redefining equity
Equity is the action of demarginalizing the most disadvantaged by addressing needs and problems of a society to then restructure those parts of the world as necessary. Equity is the dismantling of the current patriarch that is built on racism, misogyny and genocide. Equity is the ability to see the deep rooted hate and bigotry that exists on a large scale and then unearth the ends of how we got there. Nations that are founded on colonization, imperialism and genocide cannot be equitable since the systems were made to be inequitable but miraged to attain equality, which is elusive.
Kitso Lynn Lelliot, a Johannesburg based filmmaker and artist, bases some of her work on the notion of elision which she describes as “not erasure but a presence alongside of what is considered legitimate knowledge, that could be seen via its omission by creating multiple narratives of place.” Elision is looking at history, our present and future through a non-Western lens without erasing the Westernized history, it is arguing that there are other narratives that need to be thought about for a well rounded view. Through this concept of elision, we can understand the multifaceted nature of our societies due to the myriad of identities people have. Crenshaw highlights the need for understanding how anti-racist politics could exist by acknowledging the intersectional identities that have always existed in our societies. To dismantle the top-down approach set forth by people who want to ‘change’ the world Crenshaw suggests another approach: “placing those who currently are marginalized in the center is the most effective way to resist the efforts to compartmentalize the experiences and undermine potential collective action”(Crenshaw 167).
Rawlsian equality operates on the belief that justice as fairness is highlighting the rights and freedoms of civilians through societal and political institutions through social cooperation and reciprocal advantage. He suggests that a society’s basic structure will have incredibly powerful jurisdiction over the lives of citizens; the basic structure deeply influences life prospects, attitudes, goals, relationships and characters of civilians. A basic structure is composed of two principles the first is that “Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all” and the second is the social and economic inequalities are to satisfy economic institutions and should benefit the least advantaged the most and people in office are responsible for that. Rawls also states that a democratic society cannot be a community, this notion troubles me a little since he does speak on this on such a large scale, however I believe that for equity to be attained community is necessary if we operate on a human scale. Architecture is a powerful tool that has been used to ostracize, marginalize and dehumanize people. It has also been a tool used to dishonor and disrespect the existing environment and other beings. When thinking about architecture we cannot just focus on buildings, architecture is history, culture and storytelling. By recognizing that architecture is also the way in which spaces are planned alongside other spaces, architecture has the ability to actually create spaces that people need to feel heard and seen. Lisa Bates suggests that through dismantling the white spatial imaginary by reimagining what cities could be through the black spatial imaginary, we can begin to attain the needs of the most disadvantaged citizens. There are four generative modes in which placemaking could actually benefit society:
1.Black placemaking through gardening and education 2. Black placemaking through freedom and mobility
3. Black placemaking through musical play
4. Black placemaking through visuality
In relation to Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach, there are conversion factors to take into account that allude to freedom and mobility by thinking about utilities that people need such as a bike and its uses. Equity is not something that is to be discussed around a conference table with straight-faced suits, it is the ability to express oneself visually and illustrating a reimagined time by representing a parallel narrative. The arts are essential to understanding what could be possible and what exists outside of the mundane. An approach that can make people in power understand how important equity is, is through computing. Equity in computing is operating on gathering as much information from multiple sources to encourage the need for change in a field. It is simply suggesting that representation is accuracy. Rosa Sheng, a mother of two, an architect and a leader of change within architecture as AIA president in 2018 and founder of Equity by Design (EQxD). In a historical unequal field, Sheng questioned the lack of representation within her field and made the point that “people react differently to data versus anecdotes.” And through this she conducted the largest US survey on equity in the architecture field in 2018 and its dataset is growing. Through this approach key challenges share vocabulary that can be used to address these issues at large. By gathering data, there are foreseeable possibilities that could meet the needs of the most disadvantaged.
Mariam Kamara is a Niger based architect that is influencing architecture in Niger, she works on “eschewing a western definition of modernity” which will pave the road for aspiring architects/designers to recognize that architecture is not one thing. Kamara’s work is influential and inspiring, she is an architect that I want to learn more about. There is so much rich history in Sudan that was once the Kingdom of Kush(Nuba) led by Queens and were pioneers in the architecture of domes made from mud, the wonders of the pyramids and embracing the use of colors in architecture.
The masters and tools of our surrounding professional, societal, economic and communal environments are shaped by us and we are shaped by them. There has been an understanding of equity as an end to the world’s problems, but in reality equity is a tool that is as complex as the masters that utilize it and the controversial issues that turn to it.
