A Potential Difference Model for Educating Critical Citizen Designers: The Case Study of the Beegin Appropriate Beekeeping Technology System

Renowned design thinker and educator Ezio Manzini (2010: 8) claims that “[t]he only sustainable way to get out of the current worldwide financial and ecological crisis is to promote new economic models, new production systems, and new ideas of well-being”. Many definitions of design describe a goal-oriented process of “solving problems, meeting needs, improving situations, or creating something new or useful” (Friedman, 2003: 507–508). Design is, therefore, well placed to deal with the systemic crises Manzini describes; however, the practice of design is extensively shaped by the way it is taught, which does not necessarily generate designers capable of dealing with such systemic complexities. There is therefore a need for design education that provides graduates with a critical mindset, methodologies, tools and skills for appropriate change-making embedded in complex contexts. Borrowing from Johnson and Morris’s (2010) framework for critical citizenship education, we describe such graduates as critical citizen designers.

The context of South Africa provides a multitude of opportunities for student designers to use their expertise to bring about appropriate change. However, in order to encourage positive outcomes, an appropriate pedagogy, strengthened through praxis and grounded in economic, social and environmental realities, is required to prepare students for critical and sustainable change-making. This chapter explores the education of industrial designers in South Africa, utilising a ‘potential difference’ model for critical citizen design. This model attempts to consider stakeholder relationships through a lens of power and love (Kahane, 2010) in order to increase people’s capabilities (Nussbaum, 2011; Sen, 1999) through appropriate technology (Schumacher, 1975). This is contextualised through a case study of the design and implementation of an appropriate technology beekeeping system for urban farmers in Johannesburg. We begin the chapter with an exploration of critical citizen design pedagogy.