Design Anthropology: Designing for Radical Alternative Futures

Call for Papers

Design Anthropology: Designing for Radical Alternative Futures

Journal: Design and Culture
Publisher: Routledge – Taylor & Francis Group
Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 July 2026

Design and Culture invites submissions for its Special Issue titled "Design Anthropology: Designing for Radical Alternative Futures."

About the Special Issue

As societies confront interconnected global challenges—including climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, democratic erosion, and digital transformation—design anthropology is increasingly positioned as a transdisciplinary field capable of shaping sustainable, just, and alternative futures. By combining anthropological inquiry with design practice, the field generates collaborative, place-based, and future-oriented approaches to social transformation.

This Special Issue explores how design anthropology can move beyond localized interventions to address larger-scale societal and planetary challenges. It welcomes contributions that examine how design, anthropology, futures thinking, and socio-ecological practices can foster radical, inclusive, and regenerative pathways for social change.

Scope and Topics of Interest

Submissions may address, but are not limited to:

• Design for socio-ecological transformation and climate adaptation

• Regenerative design, resilience, and biodiversity restoration

• Design anthropology and the contemporary polycrisis

• More-than-human and multispecies approaches to design

• Responsible digitalization, AI, and digital infrastructures

• Decolonizing and pluriversal design practices

• Indigenous and marginalized knowledge systems

• Green transitions, circular economies, and repair cultures

• Sustainable materials and regenerative economies

• Cooperative platforms and alternative socio-economic futures

• Design methodologies for societal transformation

• Participatory, theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, and empirical approaches to design anthropology

Submission Guidelines

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 April 2026

• Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 July 2026

• Submit an abstract of up to 500 words, along with a short biography (maximum 250 words) via email to the Special Issue Co-Editor.

• Authors may include up to two pages of images, where relevant.

• Invited authors will be asked to submit full manuscripts for consideration.

• Research articles, visual essays, pedagogical statements, methodological contributions, and empirical studies are welcome.

• Invitation to submit a full manuscript does not guarantee publication.

Special Issue Editors

• Rachel Charlotte Smith — Aarhus University, AIAS

• Mette Gislev Kjærsgaard — University of Southern Denmark

• Mayane Dore — Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

• Rachel Harkness — University of Edinburgh

Posted on ServiceSetu Academics — Premier Platform for Academic Opportunities & Research Collaboration

Visit official website of the publisher