Shifting towards non-anthropocentrism: In dialogue with speculative design futures

Abstract

We are living in an earth crisis and the world at large is demanding profound change. Some researchers claim that one necessary shift to accomplish this change is that from anthropocentrism to non-anthropocentrism. This shift has, e.g., been explored in design research. This paper aims to give voice to the design processes and experiences along The Age of Entanglement project, a project in which designers collaborated with professionals from diverse fields ranging from philosophy and biology to space engineering, to further their understanding of what a shift to non-anthropocentrism might entail. As we interviewed and observed these designers in their discussions a number of thematic challenges were touched upon: How to engage with temporalities, how to collaborate productively across diverse disciplines, how to find appropriately inclusive language for expressing ideas, how to express entanglement through concrete and clear examples as well as how to maintain a productive humble and open-minded overall disposition in the designers’ sense.