed “ethical living”, that we have begun to place blame on those who are not privileged enough to have the choice of whether or not to act within these supposed ethical and moral standards — effectively alienating those who would likely benefit from supporting causes (such as sustainable consumption) the most while imposing shame and guilt for not financially being able to afford doing so.

However, the imposition of these ethical and moral agendas is often classist and polarizing, as it reinforces the idea that those who cannot afford to live a certain lifestyle do not deserve to be considered “good” people—despite their ethical and moral values.

While we shame people for shopping at businesses that have unethical business practices, the reality is that many likely cannot afford to buy what most would deem ethically sourced clothing all the time. Concurrently, there are virtually no serious repercussions for governments and corporations that only further strengthen these barriers to affordable “ethical living”. The sociocultural/political pressures ranging from dress codes to unwritten social rules coerce people to dress certain ways in order to maintain or achieve a certain social status, be accepted into a community, workplace, or other organization — or forgo a number of basic rights, equitable treatment, and often certain privileges that come with projecting a certain ‘image’.

In the long-term, it would be more beneficial to everyone involved to buy the less affordable, ethically/locally sourced clothing in support of safe working conditions, proper wages and local businesses while contributing less waste to landfills and contributing more to the local economy and supporting workers rights. So, while the affordable option is more ‘rewarding’ in the short-term (ie. Low cost, on-trend), it contributes to larger issues of outsourced production, increased transportation emissions, inhumane working conditions, and fast-fashion waste, etc. The only problem is that many people cannot afford the larger upfront cost that comes with the practice of sustainable consumption under a capitalist perspective.

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THESIS

THESIS People are being ‘priced-out’ of engaging in socially and environmentally conscious behaviour...

The current approach of social activism for sustainable consumption does not adequately or holistically address the complexity of social and environmental issues that are implicated by deeper sociopolitical institutions of class structure, capitalism, affordability, ethics and morality. Looking at neoliberalism and the ways in which people are being ‘priced-out’ of engaging in socially and environmentally conscious behaviour, it is clear that the public must find new and different ways to achieve ethical and sustainable living and consumption habits without reliance on a capitalist system that is ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of values and their relationship to sustainability and ethics.

Meanwhile, corporations perpetuate these problems by selling consumers the idea that they have a moral decision to make ie. to just ‘buy better’ products (while corporations exploit these concerns of sustainability for capital gain)— reinforcing the fallacy that we are each individually responsible for solving the sustainability crisis and conditioning people to act through the capitalist conception of “purchasing power”.

MORAL JUDGEMENT: ABILITY VS. ACTION

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When you try to address sustainability through spending money and sacrificing basic needs it: 1.

Alienates those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged;

2. Perpetuates inequality (classism) as it reinforces the idea that those who cannot afford to live a certain lifestyle do not deserve to be considered “good� people —despite their ethical and moral values; 3. Does not address the root problem of misconsumption and overconsumption, and is generally only accessible to people who are of certain socioeconomic privilege and therefore; 4. Is not effective in a meaningful or long-lasting way.

So, to address this issue in an effective and accessible way, it is important that: 1.

The general public is aware that the concept of "buying better" or using "purchasing power" is not necessarily better because it operates according to Capitalist principles of attempting to influence policy through consumption (money), motivated by internalized guilt;

2. As a society, we must find ways to change our lifestyles, habits, and values (ie, consuming less, finding value in effortful tasks), as opposed to buying green-washed products. We can begin by questioning what we are looking for in the products we buy, what qualities or traits we are "buying into".

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OPPORTUNITY SPACE

DESIGN OPPORTUNITY Afford—Ability is a campaign that is designed to inspire, educate, inform, and activate Vancouverites and other North American’s to come together against the commodification of social movements for capital gain and the unfair judgment of those who have effectively been “priced-out” of ethical living due to systemic barriers.

The project focuses on the systemic barriers which inhibit altruistic and socially conscious behaviour for ethical and sustainable consumption.

Through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it questions the implications that stem from sociopolitical institutions of classism, to capitalism, neoliberalism and affordability—while exploring ideas of guilt, responsibility, morality, and judgment.

Through a campaign design, I hope to change the conversation around “sustainable consumption” and what constitutes a “good person” by encouraging people to consider the real-world implications of their ethical standards and demands and how they affect the world we live in while calling attention to the sociopolitical implications of class structure, capitalism, affordability, and morality.

Take, for example, the ways in which consumer demand for corporations to take a political stance on social issues like sustainability has created a space for companies to exploit these values by incorporating them into their brand identity for capital gain.

Ultimately, the focus of this project is to prompt engagement, criticality, discussion, and reflection —empowering the collective public to come together and make their voices heard.

Through community engagement and empowerment, the public can be more critical of the ways that they address social and environmental issues, and can begin to move away from the tendency to act according to pocketbook politics — in which the undemocratic practice of using “purchasing power” to influence policy is standard practice and systemic, socioeconomic barriers to sustainable consumption are ignored.

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GOALS My goals are to reduce the social stigma that surrounds conversations of sustainable consumption—specifically for marginalized communities; to spark conversation about how all people can work together to address these social, political, and environmental issues; and to raise public awareness regarding role that governments and corporations play in perpetuating economic and political ideologies which promote hyperindividualism and the deterioration of a social collective, while exploiting public efforts towards sustainable consumption for capital gain— offloading any and all responsibility (and guilt) on the part of the individual.

By encouraging people to consider the consequences of a society that prioritizes the mere gesture and appearance of ‘ethical’ or sustainable consumption over holistic and meaningful action we can begin to address the root issues inherent of capitalist ideology and extremist politics which ignore the obstacles that marginalized communities struggle to overcome.

The campaign aims to make ethical living accessible and affordable by way of public demand for government and corporate responsibility that calls for infrastructure that removes systemic barriers to ethical living, as opposed to reinforcing them.

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TARGET AUDIENCE

STAKEHOLDERS & TARGET AUDIENCE The primary target audience for this project is young adults, aged approximately 18 to 35, most of whom are considered millennials.

