February 2022, Design Justice Newsletter
Dear DJN Members, Signatories, and Friends,
February greetings! We are wishing you all moments of deep care, warmth, and protection. For some of us, depending on locality, this month has been a moment to pause, reflect, and celebrate the deep contributions of those within the African Diaspora. While this month is officially observed by the United States, Canada and Germany we hope everyone joined by deepening our collective understanding of past, present, futurecasted movements within the African Diaspora.
Within honoring all, we want to shine a light on the late and great Bell Hook’s. Bell Hook’s work addressed the intersection of Feminism, Gender, Race, and Domination Culture. Their work and voice have played a pivotal in critiquing what they would refer to as the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. While naming and resisting such oppressive systems, their work often leads back to the idea of love, with books such as All About Love New Visions and Salvation Black People and Love If you are interested in Hook’s work a good place to start is through this lecture: “How Do We Define Feminist Liberation?”
We would love to hear from our members on social media using the hashtag #designjusticespotlight and/or on the member slack channel. How are you celebrating within and outside of February? What questions do you have? Who do you want to Spotlight? Below you will find a curated resource list, highlighting black authors, artists, and organizations.
Taylor Simone and Victoria Barnett, International Network Coordinators, Design Justice Network, and the DJN Communications team!
Email: designjusticenetwork@gmail.com Instagram: @designjusticenetwork
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/designjusticenetwork Twitter: @design__justice (double underscore)
Web: designjustice.org
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“I cannot get out of my head this notion of pace in the work and our basic human needs of rest and recovery. There's this continuum of care that we often dismiss, trivialize, or minimize – even amongst great, thoughtful, do-good designers. There's something to that that I am just frustrated and fascinated by and want to help figure out because I'm seeing too many good people get burned out and crispy by our old ways of doing.”
- Rachel Dietkus
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This month we are featuring member Rachael Dietkus. Rachael Dietkus is an experienced senior-level licensed clinical social worker and trauma professional, systems thinker, design researcher, and strategist. Much of her current work draws from 20+ years of experience as a leader across serious and complex cause-driven health and human rights issues, local-to-federal-level housing advocacy, social work practice, and design education.
Rachael is a fierce advocate for integrating models of care and for thoughtfully and ethically including social (and other care) workers in design. She is the founder of Social Workers Who Design and works closely with designers worldwide to help build their trauma literacy and humility throughout the entire design research process.
Here is a link to read Rachel’s full story/interview. Thank you!
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Find events happening this month or go to designjustice.org/events for more. If you have ideas on how our events can be more accessible, please send us an email.
Thurs. Mar. 3, at 8:00 pm ET: Node & Working Group Facilitators Connect
Tues. March 8, 7 pm SGT (GMT+08) : DJN Singapore Node: Book Club
Tues. March 22nd, pm SGT (GMT+08): DJN Singapore Node: Book Club
Thurs. March 29th, 8:00 pm ET: Philly Node Monthly Meeting
Find events happening this month or go to designjustice.org/events for more. If you have ideas on how our events can be more accessible, please send us an email.
Translate to your timezone using thetimezoneconverter.com or timeanddate.com.
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Here is a small curated list of Organizations, Projects, and People in celebration of Black History Month. We hope this list is one that offers strength, restoration, and perspective.
Organization: Girl Trek
Podcast: Girl Trek Black History Bootcamp
Playlist: Daughters of Audre Lorde
Writer & Organizer: Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Book: DUB: Finding Ceremony
Grass Roots School: Under Ground Music Academy
Grass Roots School: Dark Study
Book Launch: The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection
Archival Design Project: Jerome Harris: As For not Dethroning our Absolutes
Design Studio: Black Chalk & Co
Design Project: Reading Zimbabwe
Set up Published Principles: Design Justice for Black Lives
Pubication: The Missing Chapter a zine featuring Black Designers, Black Publications, and Black Agencies
Have resources, Inspiration, Ideas for themes you want to share?
