Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook

Dr. Elizabeth “Dori” Tunstall, who received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1999, is a distinguished design anthropologist, celebrated author, visionary organizational design leader, consultant and coach. Tunstall will give a talk titled “Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook” for UC Davis Department of Design’s Alberini Family Speaker Series in Design.

The event is April 26 at 4:30-6 p.m. with a reception to follow at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. The talk is free and open to the public.

Tunstall will address two aspects of decolonizing design: (1) putting indigenous first and (2) dismantling the racist bias in the European modernist project in design. She provides a framework to understand one’s positionality vis-a-vis indigenous sovereignty and how that sets conditions for design that provides liberatory joy to bodies and communities. By showing the racism inherent in the focus on modernist design as the standard, she demonstrates in both theory and practice how institutions and individuals can open space for decolonial and diverse perspectives on making.

Tunstall is the author of Her progressive approaches challenge conventional design paradigms that exclude and harm indigenous cultures and champion diversity, equity and inclusivity practices in communities and organizations.

With a global career that includes being an associate professor of Design Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Swinburne University in Australia, Tunstall made history as the first Black scholar and Black female dean of a design faculty with her position at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada.

Supported through an endowment provided by the Carlos and Andrea Alberini Family Foundation, the speaker series brings renowned innovators and thinkers in design to campus to inspire students and encourage community engagement and learning. The talk is organized by the UC Davis Department of Design and co-sponsored by the Manetti Shrem Museum.

Host or Publisher UC Davis College of Letters and Science