The secondary target audience is much more expansive, including both younger and older generations (ie. Gen Z, Gen X, & Boomers).

There are a variety of stakeholders within this problem/opportunity space.

Firstly, there are people who are invested in these social or environmental causes and would like to make changes to their lives to live according to their ethics and morals, but face systemic barriers to do so. This includes both those who can and cannot afford to do so—monetarily, sociopolitically, or otherwise. They are hopeful that governments can help address this disparity.

Secondly, there are those who have been or continue to be oppressed by systemic imbalances of power, money, and sociopolitical influence and are seeking change at an institutional level.

Thirdly, there are those who do not realize or acknowledge their privilege (economic or otherwise), which enables them the luxury of choice in the matter of ethics and morality, but want to use that privilege for the betterment of the collective.

Millennials are the most important target audience here due to their unique combination of technological proficiency, social awareness, and desire for external and public forms of social validation. This catchment will likely (although, not exclusively) consist of politically left-leaning individuals, many of whom are knowledgeable about the cultural implications of economic systems, the commodification of social movements, and general cultural theory.

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IDEATION

INITIAL PROJECT PROPOSAL The initial project proposal was centered around the ethical barriers to altruism— namely sociocultural, political, and economic barriers.

The three possible project directions that I envisioned were: a critical design approach, a campaign design, and a publication design. The critical design approach was intended to be a provocative design installation that encourages people to consider the real-world implications of their ethical standards and demands through satire and irony.

The campaign design was initially intended as marketing efforts that actively raises awareness and provides information on how to approach ethical living through more socially accessible means and community engagement.

The publication would dealing with the statistics, information and sociopolitical implications of class structure, capitalism, affordability surrounding ethics and morality at a deeper level to encourage a more holistic understanding of the systemic issues that are involved in the commodification of social movements.

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AffordAbility

Making Your Money Count Barriers to Ethical Altruism How can we be environmentally and socially conscious, or ‘act ethically’ without the socioeconomic means to do so?

Sociocultural

Political

Economic

Project Directions

Critique

Campaign

Publication

A provocative design installation that encourages people to consider the real-world implications of their ethical standards and demands.

Marketing efforts that actively raise awareness and provide information on how to approach ethical living via more socially accessible means.

Dealing with the statistics/info and sociopolitical implications of class structure, capitalism, affordability surrounding ethics and morality.

Can you afford the morals you hold?

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IDEATION

CRITICAL DESIGN PRECENDENTS 99¢ Futures by The Extrapolation Factory On February 9th, 2013 a pharmacy & 99¢ store on Flatbush Avenue in downtown Brooklyn held a "Time-Warp Opening" selling a variety of products one might desire in the future; from space suit liningreplacements, to DIY organ-transplant kits, to life form creation tools.

These speculative products were the outcome of the first Extrapolation Factory held at Studio-X NYC. Eager factory workers spent the day selecting forecasts from our futures-database, categorizing them into "lenses" on a wall-sized diagram, and then "looked" through these lenses to establish unique visions of the future. The forward-looking views were expressed as stories of possible future scenarios, each giving birth to a product concept that might be found in a 99¢ store of the future. Workers then fabricated and packaged these future products at the factory's rapid-prototyping station. Every item included its inspiration story, as well as the initial forecasts and sources that support it.

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IDEATION

CRITICAL DESIGN APPROACH Afford—Ability from a critical design approach was interested in focusing on the systemic barriers which inhibit altruistic and socially conscious behaviour for ethical and sustainable consumption.

Through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it questions the implications that stem from sociopolitical institutions of classism, to capitalism, neoliberalism and affordability—while exploring ideas of guilt, responsibility, morality, and judgment.

The critical design exhibition approach operates on the premise of a future in which we think of ourselves as consumers rather than citizens. In this future, the principles of capitalism and consumption habits have increased to the point that “buying your morals” is essentially the only way of “addressing” the global issue of sustainable consumption. The deliverables were intended to include:

1.

NOTE: AFTER SOME TIME, WITH FEEDBACK AND MUCH CONSIDERATION THIS CONCEPT WAS STOPPED DURING DEVELOPMENT DUE TO THE HIGHLY CONCEPTUAL COMPLEXITY. DUE TO CONCERNS THAT IN THE GALLERY STYLE SETTING OF EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY’S GRAD SHOW, THIS PROJECT WOULD NOT GET THE TIME AND UNDERSTANDING NECESSARY TO BE CONVEYED THROUGH IRONY, NUANCE, AND CRITICALITY IT WAS RE-DIRECTED AS A CRITICAL AND EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN THAT CALLS FOR SOCIAL ENGAGMENT, ALLOWING FOR PARTICIPATION FROM THE PUBLIC.

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A series of 3 objects with branded packaging for a critical design exhibit which will facilitate conversation around “sustainable consumption” and what constitutes a “good person” by encouraging people to consider the real-world implications of their ethical standards and demands and how they affect the world we live in while calling attention to the sociopolitical implications of class structure, capitalism, affordability, and morality.

2. An informative publication; which goes into the history of the objects, politics, economics, marketing, and psychology;

3. An educational campaign raises awareness and empowers people to use their collective voice to influence government policy for infrastructure that supports sustainability at all levels of society, regardless of social or economic factors.

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DEVELOPMENT

CRITICAL DESIGN CONCEPT The concept for the critical design objects is rooted in irony, satire, and dark humour.

Since the critical design approach is meant to hyperbolize a complex sociopolitical topic, the nature of the concept is highly speculative.

Therefore, the critical design concept was situated in the future, and is contextualized by a museum-like approach.

The museum, entitled the Archive of Societal Sacrifice looks back on a period in time that is characterized by a hyperindividualistic, neoliberal, consumer-focused society in which people “buy their morals” to attain social acceptance rather than through thought and action.

The “Moral Store” objects that will be featured in the Archive of Societal Sacrifice must meet the following criteria: 1.