Email us at Designjusticenetwork@gmail.com or contact Victoria or Taylor on Slack.
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Text (set to the left of the circle) reads: Facilitators Connect, Nodes & Working Groups Updates
Monthly Node & Working Group Facilitators Connect: Post-Poned New Date: Thursday, March 10th at 8pm ET (GMT-05)
DJN Communications Working Group: If you’re interested in supporting the DJN newsletters, please get in touch! Please read more info on joining DJN Comms!
(Call for Entry) The Design Justice Network (DJN) Principles at Work (PAW) Zine subgroup is creating a series of mini-zines around applying the principles in professionalized workplaces. We are looking for visual and written submissions for the second mini-zine in the series, "Design Justice Principles at Work: Neurodiversity".
The topic of Neurodiversity in the workplace is of vital importance to helping Neurodivergent individuals find comfort and function in their daily work life as well as educating Neurotypicals (majority of population without neurodivergent conditions) in how to more effectively communicate and work with NDs. The submission form can be found here.
The Design Justice Principles at Work working group can be reached at designjustice.atwork@gmail.com to get involved and learn more. They host two regular meetings a month, with various sub-groups, so please get in touch if you’re interested.
All of our current nodes and working groups are listed on our website. If you’re thinking of starting your own, learn more about how to organize a local node and read our local nodes zine that was created to support and give guidance to local nodes. (much of it applies also to Working Groups)
Member Session Share Back:
Thank you to everyone who could attend our 7th Member Story Session.
If you didn’t make it you can catch the session on our youtube channel. Here is the link.
Mike currently works for the Tishman Environment and Design Center. You can learn more about the Tishman Centers' work at Tishmancenter.org. Check out the upcoming event “Just Sustainabilities in Policy, Planning, and Practice” with Dr. Julian Agyeman on February 23rd, 2022.
During Mike’s talk, they cited the “Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing” The linked document states: “...The Jemez meeting was hosted by the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice with the intention of hammering out common understandings between participants from different cultures, politics, and organizations. The following “Jemez Principles” for democratic organizing were adopted by the participants.”
Mike also shared the project he worked on during their time as an Urban Design Forum Fore-Front Fellow, Turning the Heat. This interdisciplinary project with over 25 collaborators culminated in a report that explored “how urban design can mitigate the impacts of extreme heat in New York City’s most heat-vulnerable neighborhoods.” “Fellows spent three months studying diverse building typologies, surveying five neighborhoods, and interviewing nearly 40 New York-based and international stakeholders to produce recommendations for strengthening heat resiliency across the city.”
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Volunteer opportunities
Would you be willing to share your experiences with the Design Justice Network? There are no prerequisites (including a traditional design background), and past stories have featured members working in a variety of fields such as social work, community organizing, and handicrafts. We make the process easy for you (no writing involved!) and will only share what/how you consent for us to. We are particularly interested in hearing from members outside of Europe and the North American East Coast. If you have questions or interests, please contact Lydia at designjusticenetwork@gmail.com.
Other opportunities
Submit an expression of interest to the Just Tech Fellowship: A full-time paid research fellowship practitioners to identify and challenge injustices emerging from new technologies and identify solutions that advance social, political, and economic rights. Deadline is 2 January 2022.
Donate to riseup: Riseup provides worldwide services to activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and… us! We use riseup to send this newsletter to you!
If you’re new to the Design Justice Network, welcome! Here are some resources to help get you started. As we continue to build these resources we welcome your questions and feedback.
Read an overview on how to get involved
Watch one of our Welcome to the Design Justice Network meeting recordings (Nov. 30, 2021 session is now uploaded)
Check out our YouTube channel
Read about our membership benefits
Receive care in our Design Justice Network Care Circle (a benefit for DJN Members)
Review our finances
Check out some DJN activities (NEW - these resources are being built).