Gender Equity: Stories of Agency and Transformation | Stephan Weiss Lecture Series

In today’s global world, change is happening at breakneck speed. Fluidity and interdependence are the name of the game. The imperative to connect knowledge with action in order to harness a sense of common purpose to imagine a better life for the majority of human beings on the planet has never been greater. Our growing consciousness of global connectivity is intricately associated with a set of complex social processes that we have come to know as globalization. Far more than the simple phenomenon of people, ideas, and goods moving easily across borders since the Age of the Silk Road, globalization in the 21 st century has become both buzzword and contested concept at once. It involves rapid social change occurring simultaneously across a number of inter-connected dimensions – in the world economy, in politics and international development, in communications and technology, in the physical environment and in culture. It impacts every facet of our lives.

The 2018-2019 Stephan Weiss Lecture Series is an invitation to explore a more nuanced understanding of globalization and the interactions between the local, national, regional, and global that it presumes. It will also be an opportunity to take stock about the good and the bad brought about globalization and its relationship with the power dynamics and ideologies of our fast-changing world. Presentations and panel discussions will feature critical discussions meant to provoke and incite reflections about the evolving role of our institutions and the
responsibility of our individual and collective actions in nurturing participatory processes of innovation and change. These are conversations that will focus on wide-ranging themes that include: women reproductive and gender rights and wellbeing; distributed governance and the future of our cities; designs for the pluriverse in the Global North and the Global South; and innovative responses to meet the needs of displaced and refugee populations. Should we take comfort in the fact the world is becoming a more interdependent place? What is design’s role as a knowledge domain amid our current complexity? Can we imagine alternative futures for people to thrive across arbitrarily drawn borders and social and cultural divides?

The fall 2018 kicks off the series with an examination of these questions and more with two public events. The conversations feature practitioners, activists and scholars that will delve into critical areas where both the current benefits and shortcomings of globalization run deep.

Presented by Parsons School of Design.