Small, everyday familiar products or services that fit into a hypothetical future context;

2. Relevant to sustainable consumption; 3. Hyperbolic, sarcastic, or parody - commentary pieces; 4. Facilitate quick conversation; 5. Contemplative, prompt reflection; 6. Raise questions of feasibility in future scenario; 7. Emphasizes a capitalist, neoliberal, hyper-individualized, and/or citizen-as-consumer approach to issue.

Each object is intended to emphasize or illustrate a specific aspect of “the different ways of buying your morals” which are: moral sacrifice, material sacrifice, and moral suppression.

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Focus: Moral Sacrifice

Product: Ethical Engagement Ethical Engagement is a dating service that aligns people with a partner who will afford them the capital (money) which will allow the sponsored party to 'buy into' the environmentalism and sustainability ethical causes of their choice. This service affords those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged the privilege and freedom of economic prosperity, for the purpose of ethical autonomy.

• In addition to completing a standard dating profile, the "Ethical Sponsor" begins the Ethical Engagement process by entering the amount of capital support that they would be able to regularly provide their partner with. • The Sponsored party would also complete a standard dating profile. In addition, they would complete an ethics and sustainability survey that uses an algorithm to determine the projected costs and capital support required to enable and support their desired ethical and sustainable consumer lifestyle (behaviour). • This service also offers engagement rings. They sell diamond-free rings to solidify and publicize the couple's status as good, "moral" people;

This product + service is intended to exemplify the concept of Moral Sacrifice in the sense that caring for one thing inevitably means caring less for another. It reinforces the idea that the socioeconomically disadvantaged must compromise (sacrifice) various other morals in order to meet their moral standards within a capitalist model. In this case, they must compromise their freedom to choose a life-partner in order to maintain what is socially regarded as ethical and sustainable consumer behaviour.

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DEVELOPMENT

Focus: Material Sacrifice

Product: Pocket Pawn Pocket Pawn is a sort of cost-converter. It uses a biometric hemoglobin glucose-monitoring technology via finger-prick sampling to withdraw essential nutrients and vitamins from the users body as a material sacrifice in exchange for increased autonomous ability*. • Pocket Pawn enhances and enables sustainable consumption behaviour (*aka. autonomous ability) by taking users essential nutrients and vitamins as a credit towards what corporations and governments have deemed "sustainable products". • The form will be reminiscent of diabetic glucose monitoring devices.

Ultimately, Pocket Pawn reinforces and hyperbolizes the material sacrifice that people make, and are expected to make, in order to act in line with what is socially determined as sustainable and/or ethical consumption. It calls back to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, via the irrational sacrifice of survival needs for self-actualization, esteem, and even love + belonging.

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Focus: Suppressing Morals

Product: Apathy Eyedrops Apathy Eyedrops are specially formulated to suppress the function of the anterior insular cortex, where the feeling of empathy originates by inhibiting the visual information that the brain receives from external stimuli. Essentially, Apathy Eyedrops help users 'block out' or ignore the social pressure to conform to ethical and sustainable living products in order to maintain a basic income balance for everyday necessities that support basic survival.

It allows users to make cost-effective choices by suppressing the ability to empathize and make emotionally-informed decisions. They can be used when going shopping or simply applied to the eyes daily for continual protection.

This product reinforces the social pressure and need for some to effectively ignore or get ride of morals in order to survive (calling back to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs).

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CONCEPT

THE CAMPAIGN APPROACH The campaign aims to make ethical living accessible and affordable by way of public demand for government and corporate responsibility that calls for infrastructure that removes systemic barriers to ethical living, as opposed to reinforcing them.

The Posters are one of the first points of contact—they are intended to gain public interest and attention with the basic concept, while relating on an emotional level. The front pulls the viewer in and the back gives an introduction to the movement and provides context, and directs readers to the website.

The Manifesto is the introductory manifesto against the commodification of social movements, neoliberal hyperindividualism, and the systemic barriers which inhibit collective engagement in social, political, and environmental causes in North America.

The Postcards are for user-engagement and empowerment. They showcase individual excerpts from the manifesto so the user can choose one that they identify with most. Use them to write letters to local MP’s about infrastructure and accessibility, or to express discontent with a company’s practices or use them to spread the word about the movement via the postal service, instagram, or twitter.

The Website provides a general overview of the movement, digital and downloadable versions of some print collateral, and further educational resources for further reading/learning. The site includes a blog (‘education’ section) where I post relevant content from a personal perspective. It also provides an opportunity for feedback and contribution from the public and resources and information to enable people to connect with their local MP’s.

The Social Media is a place for promoting the movement that engages the target audience through compelling and interesting visual content such as motion graphics, type experiments, and relevant sociopolitical memes. This is less informational and more geared towards engagement - though the goal is to create another point of contact with people to strengthen a sense of community and sharing of thoughts, ideas, and images. It also directs followers to the website for more in-depth content.

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THE SYSTEM The system works collaboratively to ensure all materials point back to one another, and especially to the digital platforms (website, instagram) allowing for prolonged and deep engagement with the topics at hand. Each deliverable works towards the engagement goals: awareness, engagement, education, activation,empowerment, and most importantly, accountability.

1ST POINT OF CONTACT

2ND POINT OF CONTACT

POSTERS

WEBSITE

CHEAP, RISO PRINTED, WHEATPASTED

SOCIAL MEDIA PROMPT ENGAGEMENT, ACTION, & SHARING

INFRASTRUCTURE, BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS, COMMODIFICATION OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, WHO TO CONTACT & WHERE,

MANIFESTO

GOALS, MANIFESTO,

CHEAP, RISO PRINTED. DISTRIBUTED ON WEB/AT MEET-UPS

PRINT-YOUR-OWN POSTCARDS

3RD POINT OF CONTACT

POSTCARDS MAKING COLLECTIVE VOICE HEARD, MAKING CONTACT WITH GOVERNMENT & CORPORATIONS, LEADING TO ACCOUNTABILITY, ACTION AND FINALLY ACCESSABILITY & AFFORDABILITY

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PRECEDENTS

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CAMPAIGN PRECEDENTS The Poor People’s Campaign (2017 Revival) The Poor People’s Campaign is a revival of a “national call for moral revival” which first appeared in 1968. It was an effort to gain economic justice for poor people in the United States. They are committed to lifting up and deepening the leadership of those most affected by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation and to building unity across lines of division. They believe in dismantling of unjust criminalization systems that exploit poor communities and communities of color and the transformation of the “War Economy” into a “Peace Economy” that values all humanity.

