Designs for the Pluriverse

Summary

Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar argues that design makes worlds, and most of it now makes capitalist ones. His alternative, ‘autonomous design’, is collaborative and rooted in place, grounded in the interdependence of all beings and in the decolonial struggles of Indigenous and Afro-descended communities in Latin America. Designing differently, he suggests, can help make fairer, more sustainable societies.

Rationale

His work sits behind two of our glossary entries. Its starting point, that what we build shapes who we become, runs through our account of how dispositions form.