Decoloniality: Past, Present, and Future — Fall 2020 & 2021| 7-week course Taught by Hajira, PhD Researcher Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design Tribal Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge that the land in and around Pittsburgh has been home to Indigenous peoples for centuries and millennia longer than we have known it as Pittsburgh. Because of its…

Making sense of Buber through job fairs, and vice versa — In his book I and Thou, Martin Buber argues that there are two types of relations: I — It, where you relate to things (or people) as being instrumental, useful, functional; and I — You, where you relate to people with your whole being, with no other motive except what…

World Systems Theory — Ahmed began with an overview of World Systems Theory. The term was coined by Immanuel Wallerstein, who explained it as a way of structuring the global economy that was triggered by colonization of the Americas and the Industrial Revolution. Janet Abu Lughod, however, argues that the transition to the modern…

Due to limitations on time, this class session was condensed, so that we had a 20 minute lecture, 25 minute breakout discussion session, and then 20 minutes to discuss everyone’s insights. …

Lecture — First, Ahmed talked a bit about Slavoj Žižek and how, for him, desires are programmed via ideological design things. He showed a video of Žižek explaining how culture and ideology manifest in made things, using the example of toilets. Discussion Highlights The insights that came out of the discussion session… Pointed out…

Lecture — We began the class with a 20-minute lecture from Ahmed that tied questions of labor more directly to design. First, he talked about William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, explaining how the movement was a response to industrialization and an attempt to meld mass-production with the uniqueness and…

For this class, we had futurist and professor in the School of Design Stuart Candy give the students an introduction to the fundamentals of foresight and futuring. Stuart began with the Polak game outside in the rotunda in front of the School of Design and had the students line up…

Process documentation for Interaction Design Studio II, taught by Peter Scupelli at Carnegie Mellon University. Team comprises of Zach Bachiri, Devika Khowala, Hajira Qazi, and Shengzhi Wu. The final phase for this project entailed designing high-fidelity screens, completing a prototype, creating a concept video, preparing presentation slides, and refining all…

Process documentation and informal reflections on the final deliverables for Independent Studies on Decolonial Theory (advisors Ahmed Ansari and Silvia Mata-Marin) and Participatory Design (advisors Jonathan Chapman and Dan Lockton) at Carnegie Mellon University Introduction Brief overview of decolonial theory, participatory design, and where the two intersect At the beginning of…