Beginning in the 1970s, wages for the bottom 80 percent of workers have remained largely stagnant and today there are 64 million people working for less than $15 an hour.

Meanwhile, the top 1 percent’s share of the economy has nearly doubled to more than 20 percent of our national income. In 2017, the 400 wealthiest Americans owned more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the entire U.S. population, or 204 million people. Just three individuals possessed a combined wealth of $248.5 billion, an equal amount of wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the country.

At the same time, the costs of basic needs like housing, health care and education have risen dramatically. Over the past 30 years, rents have gone up faster than income in nearly every urban area of the country. In 2016, there was no state or county in the nation where someone earning the federal minimum wage could afford a 2-bedroom apartment at market rent. Only one in four of those eligible to receive federal housing assistance actually do so. This has precipitated a structural housing crisis with 2.5 to 3.5 million people who are living in shelters, transitional housing centers and tent cities. This population includes a significant number of women, children, LGBTQIA youth, veterans and the elderly.

This social movement committed to lifting up and deepening the leadership of those most affected by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation and to building unity across lines of division.

“PRINCIPLES.” Poor People’s Campaign, www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/fundamental-principles/.

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PRECEDENTS

Amplifier “Amplifier is a design lab that builds art to amplify the voices of grassroots movements. We work with our community of social change partners, in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds, to build symbols, language, and distribution strategies that can change the national narrative. We draw from a deep portfolio of artists to commission new art, then take the work and distribute it in unparalleled numbers through creative space hacks, reaching new audiences and driving real change.

We flip artists into activists, and observers into participants. Our experiments are built on a foundation of free and open source art, the unlimited possibilities within a human centered design process, and the potentials when analog and digital technology merge. Drawing from a newly formed education cohort of teachers in every state, and Stanford School Media designers, we build campaigns that can and do change the national narrative.

Our goal is to reclaim and rebuild an American identity rooted in equality, dignity, diversity, truth, and beauty. At Amplifier, we believe that each piece of art we create and distribute with our partners can be a compass that leads us away from the chaos and negativity of this polarizing time.

In the short term, our visual symbols will pave the way to the polls in 2018 and 2020. As the art partner of the Women’s March and its network of newly activated citizens, we have a platform to turn marchers into voters.

In the long term, we will continue to deliver messages of hope to those who need it the most through our Education Amplifiers project.

Today’s K-12 students will be the teachers and voters of tomorrow. The path they walk will determine the future, and we will continue to make the signposts marking that path.”

“ABOUT .” Amplifier, https://amplifier.org/about/.

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PRECEDENTS

Pins Won’t Save the World This campaign aims to raise awareness for the rights of those who have been marginalized within their community/society. Through playful imagery and tangible and distinct visual ephemera they are able to spread the word about what is important to them.

“We know pins won’t save the world, but wearing them might make us feel better. And they’ve raised a lot of money for some awesome charities that support progressive causes under threat by Trump and his administration.

With Trump as our president-elect, the safety and rights of women, POC, the LGBTQ community, and refugees are in jeopardy. Hate crimes have mounted since Trump’s election. Planned Parenthood and access to safe abortions are under threat. Climate change, which Trump and his appointed EPA leader denies, could take a serious toll on our planet lasting much longer than his time in office.

We want everyone to be able to wear their heart (and politics) on their sleeves, so merchandise is priced low and the project is not for profit.

We donated our first round of proceeds to Amnesty International’s #AmericaIBelieveIn. With this new batch of pins, we will be donating all proceeds to Planned Parenthood, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, ACLU, International Refugee Assistance Project, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Trevor Project.

Now, more than ever, we have to resist Trump’s racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and homophobia becoming the new normal. We need to stand up for tolerance, equality and unity.”

“ABOUT US.” Pins Won’t Save the World, https://www.pinswontsavetheworld.com/pages/about-us/.

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AESTHETIC

VISUAL INSPIRATION The visual look is inspired by the ephemeral nature of protest materials—fliers, posters, postcards, zines—small-run punk and feminist publications, political propaganda and natural patterns.

This look allows the campaign to resonate with sociopolitically active individuals in the young adult age range by emphasizing a noncorporate DIY look and materials.

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EXPERIMENTATION

PRINTING, SCANNING & WARPING Scanning and warping text to be used throughout the zine conveys an authenticity or rawness that is intended to resonate with the target audience (politically engaged young adults). In addition to the visual style, printing methods were considered.

Still, the visual interest is just as important as the content, and conveys a particular attitude, along with particular values and perspectives about popular culture, politics, and more.

Risograph printing enables high volume copies to be made at low-cost, while using eco-friendly materials (vegetable-based inks, recycled paper), as well as hang binding, cutting, and folding.

Too often, campaign design can become highly commercialized - mimicking mainstream trends for colour, typography, and overall aesthetic to make a campaign palatable to the widest possible audience.

This is not the goal for Afford—Ability’s campaign.

Based on the precedents of punk and feminist zines, it was important to explore a medium that merges analog and digital making techniques. Zines are typically low-cost, high-quantity publications that are intended to be shared widely. Often this means using newsprint or standard copy paper and 1-2 ink colours.

It is important to acknowledge the target audience that this campaign is aligned with and how those design trends and overly rigid and conventional styles can be off-putting and seem disingenuous (as many corporations exploit social, environmental, and political causes for capital gain).

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EXPERIMENTATION

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OUTCOMES

THE POSTERS The Posters are one of the first points of contact—they are intended to gain public interest and attention with the basic concept, while relating on an emotional level. The front pulls the viewer in and the back gives an introduction to the movement and provides context, and directs readers to the website.

