About
The Power Literacy framework and field guide was created due to a perceived gap in the design field when it comes to addressing power, privilege and oppression.
The framework is an invitation for designers to get started on their ‘social justice journey.’ It was designed as an entry point to the hard work of challenging the interlocking systems of oppression (eg. colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, etc.) that many of us have internalized and continue to reproduce in our design practices.
As such, the framework can be applied to support designers, facilitators, participatory researchers and other practitioners working in the social and public sector to become more aware of power dynamics in their work, while motivating them to challenge existing inequities by giving up some of their own power. It pushes designers to move beyond their ‘good intentions,’ and instead focus on the impacts of the design process, especially for those who are most marginalized. In doing so, the hope is that designers can harness their own power to create participatory processes that are truly decolonial, democratic and equitable.
Team
Maya is a designer, researcher and facilitator interested in centring people, community and relationship building in their work.
Maya has over seven years of experience as a strategic designer, participatory researcher and facilitator in social innovation, community engagement and city building. Their current design and research work is focused on social justice, decolonization, power and privilege within participatory design processes. Maya holds a BCom from McGill University with a minor in religious studies (2013), and a MSc in Design from Delft University of Technology (2020), where they also spent a semester studying urban geography at University of Amsterdam.
They grew up in the traditional, unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations also known as Vancouver, Canada and currently reside in Tkaronto (Toronto).
Maya is interested in laughter, speculative futures, queerness, vulnerability, fungi, and clouds.