Applying Protest Event Analysis to Architecture and Design

Abstract

This article reports on interdisciplinary research where insights into ‘design activism’ (particularly architecture, product and landscape design) were sought through the use of methods from social movement studies. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the notion of architecture and design as activism, sometimes also called social design, public interest design or design for social innovation. An increasing interest in activism on the part of designers is matched by an increasing interest from geographers and sociologists in the spatial and material aspects of social movements, political resistance and other power relations. Yet, the area where social movements and various repertoires of social and political action intersect with design has not been well explored by any of these disciplines. While the design literature tends to view design activism narrowly and often apolitically, social movement literature, in its discussions of materiality and spatiality, typically skirts the contributions of ‘design’. Exploring this disciplinary gap, this article reports on the empirical research that applies to design the method of protest event analysis from social movement studies. The research uncovers a ‘designerly’ repertoire of action—a set of tactics that designers use in acts of resistance—and allows for an initial bridging of the gap between design and social scientific approaches.