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They are printed on recycled copy paper, using single-colour risograph printing. Risograph printing is optimal for high-quantity prints at a low cost. It is also able to print neon colours that a traditional laser printer cannot produce while also using sustainable, vegetable-based ink that is derived from rice bran oil.

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OUTCOMES

THE MANIFESTO The Manifesto is the introductory manifesto against the commodification of social movements, neoliberal hyperindividualism, and the systemic barriers which inhibit collective engagement in social, political, and environmental causes in North America. They include a free doublesided mini poster in the center spread that outlines the 5 key points of the manifesto. The manifesto points are as follows: 1.

Socio-political movements are not for profit.

2.

The commodification of social movements for capital gain is classist and immoral.

3.

Collective political power is more effective than individual purchasing power.

4.

Government and corporate responsibility are necessary conditions, too.

5.

Infrastructure is important.

They are also printed on recycled copy paper, using single-colour risograph printing. In addition to the print version, the manifesto is available for download at www.afford-ability.com. There is a PDF reader version, a DIY print version with cutting and binding instructions (mini poster included), and an abridged web version.

FREE MINI POSTERS THE FREE MINI POSTER FEATURES A UNIQUE WARP-SCANNED VERSION OF THE MANY TYPE EXPERIMENTS ON THE FRONT. ON THE BACK, THE MAIN FIVE POINTS OF THE MANIFESTO ARE OUTLINED AND BRIEFLY EXPLAINED.

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OUTCOMES

THE POSTCARDS The Postcards are for user-engagement and empowerment. They showcase individual excerpts from the manifesto so the user can choose one that they identify with most.

They can be used to write letters to local MP’s about infrastructure and accessibility, or to express discontent with a company’s practices or use them to spread the word about the movement via the postal service, instagram, or twitter. The postcards are accompanied by a list of British

voice your concerns & make your opinions known

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Columbia’s Members of Parliament so people can easily address their postcards, whether they are used traditionally (via the postal service) or virtually (via e-mail or social media). The best part is that mail can be sent postage free to any member of parliament.

They are also printed using single-colour risograph printing. In addition to the print version, the postcards are available for download at www.afford-ability.com.

send it off (or share it on social media)

instigate change at the government level

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OUTCOMES

THE WEBSITE The Website provides a general overview of the movement, digital and downloadable versions of some print collateral, and further educational resources for further reading/learning. The site includes a blog (‘education’ section) where I post relevant content from a personal perspective. It also provides an opportunity for feedback and contribution from the public and resources and information to enable people to connect with their local MP’s (Member of Parliament).

The website is also a place for further education and information regarding topics that surround issues of accessibility and affordability - specifically pertaining to postcolonialism, othering, degrowth, behavioural economics, neoliberalism, etc. It is intended as a resource that encourages sharing, learning, and community. Moving forward, the intention is to add a submissions section for protest materials such as posters, manifestos, pamphlets, signs and more.

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FEATURED POSTS THE WEBSITE FOOTER FEATURES A LIVE-UPDATING INSTAGRAM FEED FROM @ AFFORD_ABILITY TO KEEP VIEWERS ENGAGED WITH THE CAUSE THROUGH TYPOGRAPHIC MOTION GRAPHICS.

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OUTCOMES

THE MOTION GRAPHICS + SOCIAL MEDIA The motion graphics are typographic experiments that use keywords from the campaign and manifesto. The short videos capture the attention of the target audience while maintaining an aesthetic that can be easily identified.

The playful nature of the videos is informal and is intended to keep the social media page relatively light in terms of content. It also serves to differentiate the campaign from the look and feel of other sociopolitical instagram and twitter accounts by varying both the content and visual approach.

The Social Media is a place for promoting the movement that engages the target audience through compelling and interesting visual content such as motion graphics, type experiments, and relevant sociopolitical memes. This is less informational and more geared towards engagement - though the goal is to create another point of contact with people to strengthen a sense of community and sharing of thoughts, ideas, and images. It also directs followers to the website for more in-depth content.

MOTION GRAPHICS THE MOTION GRAPHICS CAN BE VIEWED ON INSTAGRAM @AFFORD_ABILITY OR ONLINE AT WWW.AFFORD-ABILITY.COM

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OUTCOMES

THE SYSTEM The system works collaboratively to ensure all materials point back to one another, and especially to the digital platforms (website, instagram) allowing for prolonged and deep engagement with the topics at hand. Each deliverable works towards the engagement goals: awareness, engagement, education, activation,empowerment, and most importantly, accountability.

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EXHIBIT DESIGN

EXHIBIT DESIGN The main purpose of the exhibit is to be both a participatory and educational space. There is some didactic material to guide viewers and give a general understanding of the project and it’s goals.

On the wall, posters are displayed and available as takeaways. On the front, the posters use type, colour, and copywriting to draw in the viewers, while the back side contains an article from Martin Lukacs.

Below the didactic material on the wall, there is a box, somewhat resembling a mailbox which people can use to submit their postcards to. The postcards are displayed on the table for use, with pens, and addresses available (writing a quick letter to your local MP is suggested). Also on the table, manifesto’s 82

are available as takeaways. All takeaways contain contact information for the project website, social media, and/or designer information.

In addition, there is a computer which showcases the supporting digital component of the project.

The website is live, so people are able to view it at the show or can find it online (afford-ability.com) from elsewhere. Lastly, there is also a secondary digital component - a projector. The projector (mounted beneath the table), will project videos and images from the campaign’s social media account. Afford-Ability’s instagram account showcases visual typographic experiments with keywords from the campaign.

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CONCLUSIONS Over the course of this year long project, I have learned so much about the ongoing research portion of the design process, about critical and cultural theory and the systemic imbalances in our society.

took creative turns that even I was not expecting.

In the past, I have struggled with overcoming my desire to design in a particular medium or particular form, but with this project I took the time to let the research guide what form it took.

