Design Materials and Making for Social Change: From Materials We Explore to Materials We Wear

The increasing complexity of environmental and social challenges has fostered a new era of materials and making in design research, as part of a collaborative, relational, and dialogic practice, which can bring about diverse forms of environmental and social change. Design Materials and Making for Social Change spans the two interconnected worlds of the material and the social, at different scales and in different contexts, and explores the value of the knowledge, skills and methods that emerge when design researchers work directly with materials and hold making central to their practice. Through the social entanglements of addressing material impacts, the contributors to this edited volume also encounter and interact with: homelessness, diaspora, migration, the erosion of craft skills and communities, dignity in work and family life, the impacts of colonialism, climate crisis, education, mental health and the shifting complexities in collaborating with and across diverse disciplines and stakeholders. The book celebrates the role of materials and making in design research by demonstrating the diverse and complex interplay between disciplines and the cultures it enables, when in search of alternative futures. Design Materials and Making for Social Change will be of interest to scholars and students interested in materials design, textiles design, product design, fashion design, maker culture, systemic design, social design and design for sustainability.