"Looking at the history of design’s engagement with nature, we see that it includes attempts to compromise, to bridge the needs of the Earth with the needs of production and economics. However, typically these compromises have closed down learning about the natural world before they have had a chance to develop into “new relationships, languages and commensurate practices that will only arise slowly out of actual engagement and new ways of being present to and interacting with the [natural] world” (Jickling et al., 2018: 36). In order to uncover these new design practices, we need to allow ourselves the time and space to immerse in the grit of the natural world and to leave the ‘safety’ of some comfort zones in terms of how to know, be and relate. Changing design requires active and humble engagement with the natural world. We imagine a form of exploratory questioning that presumes no power and seeks no answers; looking only for relationships." - Kate, Louise, & Mathilda
Social Innovation and Biodiversity, or the Merit of Salamanders
Louise St. Pierre, September 10, 2019
Published in 2020 on the DESIS Network website
This short paper responds to the DESIS 2020 call to respond to planetary urgency. In particular, I affirm Ezio’s statement that design should be “giving voice to entities that, in themselves, are "voiceless": a river, an endangered species, an ecosystem.” As a designer who has been engaged in concerns for the environment since 1995, I know that biodiversity is critical.
We are learning that a world without biodiversity does not function; that no people can escape the devastation that will be wrought on a world without ecological diversity. “Biodiversity is just as important for the future of earth as climate change,” said Sir Robert Watson, chair of the Intergovernmental study by the United Nations (Vidal 2019).
In a recent lecture, David Abram estimated that in a world without biodiversity the human species would only survive for two generations (2017). This is despite all of our technologies for renewable power, manufacturing artificial proteins, cleaning air, desalinating water, and (yet-to-be-proven) carbon capture technologies. These technologies, it seems, would be inadequate to sustain life. Only ecosystems filled with diverse plants and animals can do that. Biodiversity gives us clean rivers, healthy food, and clean oxygenated air. In addition, there is something more complex, deep and spiritual at hand: Abram was also saying that human species would suffer from profound existential loneliness without the multitude of unseen lives sharing the earth with us, and that there is an implicit caring relationship between humans and other species, whether we are overtly aware of these relationships or not. Can we begin to prioritize these multiple relationships? Val Plumwood called these multiple centerings (2009); a worldview that acknowledges other species alongside humans. I wonder, what kind of social innovation might multiple centerings offer?
Robin Wall Kimmerer lives in close relationship with other species in her ecosystem. Kimmerer, a scientist and member of the Potawatomi Nation, writes of taking her flashlight out in the early spring’s rainy evenings to safeguard the migration of thousands of salamanders across roads in New England (2015). When she hears a car approaching, she rushes to carry salamanders from the roadway to safety. I don’t know much about salamanders, other than that they are soft-skinned amphibians that look like small lizards, but someone like Kimmerer knows them well. She lives with a deep, planet-centered awareness of the rights of other living creatures. What might the world look like if we all shared these views? How might this worldview inspire social innovation?
Social Innovation for Biodiversity would first and foremost invite the social friction that comes from accepting the needs of other beings, rather than (as enlightened Modernity would have it) brushing the salamanders under the road by building them a culvert, obscuring their needs from view and allowing the people to drive on, oblivious. Perhaps a series of evening ‘tent parties’, where neighbours halt traffic to watch the salamanders parade by? Maybe a salamander watch, where participants come out to count salamanders and a local café sponsors the picnic dinner? A flag crew that halts cars and salamanders alternately? These sorts of responses draw on the DESIS principles of relationality; designing to suit the specific context and to create relationships among communities. When community is known to be inclusive of all beings, whether salamanders, eagles, wombat or platypus, we can expand and grow our DESIS expertise. “With a turn to participation of and partnership with multiple species, the challenges and gifts of participation should be multiplied. (Fletcher et al 2019:201)”. This form of social innovation builds awareness of the complexities of local ecosystems, the power of biodiversity. It invites us to sit on the ground and be with the earth, learning about other forms of life. It invites widespread social change, and a change of heart.
This work is just beginning. It is, as Ezio says, “newer and in need of more discussion.” But anything that brings designers and people in closer touch with the needs of the planet is profoundly important. And urgent.
References
Abram, D. (2017). “Earth and Dark Wonder: Notes on Animism and Technology in an Age of Ecological Wipe-Out.” Public Lecture presented at the Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy, UBC, July 19, 2017.
Fletcher, K., St. Pierre, L., and Tham, M., eds. (2019). Design and Nature: A Partnership. London: Routledge
Kimmerer, R.W. (2015). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.
Plumwood, V. (2009). “Nature in the Active Voice.” In The Handbook of Contemporary Animism, edited by Graham Harvey, 441–53. Durham, UK: Acumen Publishing Ltd.
Vidal, J. (2019). “We Face A Crisis Bigger Than Climate Change, But We’re Not Talking About It.” HuffPost Canada. March 15, 2019.