This project began as a topic of interest and turned into a project of passion. Not long after deciding on this topic, I became committed to learning as much as I could about it. But what I found most enriching about the process was the immersive research. I feel I have learned and grown so much in this past year both in terms of my technical knowledge and ability to design from conception through to production.

I printed, cut, and folded each and every poster, manifesto, and postcard myself. Knowing that this is one of the last opportunities I might have in a while to design in this capacity I took full advantage of doing as much as I could to develop my skills within and outside of design.

I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to carry out such an extended self directed project.

In learning how to keep myself motivated and on track without overworking myself, I believe I have prepared myself for what is to come. Overall, I am happy with the way that the project turned out.

Coming into it, I knew this was a topic I could spend a lot of time with. Still, over the year it

Moving forward, I intend to keep this project alive. I hope that it inspires other people to get involved and to keep learning and improving. I will continue to write for the blog, add resources to the “Learn More� section of the site, and add more motion graphics and type experiments to the social media page. With all this time spent, and all these lessons learned, this project has become so important to me, and I hope that I can continue to engage people in ways that get them involved, too.

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SOURCES

Aanstoos, Christopher M. “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.” Salem Press Encyclopedia of Health, 2013. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.ecuad.ca/ login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login. aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=93872091&site= eds-live.

Aanstoos provides a breif, yet detailed breakdown of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — delving into human motivation, fulfilment, and needs. He explains “self-actualization can be seen as a trend toward fulfillment and integration...observable characteristics of such self-actualizing people, including being more perceptive, more accepting of the self and others, more spontaneous, more autonomous, more appreciative, and more creative, and having a richer emotional life and more frequent peak experiences.”

“About.” Pins Won’t Save the World, www. pinswontsavetheworld.com/pages/about-us/.

An overview of goals, values, and actions that detail the scope of the organization and how others can contribute to it.

Assadoruian, E. (2012). The Path to Regrowth in Overdeveloped Countries. In Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity (pp. 22-37).

WA: Island Press.

Introductory text to degrowth, starting of with reporting from the 2nd international Degrowth Conference which took place in 2010. It includes basic growth critique as well as degrowth proposals. Topics are “The Curse of Overdevelopment”, “Reducing Overall Consumption by Overconsumers”, “Distributing Tax Burdens More Equitably”, “Sharing Work Hours Better”, “Cultivating a Plenitude Economy”, “Moving Toward Degrowth”. The text shows a North American perspective on Degrowth.

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Badke, Craig, and Stuart Walker. “Design Sleepwalking: Critical Inquiry in Design.” The Handbook of Design for Sustainability.

“Design, as a ‘reflective and critical medium,’ is at odds with current understandings of commercial design and the demands of marketability and consumption”. It is important to ask: What givens or assumptions enable certain lifestyles, values, and even worlds? How do the nuances of our designs shape the world and change behaviour? How do companies already exploit this ability to ‘world’ and shape behaviour? How can design move from a commercially-oriented practice into a socially-focused practice, that creates discursive opportunities as opposed to commercial commodities? How can we come together as a society to address the social, political, and economic inequities that prevent meaningful action?

Bakan, Joel. “The Corporation”. YouTube, YouTube, 21 July 2012, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Y888wVY5hzw.

“The Corporation” exposes the business practice of personification as an exploitative tool to appeal to the emotions of consumers. Born out of the industrial age, the goals of increased revenue for decreased compensation continue to drive corporations to value productivity in pursuit of economic prosperity without care or concern for anything other than “the bottom line”. It emphasizes that Corporations fear punishment from the marketplace more than they fear punishment from the Government and ultimately, that the concept of “voting with our dollars” is an inherently undemocratic and classist due to the fact that those with more money will always have more sway.

Baudrillard, J., Ritzer, G., & Smart, B. (2017). The consumer society: Myths and structures. Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage.

Baudrillard’s basic premise in The Consumer Society is that the logic of exchange value in consumption has rendered all activities equal – distinction through goods is impossible because they all essentially signify the same thing. He outlines a theory of consumption based on the acceptance of “formal rationality,” which assures an individual pursues his individual happiness through objects expected to provide the maximum satisfaction.

Carlsson, C. (2014). Nowtopians. In Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era (pp. 182-184). New York, NY: Routledge.

Degrowth is a rejection of the illusion of growth and a call to repoliticize the public debate colonized by the idiom of economism. It is a project advocating the democratically-led shrinking of production and consumption with the aim of achieving social justice and ecological sustainability. This overview of degrowth offers a comprehensive coverage of the main topics and major challenges of degrowth in a succinct, simple and accessible manner. In addition, it offers a set of keywords useful for intervening in current political debates and for bringing about concrete degrowth-inspired proposals at different levels [en] local, national and global.

Cosslett, R. L. (2014, October 17). Living ethically isn’t cheap, Vivienne | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett.

Retrieved from https://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2014/oct/17/viviennewestwood-living-ethically-cheap-food-fashion When it comes to food and fashion, most of us could buy better. But for many, caring costs too much. We all need to consume less, and invest in things that last, but it’s easier said than done when your child’s only pair of shoes has holes

in and he starts school next week, your income support hasn’t come through, and you can’t think about anything other than the fact the rent is due. When people are struggling financially, there is no use getting on your high horse about ethical consumption. living ethically and healthily are luxuries only the well-off can afford. Caring is a luxury.

Dennison, J. (2014). Situating Graphic Anthropology. Visual Anthropology, 28(1), 88108. doi:10.1080/08949468.2015.973339 While much has been written on the potential of film, photography, and to a lesser extent visual art and hypermedia to communicate ethnographic information, there has been little discussion of the potential for graphic design. Drawing inspiration from the graphic design work of Buffalo Nickel Creative, which was commissioned to accompany an ethnographic text, this article will explore some of the possibilities graphic design offers the field of anthropology. In particular it will consider how social design, branding and collage have the potential to create situated knowledge that challenges existing power dynamics.

