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Precarious Objects - (Studies in Design and Material Culture) by Ilaria Vanni (Hardcover)

Precarious Objects - (Studies in Design and Material Culture) by  Ilaria Vanni (Hardcover)
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Last Price: 120.00 USD

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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>This is a timely exploration of the traffic between design and activism in the context of precarity - a social and material condition brought about by the growth of temporary, informal and irregular work. The book shows how design objects and practices open up possibilities to recode and reconfigure the effects of precarity.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><i>Precarious objects</i> explores the traffic between design and activism by telling stories drawn from contemporary counter-precarity cases in Italy. As a category of labour and of global social experience in general, precarity is a wicked problem that affects all aspects of life, regulating the production and circulation of a wide range of material and immaterial effects. In this book, three microhistories of counter-precarity explore existent forms of resistance and resilience to precarity. Drawing on ethnographies and archives and bringing together debates from design theory, cultural studies and geography, this study shows how design objects and practices recode political communication and reorient how things are imagined, produced and circulated. It also shows how design as a practice can reconfigure material conditions and prefigure ways to repair some of the effects of precarity on everyday life.<p/><br></br><p><b> From the Back Cover </b></p></br></br>Precarity is a problem that touches all aspects of life, regulating the production and circulation of a range of material and immaterial effects. As a category of labour and of global social experience in general, it calls for new modes of intervention and new alliances. <i>Precarious objects</i> documents three microhistories from contemporary Italy that provide generative counterpoints to precarity. The book begins with an analysis of how objects designed and circulated in EuroMayDay parades created a shared understanding of precarious experiences. It then goes on to examine the case of Serpica Naro, a design intervention that revealed the precarity at the heart of the fashion system and developed an alternative, collective approach. Finally, the book moves on to an analysis of the makerspace 'WeMake', exploring how practices based on open source tools, collaboration and cooperation can re-orient some of the material and social aspects of precarity. Drawing on ethnographies and archives and bringing together debates from design theory, cultural studies and geography, <i>Precarious objects</i> shows how design objects and practices can recode political communication and redirect how things are imagined, produced and circulated. It also reveals how design as a practice can reconfigure material conditions and suggest ways to repair some of the effects of precarity on everyday life.<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Ilaria Vanni, University of Technology Sydney, is Associate Professor of International Studies and Global Societies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

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