The performative role of language in social design

Social change has been defined as the redistribution of wealth and power (Lindblom, 2013). Social design is a practice intended to support that redistribution, for the purpose of increasing social equity. Although language is both medium and message in efforts toward social change, the words used, and their relationship to outcomes, have been largely uncontested within the study of social design. This research investigates and documents the performative role that language plays in social design. It examines the ways in which words reveal implicit power dynamics that prevent desired outcomes for equity, and how a process of interrogating and iterative authoring precipitates shifts in relationships and mindsets from hierarchical structures of control to ecosystems of symbiotic relationships and distributed agency.