Are design solutions actually advancing social justice – or are they just a sleek, apolitical bandage on a deep political wound?
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This Special Issue collection of articles in Third World Quarterly, titled Design Emergencies: Interrogating Innovation in Humanitarian Aid and International Development (Vol 47, 2026), investigates the growing trend since the 1960s of using 'design' and 'design thinking' to solve urgent global problems. As the world faces intersecting ecological, political and social emergencies, humanitarian aid and TWQ’s “Design Emergencies” special issue explores how design shapes humanitarian aid and calls for more critical, context-sensitive, decolonial innovation.
