Day 04. Activating Inclusive Futures
Engaging the Black Ethos:
Afrofuturism as a Design Lens for Inclusive Technological Innovation
Thursday June 25, 1:30pm EDT
🎧 Talk, 30 minute session
In his essay “Technology & Ethos”, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) states that “Black creation – creation powered by the Black ethos brings very special results” (Baraka, 1965). This talk will explore Baraka’s assertion and proposes Afrofuturism 2.0 as a liberatory design lens which enables the technology designer to engage a Black ethos in seeing – as articulated by Baraka – “everything fresh and ‘without form’ to “then make forms that will express us <Blacks/African-Americans> truthfully and totally”. In elucidating this proposal, a case study is presented that offers an Afrofuturistic reimagining of connected fitness technologies for Black/African-American women that addresses the often socially and culturally exclusionary form of current designs.
It is the author’s belief that engaging Afrofuturism 2.0 would support the development of future technologies that are more relevant and responsive to the Black mind, body, and spirit. Furthering this trajectory of thought, discussion is offered on how Afrofuturism further catalyzes efforts in evolving a conception of Afrocentric or Black Cultural Design.
Woodrow W. Winchester, III
Director, Engineering Management, UMass Amherst
Woodrow W. Winchester, III, PhD, CPEM is a Senior Lecturer and the Director of Engineering Management at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. A trained human factors engineer and Certified Professional in Engineering Management (CPEM), Dr. Woodrow W. Winchester, III is an advocate for more equitable, inclusive, and consequential approaches to technological design and deployment. He is currently under contract with CRC Press to write Inclusion by Design: Future Thinking Approaches to New Product Development (ISBN: 978-0-367-41687-4).