Reynolds-Cuéllar, Pedro, and Rubez Chong Lu Ming. "Coffee Farms as Design Labs: Manifesting Equity x Design Principles in Practice." Proceedings of DRS 2020: 310.
Aug. 14, 2020
Reynolds-Cuéllar, Pedro, and Rubez Chong Lu Ming. "Coffee Farms as Design Labs: Manifesting Equity x Design Principles in Practice." Proceedings of DRS 2020: 310.
New forms of participatory and co-design, as mechanisms for collaboration with historically marginalized communities, continue to emerge. From short academic trips to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, these programs leverage co-design as a methodology to reduce equity gaps, develop relevant outcomes, and broaden participation across stakeholders. While well-intentioned, these initiatives run the risk of reproducing a variety of challenges related to power, ethics, and extractive relationships, to name a few; requiring continuous examination and experimentation to address such issues. In this paper, we analyze the implementation of an interdisciplinary co-design course carried out at two coffee farms in rural Colombia. Using the EquityXDesign framework, we critically analyze how the course approaches the challenges of co-design, and present modifications to the framework towards more inclusive and equity-driven design.