Duncombe, S. (2012). It stands on its head: Commodity fetishism, consumer activism, and the strategic use of fantasy. Culture & Organization, 18(5), 359-375. doi:10.1080/14759551.2012.733856 This essay looks at the ways in which consumer activists have grappled with the particular and peculiar nature of the commodity, first outlined by Karl Marx in Capital. Given the phantasmagoric nature of the commodity, it makes sense that consumer activists have often made fantasy the focus of their attack, employing a strategy which might be called de-fetishizing the commodity.

This sort of consumer activist strategy has traditionally been employed in two ways: the Revelatory and the Restorative, revealing the ‘true history’ of the commodity.

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SOURCES

Extrapolation Factory. “99¢ Futures.”

Extrapolation Factory, extrapolationfactory. com/99-Futures.

99¢ Futures is a speculative critical design project that sold a variety of products one might desire in the future; from space suit lining-replacements, to DIY organ-transplant kits, to life form creation tools. hooks, bell. “feminism: a transformational politic.” Talking Back: Thinking Feminist,Thinking Black. Boston: Between the Lines, 1989. pp. 18-27.

In childhood, bell hooks was taught that “talking back” meant speaking as an equal to an authority figure and daring to disagree and/or have an opinion. In this collection of personal and theoretical essays, hooks reflects on her signature issues of racism and feminism, politics and pedagogy. Among her discoveries is that moving from silence into speech is for the oppressed, the colonized, the exploited, and those who stand and struggle side by side, a gesture of defiance that heals, making new life and new growth possible.

Horn, S. (2013, April 08). Power Shift Away From Green Illusions. Retrieved March 15,2017, from http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15588power-shift-away-from-green-illusions The problem with simple solutions: Things aren’t as simple as they seem, and “there’s actually no such thing as a free lunch” when it comes to energy consumption and production. Further, what we’re often sold as “green” and “clean” is actually neither.

Jeffrey, Marc. “About.” Amplifier, Amplifier, 19 Sept. 2018, amplifier.org/about/.

An insight into the motivations and methods of dissmenation that Amplifier uses to bolster social and political causes through 88

grassroots movments and support of artists and designers who share the same values.

Kallis, G., & March, H. (2015). Imaginaries of Hope: The Utopianism of Degrowth. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(2), 360-368.doi:10.1080/00045608.2014.9 73803 This article analyzes degrowth, a project of radical socioecological transformation calling for decolonizing the social imaginary from capitalism’s pursuit of endless growth.

Degrowth is an advanced reincarnation of the radical environmentalism of the 1970s and speaks to pertinent debates within geography. This article benefits from Ursula Le Guin’s fantasy world to advance the theory of degrowth and respond to criticisms that degrowth offers an unappealing imaginary, which is retrogressive, Malthusian, and politically simplistic. We argue instead that degrowth is on purpose subversive; it brings the past into the future and into the production of the present; it makes a novel case for limits without denying that scarcity is socially produced; and it embraces conflict as its constitutive element. We discuss the politics of scale of the incipient degrowth movement, which we find theoretically wanting, yet creative in practice.

Kyle C., Longest, et al. “Position and Disposition: The Contextual Development of Human Values.” Social Forces, no. 4, 2013, p. 1499. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.ecuad.ca/ login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login. aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.43287 509&site=eds-live.

Research on the importance of values often focuses primarily on one domain of social predictors (e.g., economic) or limits its scope to a single dimension of values. Results

indicate that traditional institutions such as religion and parenthood are associated with more concern for the welfare of others and maintaining the status quo, whereas more individually oriented occupational factors like higher income and self-employment are linked to achievement and change-related values. Yet several factors, such as education and gender, have complex associations when individual values are examined as part of a coherent system rather than in isolation.

Lorek, S., & Fuchs, D. (2013). Strong sustainable consumption governance –precondition for a degrowth path? Journal of Cleaner Production, 38, 36-43.doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.08.008 This paper aims to link two debates and literatures at the cutting edge of sustainable development research and governance: sustainable consumption and degrowth.

Interestingly, these literatures have only recently started to exchange and integrate insights, despite their similar interest in the fundamental systemic challenges to sustainable development.

The paper argues that this lack of connection is due to a predominance of perspectives in sustainable consumption governance that focus almost exclusively on questions of efficiency gains. This “weak sustainable consumption” governance, however, is not able to address the challenges to sustainable development arising from overconsumption in general or the rebound effect and distributive issues in particular. In contrast, a “strong sustainable consumption” perspective provides a basis for a promising inquiry into the linkages between consumption and sustainable development as well as a fruitful exchange with degrowth. Specifically, it allows the delineation of relevant insights on the role of values in governance, obstacles to political reform, and promising political strategies for the degrowth debate and literature.

Lukacs, Martin. “Neoliberalism Has Conned Us into Fighting Climate Change as Individuals | Martin Lukacs.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 17 July 2017, www.theguardian. com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/ neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fightingclimate-change-as-individuals.

Lukacs’ emphasizes the role that neoliberalism plays in perpetuating hyperindividualization as a response to climate change. Further, he explains how governments and corporations rely on externalizing blame to ‘the individual’ by causing the public to internalize self-blame or guilt - making them feel that they must first change themselves (via what they buy, how they buy it, and how that supposedly influences public or corporate policy) and acting through the capitalist conception of ‘purchasing power’ rather than through power and politics.

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (2003). The German Ideology. A Political History of the Editions of Marx and Engelss “German Ideology Manuscripts”. doi:10.1057/9781137471161.0010 In the texts, The German Ideology by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels ideology is presented as inherent and unavoidable; existing simultaneously as ever-present, despite being essentially invisible. As ideology interpellates people as subjects in order to solidify their subscription to the state, the masses reinforce ideologies that uphold the status quo designed for the benefit of the few, at the sacrifice of themselves (the many). Concurrently, Marx and Engels present ideology as a causally constructed system in which, ironically, ideology itself is framed through the naturalization of it being an inherently inescapable, universal, and inevitable aspect of life and the human condition.

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SOURCES

Mcleod, Saul. “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.”

Simply Psychology, Simply Psychology, 21 May 2018, www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html.

