The environmental emergency of the last century, highlighted by the pandemic, has led to an urgent need to reformulate the predominant role of human beings on the planet by undertaking a less ...anthropocentric design approach. This urgency has been especially outlined by a re-evaluation of the concept of the Anthropocene, which can be defined as a geological era characterized by the significant human impact on the geology and ecosystems of the Earth. Within this theoretical framework, the book explores the role of Design as a multifaceted discipline capable of exploring the complexity of a changing world, and reconsiders the human being’s position in a pervasive relationship with the contemporary environments (physical and abstract) through a More-than-Human approach. This volume illustrates reflections, analyses, and interventions guided by or intersected with the concept of the post-Anthropocene, and traces two different scales of observation. The first, explored in the two starting chapters, highlights how the complexity of the topic requires a large-scale analysis perspective in order to be fully understood. The concept of the post-Anthropocene does not exclude the human being as a fundamental component but takes the latter as a departing point to frame wider contemporary needs and issues and to support a call for action to envision and shape the future. The second part of the book instead explores the possibility to include, within this broad discussion, the theme of More-than-Human applied to specific disciplines – linked to the culture of Design – analyzing different aspects that move from taxonomy, application, and creativity.
The paper focuses on several systemic research-by-design case studies relating ecological, technological and social systems with a more-than-human perspective. The complexity of the real requires ...methods that leverage digital tools and processes proposed to enable the design of more ecological, dynamic, interrelated posthuman environments. We argue that to achieve social justice, we must also reach environmental justice and become in synergy with the planet, with Gaia. This ethos is presented in multiple case studies demonstrating the relationships between designed and existing socio and environmental systems, evaluating whether our actions on the Earth and use of non-renewable resources are sustainably innovative and what this means for more inclusive practice, the academy and our pedagogical foci and design methods. Article info Received: 19/03/2023; Revised: 05/05/2023; Accepted: 15/05/2023
The gigamaps relating full-scale prototypes series in this article are synthesising a work developed within the framework of Systemic Approach to Architectural Performance (SAAP) research by design ...field. Gigamapping serves as a tool for complexity co-designing through relations mapping and has no strict recipe (Sevaldson, 2018b). It is project and participation specific. The particularity of SAAP is that it develops theories and methods through experimental practice. SAAP involves Time-Based Eco-Systemic Co-Design that is performed by both living and non-living agents. Gigamapping is central to SAAP because it is a tool that relates the complexity within collaborative design-research processes and its co-performances. It maps and generates their relations, meaning environmental, societal and cultural aspects and processes across past, current and future habitats and edible landscapes of and across different species and other agencies involved. SAAP’s ambition is to co- and re- design these complexities. Thus, SAAP is based in full-scale prototyping related with gigamapping, both placed into ‘real life’ environments, the “real life co-design laboratories” (Author, Pánek, Pánková, 2018). SAAP is therefore considering gigamaps as well as the full-scale prototypes as ”prototypical urban interventions” that can drive extensive generative agencies across various communities (Doherty, 2005) and agents; and while doing that, across much larger systems, introducing the necessary shift towards Post-Anthropocene of bio-climatic layers of cultural landscapes, their territories and life-cycles.
Posthuman Architecture ... There has not been an architecture of similar vigour in 100 years ... A new architecture is born beyond our attention ... There is no tradition ... There is no context ... ...There is nothing. — Rem Koolhaas, Countryside: A Report, 2020Though the term 'posthuman' was coined in 1977 by Egyptian scholar Ihab Hassan.' for some scholars the posthuman avant la lettre has always (back to ancient Egypt) coexisted with the human. For others we became posthuman in the 20th century.
The term ‘sustainability’ has become an overused umbrella term that encompasses a range of climate actions and environmental infrastructure investments; however, there is still an urgent need for ...transformative reform work. Scholars of urban studies have made compelling cases for a more-than-human conceptualisation of urban and environmental planning and also share a common interest in translating theory into practical approaches and implications that recognise (i) our ecological entanglements with planetary systems and (ii) the urgent need for multispecies justice in the reconceptualisation of genuinely sustainable cities. More-than-human sensibility draws on a range of disciplines and encompasses conventional and non-conventional research methods and design approaches. In this article, we offer a horizon scan type of review of key posthuman and more-than-human literature sources at the intersection of urban studies and environmental humanities. The aim of this review is to (i) contribute to the emerging discourse that is starting to operationalise a more-than-human approach to smart and sustainable urban development, and; (ii) to articulate a nascent framework for more-than-human spatial planning policy and practice.
