Posthumanism and Design
Bibliography
Forlano, L. (2017). Posthumanism and Design. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 3(1), 16–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2017.08.001
Notes
Abstract
Since at least the mid-1980s, design has been dominated by a human-centered and user-centered paradigm. Currently, the implications of technological and environmental transformations are challenging designers to focus on complex socio-technical systems. This article traces emergent discussions around posthumanism from across a range of disciplines and perspectives, and considers examples from emerging design practices that emphasize the interrelations between human and nonhuman actors. Specifically, this article reviews literature from actor-network theory (ANT), feminist new materialism, object-oriented ontology, non-representational theory, and transhumanism to inform the development of new methodologies and practices in the field of design. Finally, this article presents critiques of posthumanism from critical race theory and decolonial theory to consider how emergent design perspectives might better support values such as equality and justice for humans and nonhumans that have been traditionally ignored in design processes.
Reading Notes
Extracted Annotations (6/10/2021, 9:45:58 PM)
“While not identified explicitly as posthuman design, these examples illustrate that considerations of the nonhuman—whether animals and the natural environment, or things and the artificial world—require new forms of expertise and open up new problems, questions, opportunities, and solutions for the field of design that it is not yet equipped for.” (Forlano 2017:19)
“1) Who or what— human/nonhuman, human/animal, individual/organizational/network 11 —are the user(s), and for whom or what should the design be desirable? 2) How, and in what ways—competitively/collaboratively, hierarchically/horizontally—are capabilities, agency, and power distributed across human, machines, and natural systems? 3) What new knowledge(s), questions, stakeholders, and partnerships are needed in order to adequately design for this problem? 4) How are ethics, 12 values, and responsibilities reflected and embedded throughout the design process?” (Forlano 2017:19)
“there are two primary reasons—environmental and socio-technical—for the exploration of theories around the posthuman.” (Forlano 2017:20)
""A system of thought formulated in reaction to the basic tenets of humanism, especially its focus on humanity rather than the divine or supernatural.” 18 In particular, this definition emphasizes the traditions of postmodernist and feminist writing, which reject the rational, autonomous individual and, rather, emphasize the partial, situated, and socially-constructed self.” (Forlano 2017:20)
“Specifically, technological systems include technologies, organizations, and things. These artifacts can be understood to have not only affordances 21 as are commonly discussed in the field of design but also a politics.” (Forlano 2017:20)
“Instead, by using the language of networks of human and nonhuman actors, socio-technical systems, or assemblages, it is possible to develop a more nuanced understanding of the relationships between technology and society.” (Forlano 2017:20)
“At the same time, there is a large and growing body of scholarship on the environment that has contributed to theories of the posthuman.” (Forlano 2017:20)
“in the field of sustainable design, they are still not widely used.” (Forlano 2017:21)
“according to ANT, it is nonhumans and their specific relationships to humans that make up the ‘social’” (Forlano 2017:21)
“The third mode, critical posthumanism—advocated by Braidotti—is based on the tradition of anti-humanism, which is built upon post-structuralism, feminism, and post-colonial theory. Critical posthumanism takes racism, sexism, colonialism, classism, and other -isms seriously as part of the history and present conditions that have been created by Western Enlightenment. It also acknowledges connections between humans and the environment.” (Forlano 2017:22)
“As notions of the anthropocene—the proposed geologic era in which the human impact on the earth becomes significant and dominant—have captured our attention, it is clear that talking about design is also about the state of the planet and the impact of climate change. Design “makes the human” but it also “engineers inequalities” such that “design itself needs to be redesigned.” 8” (Forlano 2017:25)
""We must transcend the limitations of human-centered design.” 9” (Forlano 2017:26)
“Faste recommends speculative futures and histories, simulations, and futures scenarios as ways of considering the social, political, environmental, and ethical dimensions of intelligent systems, and encourages design practices that acknowledge the “reciprocal relationship that values intelligent systems as partners."" (Forlano 2017:26)
“ow can we expand our purview beyond the user and their problems? How can we help our audience make sense of what is new? How do we create something for people who don’t yet have a need to find? How do we build empathy for every participant in a complex system? 9” (Forlano 2017:26)
“Thomas Wendt, on the other hand, comes at the question of decentering the human from a more ecological perspective, focusing on the inherent unsustainability of human-centered design in capitalist society.” (Forlano 2017:26)
“From the perspective of critical race studies, it is not productive to speak of the posthuman when so many people—non-white, less privileged/ powerful, female, older, indigenous, people with disabilities, and so on—have not been historically included in the category of the human in the first place.” (Forlano 2017:28)
“Thus, rather than focusing on the agency of things and the nonhuman, the panel addressed the ways things are always entangled with bodies and subjectivities.” (Forlano 2017:28)
“Drawing on anthropological research, she illustrates the ways that Western, European values and categories are often used in order to describe and understand people constructed as “others,” rather than integrating their own self-definitions. Furthermore, these narratives often present a hierarchy in which the universal, rational, scientific, and civilized—understood as “European”—occupies a dominant position as compared to the local, embodied, subjective, and primitive—understood as “indigenous."" (Forlano 2017:28)
“At the same time, these particular critiques of OOO and decentering the human seem to have much in common with feminist new materialism, in that they aim not to essentialize distinct categories, but rather to complicate them and illustrate the ways the human and nonhuman, nature and culture are mutually co-constitutive. Posthuman design might take up these critiques seriously in order to make way for a truly decolonized design practice.” (Forlano 2017:29)
“With new epistemologies and ontologies to help make sense of the current conditions, it is likely that design practices will also need to evolve in order to stay relevant and to cope with new problems and questions.” (Forlano 2017:29)