Abstract: Service Design draws heavily from ancient Greek Ethics and Aesthetics, beginning with the foundational theater metaphor that separates frontstage from backstage. When Service Design engages with cultures that do not cultivate the Greek canon, the decolonization challenge comes to the fore. People who work to decolonize their cultures wonder whether Service Design will remain a tool for cultural imperialism or change to become a tool for autonomous development. This talk presents the author’s effort to develop distinct Ethics and Aesthetics for Service Design to address corporate responsibility, work exploitation, workplace racism, and gender disparities in service codesign sessions. This work is primarily based on Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Theater of the Oppressed.
Keynote address at the Service Design Network (SDN) Next Gen Conference 2024 (online).
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References
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Grove, S. J., & Fisk, R. P. (1992). The service experience as theater. Advances in consumer research, 19(1), 455-461.
de Siqueira, I. L. M., & van Amstel, F. M. (2023). Service design as a practice of freedom in collaborative cultural producers. In Proceedings of the Service Design and Innovation Conference (ServDes 2023), Rio de Janeiro. pp. 315-325. https://doi.org/10.3384/ecp203016
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Van Amstel, F. M., & Serpa, B. O. Theater of the Techno-Oppressed. Workshop at the Service Design and Innovation Conference (ServDes 2013), Rio de Janeiro. https://servdes2023.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ServDes_2023_paper_9776.pdf
