Making Sense and Meaning¶
Do you want us to learn what you are telling us?” I hesitated a moment, but he rushed on with, “Or is it all a sort of example, an illustration of something else?” “Yes, indeed!”.
To design for today’s world is to design in the context of permanent uncertainty. Open to be constantly humbled by the events that are rushing and overflowing everywhere, expanding and crushing at different time scales. What I intend to introduce is: all aspects of existence are interconnected and designers should serve the futures of the world by remaining grounded in the construction of the present moment and their local realities.
I aim to discuss why to make sense and meaningful contributions, designers must remain aware of and informed by the past, assuring that participants/communities get to transmit their “torch” into that design form (whatever it is) in ways that respect, honor and fulfill their true needs and wants. In short “to ensure that local people are heard and their long-term wellbeing is valued over short-term profit”(1). This principle is simple but historically complex: respect life and culture. Only by integrating a multitude of knowledge/perspectives can designers craft suitable presents for this century’s big challenges and heal the imagination of Futures.
To better understand how that can come to fruition, and how I can be an active member of this transition, I will attempt to answer the following questions based on “Making Sense and Meaning” lectures and debates, and on the class readings.
- What are extraction systems?
- What are the roots of extraction systems?
- How are these systems affecting life?
- How design can reconfigure systems of extraction?
- With what tools are we building the present and future?
- Who has access to today’s tools?
- Which worlds can we design with the power of today’s tools?
- Who gets to be a designer of worlds and futures? (or who do we see as designers)
- How can we design the transition toward these worlds?
1 - What are systems of extraction?
I will start by exemplifying what we discussed as systems of extraction followed by a short take on the concept. Examples: fossil fuel industry, mining, transatlantic slave trade, digital slavery, intense agriculture, intense fishing, ecological imperialism, cultural appropriation, unpaid care, and domestic work, etc. Attached to these examples there is a strong feeling of who and what is being targeted by this system: nature, the poor, women, indigenous and people of color. Systems of extraction exhaust some to add value to others. A system of extraction is a parasitic relationship, a very unbalanced exchange, where one side is stripped so the other side can overflow with resources for its own and individual profit. For these systems to function, the exploited must be cared for just enough to keep sustaining the exploiters.
2 - What are the roots of the systems of extraction?
Colonization.
In other words, the homogenization of everything according to the European imagination and stories. The moment in which we stand was designed through several decision-making processes highly influenced by a specific story. The story we are currently living says the following: Anthropocene. We are reshaping life as we know it, with serious consequences for everything, as we irreversibly damage the climate and live in an ecological emergency state. Our naming of the era as Anthropocene is rooted in a mindset doomed to create dissociation and release of responsibility - “the nature of mankind”, it is what it is - rather than saying this is the Capitalocene - a human construction that can be deconstructed -. An era made from improving the design of life’s exploitation, which is a web of interactions woven from feudalism, eco-apartheid, slavery, and capitalism. The subliminal message in these rooted interactions and processes is: “the promise of wealth through conquest.” Capitalism is a physical manifestation of this belief system, penetrating the web of life through violent and exploitative ways.
3 - How are these systems affecting life?
“Production crashed, and investors found greater returns from large-scale slave-planted sugar whose processing was fueled by forests in the New World. Europe’s wealthy ate the sugar, and sugar ate the island.”
Our reality is entangled and non-linear generating intricate and resilient systems. However, the thirst to sustain growth through linear thinking without regard for the entangled world destroys our natural systems. Capitalism is 500 years old. Europe was draining its resources. Because it could no longer survive on its ruined land it moved on to conquering other lands by force. The history we are telling leaves out the acknowledgment of the people native to the lands. The resources of the South Global became an excuse and gateway for colonial expansion and justification. In these cases, the (forced) sharing of local knowledge with outsiders was the very thing that made colonization successful. Colonizers relied upon the knowledge and labor of the native peoples to successfully colonize their lands. This pattern of destroying ecosystems and communities in the name of growth and progress is related to the concept of ecological imperialism, something we continue to see today. Endless growth is not sustainable in a world of finite resources. We must nurture the resilience of our communities and ecosystems rather than crushing them in the name of expansion and accumulation.
4 - How design can reconfigure systems of extraction?
In our most recent conversation, Sudebi said: “The biggest obstacle to documentation is the colonization of imagination.” I agree with this statement, and I have an example that illustrates this. Kianda is an Angolan water mythological creature. This creature was never described or seen as half woman and half fish, like the Geek mermaid myths. However, after colonization by the Portuguese, Kianda is now often seen as a mermaid. This phenomenon happens constantly across different colonized cultures. I believe it is possible to redesign these tendencies by intentionally creating spaces for people to tell their stories on their terms. Ultimately, “we should aim not only to incorporate fairness and dignity into design practices but to design fairness and dignity itself”, also a thought Sudebi shared with the class. Many of our current problems are systemic and invisible, perpetuating oppression. We must embrace participatory design to uncover and dismantle them. This requires a form of Metafacilitation, which involves facilitating the facilitation to uncover these systems of oppression. The reclaiming of traditional ways of life and sacred millet crops by Zimbabwean communities (2) is a fantastic example of how decolonization can be put into action. It is possible to resist and challenge the damaging effects of colonization on storytelling, mythmaking, and other aspects of culture.