Equity as the action of demarginalizing the most disadvantaged by addressing needs and problems of a society to then restructure those parts of the world as necessary. Equity as the dismantling of the internalized patriarch that is built on racism, misogyny and genocide. Equity as the ability to see the deep rooted hate and bigotry that exists on a large scale and then unearth the ends of how we got there. But how do we understand or utilize equitable action?
thick injustice diagram
Throughout this course, theorizing equity has been complicated, ending each lesson with more questions than answers. It has become apparent that when attempting to generalize terms such as equity, architecture, research and coding, we misconstrue the complexity of these meanings, the same way that we generalize terms of race, culture, ethnicity, gender and identity. Meanings are interpreted differently to each being, which is why we cannot boil equity down to one term; “the same can be said for code. Its meaning is determined not only by the programmer’s intention or by the operations it triggers but also by how it is received and recirculated.”1 Instead of focusing on having shared interpretations of these complex definitions, we should think of “how to have simultaneously an account of radical historical contin- gency of the conditions under which we take ethical and political action, critical practices for accounting for our own situatedness in histories that have
shaped the conditions of possibility for our actions, and a no- nonsense commitment to the kind of real, possible world.”2 If we could get on the same page of what has already happened, and having a shared understanding of the thick injustices that exist then I believe that is a first step. “We are inevitably a part of a system that has the ability to transform and evolve through generations to consistently marginalize people. That which is run by you and I, it is run on innate biases, on belief and on thick injustices.”3
Redefining equity is reframing our perception of what equity may look like and more importantly what it does not look like: a pure clean slate. This “means that there is no primordial state we might wish to get back to, no Eden we have desecrated, no pretoxic body we might uncover through enough chia seeds and kombucha. There is not a preracial state we could access, erasing histories of slavery, forced labor on railroads, colonialism, genocide, and their concomitant responsibilities and requirements.”4 Equity does not equate to erasure.
Aforementioned, “architecture is a powerful tool that has been used to ostracize, marginalize and dehumanize people. It has also been a tool used to dishonor and disrespect the existing environment and other beings.”5 However, architecture similar to coding is complex and can be used inversely to connect to broader audiences and to challenge preexisting binaries. We can utilize these tools as objects-to-think-with which extends to our interpretation of computational methods and the discourse that follows.
1. Okamoto, Katie. “Equity by Design Is Using Data to Make Architecture More Equitable.” Metropolis, 27 Feb. 2019, www. metropolismag.com/architecture/rosa-sheng-equity-by-design- game-changers/.
2. Snyder, Michael. “In Niger, an Architect Looking to
the Country’s Design Traditions.” The New York Times
, The New York Times, 10 Aug. 2020, www.nytimes. com/2020/08/10/t-magazine/mariam-kamara-architect-design. html?fbclid=Iw AR0sP-FH7_hLxhT9mJT0AlHAX_R4VBKvsvr- pLVvc9qGA079IXyH-dn_oJQ.
3. Bates, Lisa K., et al. “Race and Spatial Imaginary: Planning Otherwise/Introduction: What Shakes Loose When We Imagine Otherwise/She Made the Vision True: A Journey Toward Recognition and Belonging/Isha Black or Isha White? Racial Identity and Spatial Development in Warren County, NC/Colonial City Design Lives Here: Questioning Planning Education’s Dominant Imaginaries/Say Its Name – Planning Is the White Spatial Imaginary, or Reading McKittrick and Woods as Planning Text/Wakanda! Take the Wheel! Visions of a Black Green City/ If I Built the World, Imagine That: Reflecting on World Building Practices in Black Los Angeles/Is Honolulu a Hawaiian Place? Decolonizing Cities and the Redefinition of Spatial Legitimacy/ Interpretations & Imaginaries: Toward an Instrumental Black Planning History.” P lanning Theory & Practice, vol. 19, no. 2, 2018, pp. 254–288., doi:10.1080/14649357.2018.1456816.
1 Marino, Mark C. Critical Code Studies. The MIT Press, 2020.
2 Shotwell, Alexis. Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
3 Salih,Hiba. Reimagine Assignment 1. ARCH528A. 2020
4 Shotwell, Alexis. Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times. University of Minnesota Press,
2016.
Salih,Hiba. Reimagine Assignment 1. ARCH528A.