About

Social movements are instrumental to an agonistic democracy, which positively harnesses conflict and resistance within society. With an increase in the frequency and scale of protest movements and the trajectory predicts that there will be a rise in resistance and struggle in the forthcoming years. Many protest movements deploy creative methods (or repertoires, which are the tools used to perform a protest) that transcend the traditional practices of demonstrations, marches and strikes to include arresting visuals, communication through digital platforms and memetic warfare. Design activism is the conscious application of innovative methods, with the aim of engaging citizens, raising awareness, and affecting social, political, institutional or environmental change (Fuad-Luke, 2009). Equipping citizens with the resources to practice design activism, increases participation from citizens in protesting more creatively. For example, a march during the Anti-CAA demonstrations in India was made more participatory by Kadak Collective, by creating a repository of open-source poster templates that could be created or downloaded by any activist. Subsequently, this births an opportunity to investigate the relationship between different creative repertoires of design activism and their effect on public participation and engagement. The global scenario, overshadowed with challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, rising resentment among citizens and the complexity of societal issues, presents an opportune time to explore the contribution of design to social movements. This research seeks to address the gap in theory surrounding design as an inclusive discipline that can help practice an agonistic democracy (Mouffe, 2000) in more radical and actionable ways. This thesis aims to investigate how design can be used as a tool to facilitate dissent, to understand how citizens can be empowered to participate creatively. The study will develop our understanding of the possibility of designers and non-designers to collaboratively use creative tactics to effect social change.