How posthumanist design enables a world in which humans share center
stage with nonhumans, with whom we are entangled.
Over the past forty years, designers have privileged human values such
that human-centered design is seen as progressive. Yet because all that
is not human has been depleted, made extinct, or put to human use,
today's design contributes to the existential threat of climate change
and the ongoing extinctions of other species. In Things We Could
Design, Ron Wakkary argues that human-centered design is not the answer
to our problems but is itself part of the problem. Drawing on
philosophy, design theory, and numerous design works, he shows the way
to a relational and expansive design based on humility and cohabitation.
Wakkary says that design can no longer ignore its exploitation of
nonhuman species and the materials we mine for and reduce to human use.
Posthumanism, he argues, enables a rethinking of design that displaces
the human at the center of thought and action. Weaving together
posthumanist philosophies with design, he describes what he calls
things--nonhumans made by designers--and calls for a commitment to
design with more than human participation. Wakkary also focuses on
design as nomadic practices--a multiplicity of intentionalities and
situated knowledges that shows design to be expansive and pluralistic.
He calls his overall approach designing-with: the practice of design in
a world in which humans share center stage with nonhumans, and in which
we are bound together materially, ethically, and existentially.
