The Systemic design and pluriversality in public policies: women’s voices in São João dos Patos, Maranhão, Brazil

Abstract

This article investigates how systemic design, through a participatory and situated approach, can critically mediate the relationship between public policies and women living in conditions of social vulnerability. Using the Mulheres Mil Program in São João dos Patos, Maranhão, Brazil, as a case study, the research examines the misalignments between institutional guidelines and the women’s demands, needs, and forms of knowledge, valuing practices such as embroidery, care, and orality. Through creative workshops, affective cartographies, and the exhibition Imagining Women for the Future, design is activated as a practice of listening, cultural translation, and the invention of plural worlds. The findings point to the need for an epistemological redesign of public policies grounded in cognitive justice and citizen co-authorship. The study engages with the “Political Design” axis by arguing that sustainable futures only emerge when they are also affective, rooted, and pluriversal.