Mcleod artiiculates the varying levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs by breaking them down to Deficiency needs vs. growth needs, and explains how, as we move up the pyramid, the way we make decisions changes.

Murphy, M. P. (2013). Translating Degrowth into Contemporary Policy Challenges: A Symbiotic Social Transformation Strategy. Irish Journal of Sociology, 21(2), 76-89. doi:10.7227/ijs.21.2.6 Wright poses us the challenge of building a world of equality while working in the world of today. This article addresses the challenge of transitioning to a degrowth economy and ecosocialism which focuses on distribution over production and which requires a strong ethic of equality at the heart of society. Degrowth aims to address over-consumption by addressing real need, reducing wants, ensuring greater distributive equality and ultimately by suppressing production. However, the detailed mechanisms of how a steady-state economics can provide a quality of life and employment, eliminate poverty and promote an egalitarian society require immense work to flesh out. It points to the relevance of degrowth arguments for feminist and democratic movements and how the degrowth strategy offers potential for new political coalitions.

Prasad, A., & Agarwal, R. (2015). The Oxymoron that is ‘Business Ethics’. Journal Of Management Research (09725814), 15(1), 13-22.

The process of capitalism has again come under scrutiny. Working under the basic assumption that the divergences between the “creators” of value in an industrial organization are different from the “appropriators” of value, certain 90

factors come out in the moral and ethical framework of society. The paper argues in its seven propositions that perhaps the basic inequities in today’s society are the result of fundamental flaws in the concept of capitalism as we understand it today. This would range from the choice of technology, separation of labor from the means of production, the problems of price and value, the application of CSR, and of course the use of strategy itself to gain market share and to increase profitability. Some suggestions are made on the way forward to resolve this imbroglio.

“PRINCIPLES.” Poor People’s Campaign, www. poorpeoplescampaign.org/fundamentalprinciples/.

The Poor People’s Campaign is a revival of a “national call for moral revival” which first appeared in 1968. It was an effort to gain economic justice for poor people in the United States. They are committed to lifting up and deepening the leadership of those most affected by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation and to building unity across lines of division.

They believe in dismantling of unjust criminalization systems that exploit poor communities and communities of color and the transformation of the “War Economy” into a “Peace Economy” that values all humanity.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. 1978. 59-65. Rpt. in SOCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory Coursepack. Ed. Magnolia Pauker. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2018. PDF. Orientalism, defined as the West’s patronizing representations of “The East”— the societies and peoples who inhabit the places of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. According to Said, orientalism (the Western scholarship about the Eastern

World) is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies who produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power. The critical application of post-structuralism in the scholarship of Orientalism influenced the development of literary theory, cultural criticism, and the field of Middle Eastern studies, especially regarding how academics practice their intellectual enquiry when examining, describing, and explaining the Middle East.

Soar, M. (2002). The First Things First Manifesto and the Politics of Culture Jamming: Towards a Cultural Economy of Graphic Design and Advertising. Cultural Studies, 16(4), 570. doi:10.1080/09502380210139124 Graphic designers, it seems, enjoy much greater latitude for personal expression than ad creatives – or at least enjoy a professional culture, or habitus, that supports debate and dissent through a variety of activities, and recognizes non-commercial design projects as legitimate forms of expression. While the designers interviewed here may claim that advertising is a creative practice entirely subsumed by commercial constraints, they also recognize that their own professional activities involve only a limited degree of subjective control. Personal and non-commercial projects, often indirectly funded by income from business clients, appear to provide a more reliable means to creative fulfillment.

Smirnova, Ekaterina. “Basic Color Theory

by Kandinsky.” Ekaterina Smirnova, 17 Mar. 2017, ekaterinasmirnova.wordpress. com/2012/08/06/basic-color-theory-bykandinsky-44/.

Smirinova summarizes the main points of Wassily Kandinsky’s colour theory. My interpretation of Kandinsky’s color theory is based upon the mixture of his theory of reds

and oranges - as the orange that I use is a bright-red orange hybrid.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Who Claims Alterity?” 1942. 1119-1124. Rpt. in OCS 201: Introduction to Cultural Theory Coursepack.

Ed. Magnolia Pauker. Vancouver: Emily Carr University of Art + Design, 2018. PDF. In understanding Orientalism in it’s ethnocentric, colonial, essentialist view, we can also understand how the “social relations of production—forming a particular society” creates a binary opposition in which “‘society’ is shorthand for the dominance of (a) particular mode(s) of production of value”.

Further, we can understand that the notion of the ‘other’ exists entirely in relation to the Eurocentric, heterogeneous, and colonial idea of what is normal or right which is, in this case, Western whiteness Wragg, N., & Barnes, C. (2016). Graphic Designers’ Sense and Knowledge of the User: Is thinking differently the groundwork for acting differently?. Visible Language, 50(3), 29-62.

Graphic designers’ lack of concrete knowledge of their audience has drawn strong criticism from within the field, without seemingly prompting broad uptake of user research in design practice. This article reports on an unanticipated and ambiguous finding from an interview-based study with nine graphic designers, which sought their views on how graphic design practice had changed through the addition of web design to the former concentration on design for print; one catalyst for the adoption of the new title of communication design. The interviews elicited many unprompted comments claiming strong knowledge of the user, but also other statements showing the designers worked with little or no actual information about their audience.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

COLOPHON Publication © 2019 ECUAD All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher.

Research & Design: Kelsey McDonald Copywriting & Editing: Kelsey McDonald Printed in Canada by: The Digital Output Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design 520 E 1st Ave, Vancouver, BC V5T 0H2 Typeset in: Haettenschweiler GT America Regular Medium Extended Bold Expanded Black Mono Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Kelsey McDonald.

Special Thanks to: Instructor & Project Advisor: Christopher Hethrington, ECUAD Communication Design Studio Technician: Kathleen Jacques, & the guidance and support of my friends and studio neighbours: Alyssa Martin, Angela Donakhristi, Nicolas Cyr-Morton, Una Gil, & Zoë Boudreau.

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INTRODUCTION

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