Design nas bordas: juventude periférica, re-existências e decolonialidade em Belém do Pará

Abstract

This study presents notes resulting from qualitative research, with a participatory approach, carried out face-to-face and remotely with a group of young people from the Terra Firme neighborhood, in Belém-Pará. The aim was to investigate how the engagement of designers in emancipation processes driven by socially oppressed groups can influence decolonizing experiences in design practice. The information analyzed comes from three collective paths that aimed to reveal situations of oppression and design alternative futures with young people: the elaboration of counter-narratives in the period of the new coronavirus pandemic; the expansion of the network of partners and the organization of resistance practices. The theoretical foundation is based on Decolonial Studies and Popular Education, with emphasis on the pedagogical practices developed by Paulo Freire, advocated in this thesis as one of the pioneers of decolonial thinking in Latin America. In the field of design, I base the analyses on the theoretical elaborations of design researchers who are part of the debate on decoloniality, trying to demonstrate how decoloniality as a field also constitutes itself collaboratively, as demonstrated by the analysis of the constitution of the Design and Oppression Network. As a result, I argue that decolonality in design is experienced and elaborated in situated contexts, through social processes that articulate theories and practices of resistance, from the solidarity relations instituted between designers and the groups that elaborate their struggles autonomously.