Politics of Publishing: Exploring decolonial and intercultural frameworks for marginalized publics

This chapter explores publishing as a platform to bring intercultural communication, decoloniality, graphic design and typography into productive dialogue through engaged (in social and political issues; in dialogical, creative, and critical practice) and situated (local communities; international networks of editors, translators, designers, illustrators, publishers, and readers) design research frameworks and practices. It explores spaces in which new kinds of documents can be created, with, by and for marginalized publics, and, conversely, how the production of new texts and images creates spaces that enable emancipatory, temporary, or subversive practices to occur. This exploration through design research and practice, is framed by the author’s own context, as that of a South Asian designer and researcher, working in the Global North. To paraphrase Ansari (2021), “many of the concerns, questions, and observations that I am about to raise come from my own experiences of negotiating between East and West, trying to figure out the politics of my practice…”.

This chapter takes a holistic, post-disciplinary approach to graphic design and typographic research that challenges notions of graphic design as purely aesthetic, or as concerns of form and function, and speaks to the shift in considering the wider politics and contributions of graphic design to societal change. Additionally, it aims to reframe design research, not as an elite academic activity but in the manner referred to by Appadurai (2006) as a daily human practice. As explored further on, this is particularly critical to undertake considering a global health crisis, climate emergency and with issues of social injustice where communication (or miscommunication) plays a pivotal role. How we frame things, how we speak about global challenges, how we articulate things visually is something we need to be accountable for as designers and researchers.

The chapter concludes that how we undertake design research needs to be rethought (Till, 2021) so that it makes a genuine and meaningful contribution to critical planetary issues. To build on Appadurai’s approach to research, this chapter posits communication as a fundamental human right, as a pathway, and a goal in this reframing of research. Noting that whatever the form of communication (verbal, non-verbal, written, visual), we all deserve to be communicated with, and to, and to be able to communicate with others, in a form, tone, mode, script and language, in a way that is appropriate and relevant to us.