Arturo Escobar

Within design, there is a growing discussion of the grand societal challenges and design's role in addressing them. Escobar, an anthropologist with a long-standing interest in design, provides an important contribution to that discussion. In his own words, one of the key issues addressed in this book is whether design can be "extricated from its embeddedness in modernist unsustainable and defuturing practices" and become part of a toolkit for societal transition. In my opinion, a great strength of the book is the broad foundation in contemporary social science, critical theory and philosophy that places design in a larger sociopolitical context. Another strength is the introduction to activist and transition approaches from the Global South, specifically Latin America, and the discussion of how they relate to discourses more familiar to the Global North. For a reader willing to devote some time to thinking and reflection, Escobar's book might stimulate some rather profound questions on who you want to be as a designer, what you need to do, and how to do it.… (mere)