Leadership transitions in social movements: a participatory design approach to unveil and transform informal power structures for feminist continuity
Term
4. Term
Education
Publication year
2025
Submitted on
2025-06-06
Pages
77
Abstract
This thesis explores leadership transitions in youth-led social movements, focusing on how informal power structures can challenge feminist values in practice. Through an empirical case study of Youth 4 Parliament (Y4P) in Zambia, the project investigates how legitimacy, recognition, and continuity are negotiated during leadership handovers. Grounded in Participatory Design and Fraser’s theory of justice, the research adopts an abductive approach that combines iterative fieldwork and theoretical analysis. By apply-ing the SNS-framework, we conceptualise the design process as a space of negotiation, allowing concerns to be surfaced, reframed, and collectively addressed. Our methods include ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, design inter-ventions, and the use of intermediary objects, all tailored to foster mutual learning and stakeholder-driven insight. These approaches enable a deep engagement with the com-plexities of informal organisational culture, particularly how power dynamics persist beyond formal leadership roles. We propose a modular design game as a reflective boundary object, aimed at surfacing tacit knowledge and challenging internalised hierarchies. While the tool holds potential for broader application in similar movements, its success is contingent on organisa-tional willingness to confront discomfort and enable feminist organising in practice.
Keywords
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