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  • Published: 27 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9780262551373
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 136
  • RRP: $45.00

Decolonizing Design

A Cultural Justice Guidebook





A guidebook to the institutional transformation of design theory and practice by restoring the long-excluded cultures of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities.

A guidebook to the institutional transformation of design theory and practice by restoring the long-excluded cultures of Indigenous, Black, and People of Color communities.

From the excesses of world expositions to myths of better living through technology, modernist design, in its European-based guises, has excluded and oppressed the very people whose lands and lives it reshaped. Decolonizing Design first asks how modernist design has encompassed and advanced the harmful project of colonization—then shows how design might address these harms by recentering its theory and practice in global Indigenous cultures and histories.

For leaders and practitioners in design institutions and communities, Dori Tunstall’s work demonstrates how we can transform the way we imagine and remake the world, replacing pain and repression with equity, inclusion, and diversity—in short, she shows us how to realize the infinite possibilities that decolonized design represents.

  • Published: 27 January 2026
  • ISBN: 9780262551373
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 136
  • RRP: $45.00

Praise for Decolonizing Design

Included in Fast Company's "7 design books to look forward to in 2023"

“Tunstall gives step-by-step instructions for reducing bigotry's impact on the built environment.”
--The New York Times Book Review

"A crusader for equity in teaching design [who] finds a formula that works across borders and sectors, with critical importance for society as a whole."
--Times Higher Education