#paper 4

Bruce Nussbaum, “Is Humanitarian Design The New Imperialism?”

(Fast Company, July 7, 2010)

  In the article Nussbaum, rather delicately, questions whether humanitarian design is moving in a direction that could be understood as a modern form of colonialism.  He arrives at this question after observing the reactions by in country experts to western design interventions. At the end of the piece, he asks "do designers need to better see themselves through the eyes of the local professional and business classes who believe their countries are rising as the U.S. and Europe fall and wonder who, in the end, has the right answers? Might Indian, Brazilian and African designers have important design lessons to teach Western designers?" I think a lot of what he is touching on is what are the assumptions we are making when we do this work. For me, the most important question he asked was "why are we only doing humanitarian design in Asia and Africa and not Native American reservations or rural areas, where standards of education, water and health match the very worst overseas?" I think this is a fair question and one I don't have an answer to. Maybe we are disproportionately doing projects locally and the ones that get attention are the global ones. But my uneducated hunch is that local work is less appealing. We know this context well and its messiness. We also have our implicitness to contend with in these types of projects too, making going global projects more appealing for some. 

  Cameron Sinclair, “Admiral Akbar, It’s A Trap!”

(The Department of Small Works July 8, 2010)

  Cameron Sinclair responded to Bruce Nussbaum challenging his claims on many fronts. First he called out Nussbaum for oversimplifying who is designing. It is not simply one western design firm designing from afar, but is a "complex global network of multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural and diverse teams working locally hand in hand with communities on the ground." Sinclair cited projects his organization has been involved with and where all the team members were from (west, non-west, locals) and that everyone was working on the ground in the area they were designing for. I do wish he gave more examples from projects other than his own though. He also pointed out that often for simplicities sake, when this projects are reported on, the spotlight goes on to the lead designer and doesn't illuminate the whole cast of characters involved. This failure falls on both those able to talk with journalists and the journalists themselves.  

  A compelling point Sinclair made is about the education system. Design programs are overwhelmingly in the west and are prohibitively expensive, making it not an option for most people, especially those in "emerging markets." This naturally creates an inequality in who is designing.  Sinclair went on to say "we need to be looking at systems to bridge the global inequalities in design education, while teaching community-led practices that are at the heart of humanitarian design." I think he is on to something with this point. Nussbaum is not looking deeply enough at the problem he is trying to identify. Perhaps the starting point is education that creates western designers who are designing far beyond their local communities. 

  Emily Pilloton, "Are Humanitarian Designers Imperialists? Project H Responds: Not All Americans Are Leaving the Country to Do Good" 

(Fast Company, July 12, 2010)

  Emily Pilloton, who started Project H, which was discussed in Nussbaum's original article, agreed with his critiques of some of the uninformed and entitled approaches of designers who give humanitarian design a bad name. She also agreed with designing locally quoting Ivan Illich "If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home... You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you speak." But she called Nussbaum out for not doing his homework. Project H for one, and many others, do just that-humanitarian design locally. But also complicated his oversimplification, saying working locally doesn't necessarily mean your geography, but is about you "commitment" to a place. 

  At one point, in a bit of a defensive argument for how her work does not fall into this framework that Nussabaum is using, she eloquently said "this is the power of humanitarian design: When it's not about design anymore, it's about an educational process that produces creative capital where it did not exist before, in beautiful ways, by underestimated individuals."

    Bruce Nussbaum, "Do-Gooder Design and Imperialism, Round 3: Nussbaum Responds"(Fast Company, July 13, 2010)

  In this piece, Nussbaum responds to Emily Pilloton’s piece. His main point is that his original article was not one of statements, but one of questions he was posing to the design community. A topic he thought needed to be discussed. His article certainly garnered a huge response and an interesting discussion.

  Nussbaum goes on to clarify his original impetus for writing this. It is not that he necessarily thinks of us as imperialists, but he is noting the reaction of people who are in the countries we are designing for viewing the design projects as colonialist interventions. Nussbaum simply wants to think about how we react to this claim and is there anything we can learn from it. He tells a personal story about working for Headstart and some of the backlash in the black, latino, and native american communities to the organization. Nussbaums says, ”Do I think we should have ended Head Start? Not at all. But acknowledging and engaging the historic legacy, the cultural threats and the parental concerns might have improved the efficacy of the programs. And helped more kids.” I agree with this. The point of this work is to be helpful in some way. Asking these questions is about improving the power and effectiveness of the work. It is not a personal attack.

  Robert Fabricant, "In Defense of Design Imperialism" 

(Change Observer, July 15, 2010)