5 - With what tools are we building the present and future?
“Money is the most successful story ever invented and told by humans, because it is the only story that everybody believes in. Not everybody believes in God, human rights or nationalism, but everybody believes in money, in the dollar bill.” - Yuval Noah
There are many ways to approach the concept of “tools,” which can be seen as prosthetics that aid living beings. Tools can take various forms, from our voices, country borderlines, drugs, and books to artificial intelligence, laser cutters, or even something such as a data retrieval system. However, out of all the tools available, storytelling is arguably the most impactful. When a large number of people believe in a story, it creates a network of collaborators and new tools are created to aid their story. This level of collaboration is uniquely human; we trust people we don’t know simply because they share our beliefs. Individually we are an animal like any other, but collectively we rule the world.
6 - Who has access to today’s tools?
“We are not limited by the resources but our imagination” - Beno Juarez
What happens when even our imagination and stories have been colonized? The tools will only reflect those human beliefs and narratives. Local people are forced to let go of their traditional ways to move on to what is seen as proper by the colonizer, an outsider trying to govern life to make a profit. With emerging tools like ChatGPT, we can already see tendencies of benefiting some versus others. In a class debate, Amanda mentioned that she uses an American VPN and when the rest of us were having trouble accessing ChatGPT, she could enter the platform with no delay. Once we start thinking of who is training the algorithms things like Amazon’s mechanical turkers pop up. I am more concerned about the fact that not everyone has access to these tools or the ability to use them. As a result, there are already emerging worlds and futures being designed without the input of certain communities and perspectives. Let’s take the example of open-source data. Cities like Barcelona have open data on air pollution, traffic, parking spots, and urban biodiversity even though it is open it is not accessible to most people to transform that data into information, so the individuals or entities able to use that information are being privileged. Data, too, has no perfect way of retrieving it, and is not immune to bias, whether due to human error or the limitations of human-made tools.
7 - Which worlds can we design with the power of today’s tools?
During the talks “Making Sense and Meaning” we were collectively imagining these worlds and it lead to amazing insights into different approaches to design with and for communities. For this question, I can only conclude that I cannot answer this alone, if I did I would be lacking in such a deep way because I believe we can only design futures collectively. I could say that I do see a future where we embrace different cultures, do not take more than we give or need, co-live harmoniously with other beings, and where technology can be used carefully and intentionally. This to say that the possibilities of what we can design with today’s tools are only limited by our imagination and willingness to work together towards a shared vision óf a better future.
8 - Who gets to be a designer of worlds and futures? (or who do we see as designers)
Those with the power to shape the stories that people believe in also have access to the most powerful tools. However, BIPOC people and marginalized folks keep on designing the most incredible solutions from their localized knowledge and materials. The design revolution is continuously happening all around us by people that do not even recognize such things as design. By recognizing the value of indigenous and native design thinking, we can broaden our understanding of what design is and where it comes from. Once again “we are not limited by resources but by our imagination”. By cultivating the imagination of FutureS, we can work towards realities that include non-formal designers and prioritize mutual aid and cooperation.
9 - How can we design the transition towards these worlds?
I believe many of us are already engaging in this transition. How could I say otherwise after listening to Tomas Diez, Frederick van Amstel, Beno Juarez, Sudebi Thakurata, and Felencia Hutabarat. Through these discussions and further readings, I see how the world around us is based on someone else’s vision of the future, fiction. While some advocate for a world where individuals use local resources to create their products, others aim to achieve riches through fast fashion business models. However, it’s essential to recognize that each approach has significant implications for our collective future, and the choices we make today will shape the world we live in for years to come. I see the way forward through Sankofa and mutual aid, where we work collaboratively to reclaim what has been lost. When I asked Beno how we could give back to indigenous and marginalized people from whose teachings we learn about building community, circularity, spiral, and regenerative practices, his simple yet profound response was to “learn their language.” This highlights the importance of learning to speak the language of those who’ve never seen themselves as something apart from Nature and are the very embodiment of interconnectedness. They do not use the same westernized and intellectual vocabulary nor do they have to, we should learn with their ways. As we join the fight towards a more conscious future I can’t help but be deeply humbled by the tacit knowledge of everyone around me and design is just that: the physical manifestation of the culture, stories, and knowledge of the living things on this planet.