Entanglements of Designing Social Innovation in the Asia-Pacific (Design Research for Change)

Rooted in the places, cultures, histories, and wisdom of the diverse Asia-Pacific region, this book gathers heterogeneous practices of designing social innovation that address various social, political, and environmental challenges.

In contrast to dominant notions of design from the Global North that evolved through industrialisation and modernist thinking, the examples in this book speak to designing that is embodied, relational, temporal, ontological, and entangled deeply with ecologies. This edited volume shares rich and detailed stories from Aotearoa New Zealand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Samoa, Thailand, Vanuatu and a continent now called Australia, that offer honest and critical reflections from practitioners and scholars on designing social innovation. Contributors explore issues of ethics, politics, and positionality in their work. This book highlights the importance of respecting multiple knowledge streams, worldviews, and practices situated in a place. This then supports a plurality of designing social innovation. In all, this book offers ways to sharpen focus on entangled pluralities as a central condition for designing. It is a contribution of hope and inspiration that are becoming more urgently needed in the volatile uncertainties of this world.

This book will be of interest to scholars working in social innovation, service design, social design, participatory design, design anthropology, and Asian studies.

Yoko Akama is Associate Professor at RMIT University, School of Design, Australia.

Joyce Yee is Professor at Northumbria University, School of Design, United Kingdom.