Keynote speech at International Congress on Past and Present Slaveries
13 Dec 2024
Lisbon, Portugal
Have designers helped free others from coerced labour, or actually contributed to enforcing relations of servitude?
In December 2024, Fernando Secomandi was invited as keynote speaker to the International Congress on Past and Present Slaveries, organized at Universidade Europeia, in Lisbon, Portugal. His presentation offered a philosophical framework for examining design’s role in sustaining oppressive relations of servitude. Drawing on Hegel’s master–slave dialectic, he argued that coerced labour is historically central to form-giving and design, a pattern that can be discerned across different contexts, from colonial slavery in plantations, to machine manufacturing of industrial goods and data labor fuelling contemporary generative AI applications.
The speech ended with a call for greater interdisciplinary research in design philosophy to illuminate emancipatory and just approaches to form-giving—ones that fully recognize the dignity of labour and reject social struggle as a necessary moment for human emancipation.
Image source: UNIDCOM-IADE
The International Congress on Past and Present Slaveries: Servitude, Rebellions, and Oppressions is part of the “Unlikely Dialogues” series, organized by UNIDCOM/IADE.
If you are interested in collaborating on justice-driven topics or learning more about the work of the Justice by Design Lab, feel free to contact Fernando Secomandi.
