Who Are We Listening to? The Inclusion of Other-than-human Participants in Design

Abstract

Designers' considerations of whom to include as a participant in design research continue to broaden, listening to individuals and communities previously unheard. Some even argue that other-thanhuman entities should be recognized as a type of participant, advocating for non-humans to have a voice in the design process. Through this paper we contribute to this conversation, arguing for a remembering of how to attend to our interactions with diverse forms of life. We refer to these entities as 'pervasive peripheral participants', drawing on early scholarship of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. We use this provocative phrase deliberately, to prompt us to consider how we learn with and through these relationships. Non-human, peripheral participants are ubiquitous in all aspects of life, and may inspire designers throughout their project's lifetime, from the environments in which they work, to the resources they use. These participants implicate and are implicated through design. While we recognize that the inclusion of pervasive peripheral participants in design processes is a challenging step to take, this paper holds up scholarly contributions which offer insights to those willing to join this work. We look to projects that do not limit participation in design to human-centred perspectives. These projects offer examples of how to engage with other-than-human ways of being, responding to Daniel Heath Justice's call to "imagine otherwise" (danielheathjustice.com). Learning from these approaches, we imagine how we might attend to relations with otherthan-humans through relinquishing control, fostering collaboration and relationality, practicing reciprocal acts of care, and valuing other temporalities. In doing so, we envision a future when interaction design practice welcomes a broader array of participation, creating space for more ethical and diverse worlds.

Towards the Development of an Anti-Colonial Critique of Climate and Disaster Risk Models

“…Lastly, research published at LIMITS has explored alternative approaches and paradigms to address the ecological limits, information limits, and material limits of existing technology systems [46,53,85] We share this hopeful orientation and use subsection 6.1 to imagine an alternate anti-colonial approach to disaster and climate risk. This discussion builds on research in LIMITS and HCI that draw on pluriversal designs [3,21,53], relational thinking [20,53], and non-anthropocentric worldviews [23,54]. Our proposed anti-colonial tactics of specificity, relationality, and obligations can contribute to ongoing conversations in these communities on alternative approaches to environment such as eco-social change [42], eco-spirituality [18], and degrowth [99].…”

Exploring Inner Transition: Expanding Computing forSustainability

“…Several papers in different ways engage with permaculture, for example [40], [13], and [24]. Others have explored the need for considering psychological limits [33] or other types of ethics, including other-than-human ethics [9]. The new paradigm can also be seen in many of the patterns that Schuler and his colleagues have explored with the LIMITS community [62].…”

“Critical questions are missing”: Perspectives of environmental justice activists of Bangladesh on justice and technology

“…This gradual evolution in the vision of SHCI emphasizes the need to address environmental justice and climate change more and more. So far, various works have showcased SHCI's efforts to incorporate these implications (e.g., [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]).…”