Design Activism in South Africa: Design Interventions as Invented Spaces to Encourage Activist Citizenship

Abstract This article is premised on the role of design as a vehicle for social and political intervention, with specific reference to design activism. Owing to design activism's prognostic stance, the article explores how South African design interventions facilitated new sites and actors of citizenship beyond the traditional political arena. The examples of design interventions and the subsequent discussion are grounded in empirical data. As such, the South African context of the research brings “theory from the south” into conversation with current design activism discourse. Furthermore, the article makes visible the relationship between acts of design activism and activist citizenship.