As products of the Anthropocene, the epoch of human ecological impact, models of environmental and social sustainability have been rooted in humanism, centering human agency and taking humanity as ...the prime reference point in understanding the world. Discourses around sustainability pose questions of how we are trying to sustain our world and our central place in it. With these questions in mind, we examine the role of science education for sustainability and as a tool for enacting societal change and interacting with the world responsibly. Science education is particularly concerned with helping learners cultivate tools and develop scientific literacy for understanding and interacting with the world. This is key to the ability of current and future generations to meet the challenge of building and maintaining a sustainable world. Yet, these tools are rooted in anthropocentric and Western ways of understanding our relationships with and in the world, which maintains myths such as the neutrality of digital technology or linear forms of progress. We turn to posthuman perspectives to consider an alternative onto-epistemological stance that decenters human agency and foregrounds the co-constitutive and intra-active nature of the world. We argue that scientific literacy and science education for sustainability can act as channels for our species to move beyond ecological sustainability to an understanding of humanity’s entanglement with the world. Life in all its forms, from micro to macro is about relationships with cultural and natural ecologies. Any changes in these relationships can lead to the sustaining, altering, or threatening of these ecologies. In light of this recognition, we explore the implications of posthumanist thought for science education and literacy as learners seek a more sustainable world and a more harmonious place for humanity within it.
Transitions towards more sustainable agricultural systems are often characterised by ‘lock-ins’, understood as self-reinforcing mechanisms that reproduce the status quo and impede change. While ...socioeconomic, technological and institutional lock-ins have been widely used to understand processes of sustainable transitions in agri-food systems, the role of so-called cognitive lock-ins is still under-investigated. In this study, we focus on how institutional settings create cognitive lock-ins in farmers’ decision-making related to the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices. We apply goal framing for environmental behaviour and transition theory in explaining how socio-technical conditions may shape farmer’s decision-making. Empirically, we focus on the example of diversifying crop rotations with legumes as an established strategy to increase biodiversity and soil health, and reduce agrochemical use, emissions and pollution, which still remains rare in European agriculture. We use two cases in the Atlantic pedo-climatic region, Cornwall, UK, and Gelderland, Netherlands. Using in-depth interview data with farmers and extensive supplementary secondary data, we explore how context-specific socio-technical settings interact with farmers’ normative, gain-oriented and hedonic goal frames to shape the (un-)desirability of crop diversification with legumes. This creates conditions recognisable as cognitive lock-ins: the context of farmers’ decision-making creates cognitive processes that drastically reduce the perceived viability of alternative agricultural practices. Our findings in this case suggest the framework developed for this study may help to identify regionally specific, as well as common, barriers and solutions to crop diversification and comparable practices that are relevant to transitions towards sustainability in agri-food systems.
There is broad scientific consensus that current food systems are neither sustainable nor resilient: many agricultural practices are very resource-intensive and responsible for a large share of ...global emissions and loss of biodiversity. Consequently, current systems put large pressure on planetary boundaries. According to economic theory, food prices form when there is a balance between supply and demand. Yet, due to the neglect of negative external effects, effective prices are often far from representing the ‘true costs’. Current studies show that especially animal-based foodstuff entails vast external costs that currently stay unaccounted for in market prices. Against this background, we explore how informational campaigning on agricultural externalities can contribute to consumer awareness and tolerance of this matter. Further, we investigate the socially just design of monetary incentives and their implementation potentials and challenges. This study builds on the informational campaign of a German supermarket displaying products with two price tags: one of the current market price and the other displaying the ‘true’ price, which includes several environmental externalities calculated with True Cost Accounting (TCA). Based on interpretations of a consumer survey and a number of expert interviews, in this article we approach the potentials and obstacles of TCA as a communication tool and the challenges of its factual implementation in agri-food networks. Our results show that consumers are generally interested in the topic of true food pricing and would to a certain extent be willing to pay ‘true prices’ of the inquired foods. However, insufficient transparency and unjust distribution of wealth are feared to bring about communication and social justice concerns in the implementation of TCA. When introducing TCA into current discourse, it is therefore important to develop measures that are socially cautious and backed by relevant legal framework conditions. This poses the chance to create a fair playing (‘polluter pays’) with a clear assignment of responsibilities to policy makers, and practitioners in addition to customers.
In discourses on sustainability, its underlying conceptualizations and meanings, the role of imaginations and their influence on concrete social practices and mutually dependent sociomaterial ...structures have been overlooked. Therefore, our article uses Adloff and Neckel’s (Sustain Sci 14(4):1015-1025, 2019) conceptual framework to explore the role of imaginations in generating different trajectories from a concrete environmental problem, namely issues attributed to manure surpluses in Germany, to assess the hurdles and conflicting goals of a transformation toward a sustainable livestock system. Our study builds on qualitative, semistructured, and problem-centered interviews with both new innovation actors and incumbent actors in the current system. Our results show that different trajectories of “manure futures” exist, as we identify “preservation”, “modernization” and “transformation” as trajectories representing ideal types of change. We discuss the results in light of the theory of imaginations and reflect on the usefulness of the concept of imaginations for analyzing environmental discourses and practices. Furthermore, we find that normative framings of problems rather than factual knowledge describe contesting imaginations as barriers to sustainability transformations, a point that must be acknowledged when developing a sustainable livestock system. We conclude that contesting imaginations could result in conflicts that must be moderated as drivers for change yet could also point to transformations that are already underway.
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