This blog post briefly presents the dissertation “Design-politics – An Enquiry into Passports, Camps and Borders” by Mahmoud Keshavarz (2016). Keshavarz’ dissertation is one of several that in some way have been associated to our research project.
The name “Design-politics” derives from the core of the Keshavarz’ argument that design and politics are impossible to separate and need to be studied as interconnected fields, as design-politics. This is illustrated in his research of the relationship between politics of migration and the design of different artefacts such as, passports and refugee camps. These artefacts produces both mobility and immobility through the construction of legality and illegality. Keshavarz’ study of passports is an a example of how power is exercised through the material. He shows that these objects in addition to providing its “owner” with legal rights, hold the very concrete capacity or incapacity of crossing borders. The state of undocumentedness is then a condition that is materially made, unmade or remade, thus this design holds political meaning. This is especially visible when individuals within the condition of undocumentedness navigate around the issue of not holding a passport. If the sovereign exercises its power through material articulations in the form of passports and border controls, forged passports challenge this dominant structure. The counter-practice of manipulating passports produces its own space outside the sovereign. Hence, the criminalisation of migration upholds the hegemonic structure where the design of material articulations is perceived as something given. Keshawars’ argument that design and politics are intertwined unpacks the idea of the pre-given and points to the necessity of recognising political urgency behind different material constructs. More importantly, to act in accordance with this recognition means to understand the position and context in which the material construct is made.
Abstract
This thesis is an interrogation of the contemporary politics of movement and more specifically, migration politics from the perspective of the agency of design and designing. At the core of this thesis lies a series of arguments which invite design researchers and migration scholars to rethink the ways they work with their practices: that states, in order to make effective their abstract notions of borders, nations, citizenship, legal protection and rights are in dire need of what this thesis coins as material articulations. The way these notions are presented to us is seldom associated with artefacts and artefactual relations. It is of importance therefore, as this thesis argues, to speak of such material articulations as acts of designing. To examine the politics of movement and migration politics from such a perspective, this thesis focuses on practices that shape specific material articulations such as passports, camps and borders. At the same time, it discusses the practices that emerge from these articulations. By doing this, it follows the politics that shape these seemingly mundane artefacts and relations as well as the politics that emerge from them. Consequently, it argues that design and politics cannot be discussed and worked on as two separate fields of knowledge but rather as interconnected fields, as design-politics. This thesis unpacks this claim by focusing specifically on the lived experiences and struggles of asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants as well as rearticulating some of the artefacts and artefactual relations involved in the politics of movement and migration.
“Design-politics – An Enquiry into Passports, Camps and Borders” by Mahmoud Keshavarz (2016) is available at;
<http://dspace.mah.se/bitstream/2043/20605/2/Keshavarz-Design-Politics-lowres.pdf>
Emma Ley and Hedvig Obenius