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singingmousai's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
I want to give this a higher score, because I do think that the work being done and presented here is incredibly important and I do not regret picking this book up on a whim from the library. But the cadence in which it's written makes that kind of difficult for me.
What really shines here are the examples presented of real-world organizations and the work they are doing in their communities. These vignettes REALLY helped me wrap my brain around the explanations of terms and schools of thought presented by the author, which were quite dense and repetitive and at times difficult to understand. I know that's kinda just how academics talk, but it raised the barrier for entry into understanding many of the book's topics quite a lot for the layman, which seems a bit counterintuitive to the book's goal of shifting design focus away from the academy and into grassroots community organizations populated mostly by everymen and the working class.
I understand that a lot of the critiques the author puts forth are not necessarily meant to be cleanly resolved and are instead meant to spark dialogue and encourage more mindful and conscientious design practices. This is fine, and I think it's important to rage against the popular mindset of every issue or critique needing an immediate clean-cut solution. However, at times I think some of the jabs aimed at other movements miss the forest for the trees. In general I found that several sections sort of went in circles, critiquing certain organizations, movements, schools of thought, etc. for not taking all of the author's concerns into consideration, only to turn around and say that some of these critiques are unresolvable, which sometimes (not always) made it feel like a moot point. That said, I do think the author's insistence on academics and suchlike needing a much more intersectional approach to their work is extremely relevant and needs to be said as much as possible, so maybe I'm just being a pedant here.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just not built for understanding theory. In general this was a very informative read and introduced me to some great organizations whose newsletters I signed up for right away! It's fine that it didn't hit all the marks for me, as it clearly did for many other readers.
What really shines here are the examples presented of real-world organizations and the work they are doing in their communities. These vignettes REALLY helped me wrap my brain around the explanations of terms and schools of thought presented by the author, which were quite dense and repetitive and at times difficult to understand. I know that's kinda just how academics talk, but it raised the barrier for entry into understanding many of the book's topics quite a lot for the layman, which seems a bit counterintuitive to the book's goal of shifting design focus away from the academy and into grassroots community organizations populated mostly by everymen and the working class.
I understand that a lot of the critiques the author puts forth are not necessarily meant to be cleanly resolved and are instead meant to spark dialogue and encourage more mindful and conscientious design practices. This is fine, and I think it's important to rage against the popular mindset of every issue or critique needing an immediate clean-cut solution. However, at times I think some of the jabs aimed at other movements miss the forest for the trees. In general I found that several sections sort of went in circles, critiquing certain organizations, movements, schools of thought, etc. for not taking all of the author's concerns into consideration, only to turn around and say that some of these critiques are unresolvable, which sometimes (not always) made it feel like a moot point. That said, I do think the author's insistence on academics and suchlike needing a much more intersectional approach to their work is extremely relevant and needs to be said as much as possible, so maybe I'm just being a pedant here.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just not built for understanding theory. In general this was a very informative read and introduced me to some great organizations whose newsletters I signed up for right away! It's fine that it didn't hit all the marks for me, as it clearly did for many other readers.
bbqxaxiu's review against another edition
3.0
I liked it. I would recommend it to any person, lady, lad.
dittotrainer's review against another edition
taking credit for a whole movement, only fixated on this and not intersectional
reneerianne's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Very compelling and understandable book that is a great resource for designers engaged with justice in any way, whether it is by tackling oppression, surfacing marginalised voices or critically examining existing power structures. I will definitely use it a lot as a reference material for teaching and grounding my own practice. While some of the messages felt very obvious, it was very helpful to see them articulated on the page with clear examples. I was particularly inspired by the chapter on teaching and pedagogies, which I will use to evaluate and reshape my own teaching practices. Unfortunately, like many of the influential design books, it does draw mainly on US culture and examples from the US (e.g. covering the Trump administration), which means that it will need a layer of translation for my own context. Nevertheless, it did give me a clear vocabulary and inspiration to build on. I will warmly recommend this to my colleagues and students.
As a final note, and this is probably due to the publisher rather than the author, I did find the choice of handling the references interesting for a book that talks a lot about giving credit where it's due. Finding a number at the end of a sentence that leads to a note at the end of the book that gives the shorthand reference to then find the full reference in the References was quite burdensome and meant that many times I did not bother to find out the author names for most of the work mentioned throughout the book.
As a final note, and this is probably due to the publisher rather than the author, I did find the choice of handling the references interesting for a book that talks a lot about giving credit where it's due. Finding a number at the end of a sentence that leads to a note at the end of the book that gives the shorthand reference to then find the full reference in the References was quite burdensome and meant that many times I did not bother to find out the author names for most of the work mentioned throughout the book.
lawryn's review against another edition
3.0
Very good book with lots of great stuff everyone should know. But it also made me feel stupid and it was very hard for me to understand. I will probably have to reread this one to get everything.
anacereading's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I really appreciated the critique of universalizing! Wish I’d had this while writing my MA thesis.
Love the discussions on ethics, teaching, learning, and cooperation as well! So much interesting stuff.
Love the discussions on ethics, teaching, learning, and cooperation as well! So much interesting stuff.