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Being self-centred to decenter the self? Adopting a non-human perspective as a human? Using fixed entities to think relationally?
Paradoxes, Tensions and Challenges in Decentering the Human
More-Than-Human-Design (MTHD) has gained traction in HCI, as exemplified by a growing body of workshops and publications. As this nascent field progresses, unresolved conceptual and practical methodological challenges, paradoxes and tensions continue to surface. It is time for MTHD researchers to critically revisit underlying assumptions, concepts and processes that shape their work.
We invite researchers to contribute theoretical reflections on anthropocentrism as well as insights into the tensions they encounter in their practical MTHD processes. During the workshop at DIS 2025, we will not only analyze and map the tensions but also explore ways to navigate and integrate them within MTHD. For instance, could the challenge of adopting the non-human perspective as a human be addressed by altering the human body – by becoming a non-human? Might meditation help counteract the human tendency to take control, fostering instead a sense of “response-ability” that allows space for others to act?
Examples of theoretical tensions to discuss:
• Is MTH a corrective or extension of Humanist tenets, rather than their antithesis?
•Is the critical stance toward human exceptionalism/egoism more about human than the non-human?
•Is assigning agency, rights and justice to the non-human or recognizing multiple intelligences and knowledges not a striving to be better humans?
• If “embodied anthropocentrism” is inescapable and a good fit to posthumanist theories:
how might the notion and the goal of decentering human be delimited, qualified or clarified?
which helpful concepts might be introduced to guide the discourse?
how to avoid unintentional self-deception/blind spots?
Examples of practical tensions to discuss:
• Many MTHD researchers have genuine concerns about the more-than-human world: how to care for the non-human which might be indifferent to human care?
• Technological artefacts are developed to preserve non-humans and ecosystems: how to avoid dangerous dependencies due to solutionism?
• Humans are material-discursive and physical-social beings: how to engage with non-humans without imposing our languages and discourses? How to make sense of non-humans without anthropomorphizing them?
• Many MTHD methods rely heavily on bodily, sensorial, and explorative forms of knowing: are these methods – that are bound to the human body – contradictory to the more-than-human perspectives? Or/and are they the key to resolve the tensions?
• Humans tend to form categories when thinking: how to handle ‘entanglement’, ‘relational ontology’ and complexity in general without falling back to categorization? Is it possible?
Join the workshop!
To participate, submit an abstract of 300 to 500 words + a bio of 150-300 words to rosan.chow@oth-regensburg.de with email heading “DIS Workshop Tensions in MTHD” until 13.06.2025. Abstracts should connect at least one of the questions above to your research and/or design work. Submissions will be reviewed based on their quality, novelty, and relevance to the workshop's topics, taking diversity into concern.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent out at the latest 20.06.2025. Abstracts will be made available on the workshop page upon acceptance.
Read the full call below:
dis25workshop-Paradoxes, Tensions and Challenges in Decentering the Human.pdfOrganisers
OTH Regensburg, Faculty of Architecture, Regensburg, Germany.
University of Siegen, Ubiquitous Design / Experience & Interaction, Siegen, Germany.
judith.doerrenbaecher@uni-siegen.de
Stockholm University, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences Stockholm, Sweden.
anton.poikolainenrosen@dsv.su.se
Eindhoven University of Technology, Industrial Design, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
University of Siegen, Ubiquitous Design / Experience & Interaction, Siegen, Germany
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