Politics of the Everyday

Description

Each of us develops and enacts strategies for living our everyday lives. These may confirm the general tendency towards new forms of connected solitude, in which we work, travel and live alone, yet feel sociable mainly by means of technology. Alternatively, they may help to create flexible communities that are open and inclusive, and therefore resilient and socially sustainable. In Politics of the Everyday, Ezio Manzini discusses examples of social innovation that show how, even in these difficult times, a better kind of society is possible. By bringing autonomy and collaboration together, it is possible to develop new forms of design intelligence, for our own good, for the good of the communities we are part of, and for society as a whole.

Ezio Manzini founded DESIS Network, the international network of design for social innovation and sustainability. He is Distinguished Professor of Design for Social Innovation at ELISAVA School of Design and Engineering, Barcelona; Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy; and Guest Professor at Tongji University, Shanghai, and Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China. His previous book Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation was published by MIT Press in 2015.

Ezio Manzini's book is remarkably timely and much-needed. He shows that another world is possible, not through top-down policy making but through everyday social innovation. Project-based democracy is a concept we'll be hearing a lot more about. * Pathik Pathak, Director of the Social Impact Lab at the University of Southampton, UK * The reader will be rewarded by sticking with Manzini as he struggles to bring autonomy and collaboration together in new communities of "design intelligence" that can serve as the building blocks for broader social development. His nuanced discussion offers new perspectives on one of the great challenges of our time. * CHOICE *