Impossible Futures and the Ethics of Hopelessness

Lecture Details

Many community groups and organizations hire a social impact designer or futurist to help create a more prosperous, flourishing future. However, the designer or futurist often creates a future the community doesn’t want or own, and any initiative created from the work either leaves the current situation unchanged, worsened, or only temporarily advanced or resolved. Many futurists tools do not work for underutilized communities. We share how futures have always been practiced by communities, especially by oppressed people and decolonial movements. Then viewing futures and design as spiritual practices, we use a Black Liberation theology lens, informed by other intersectional liberation theologies, to critique and decolonize White futures practice and possibility studies. We then discuss how we, in Black and underutilized communities, practice futurism guiding our systems practice in social justice work. Instead of a common design approach based on our sense of agency, motivated by optimism and hope, this approach is based in hopelessness and true impossibility that, paradoxically, moves us forward.

About Victor Udoewa, Service Design Lead at the CDC

Victor is a practitioner of Radical Participatory Design, and has experience giving up power, prioritizing the wisdom and skills of community members as they lead their own interventions and approaches. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/udoewa/

Virtual Event Details

The Zoom link to attend will be available here a couple of days in advance.