Birds as Designers and Insects as Clients, or Limits to Participation in Participatory Creativity

• In Event: Organisms and Us in Dialogue

Abstract

This paper considers maximal inclusivity in participatory design, seeking to extend participation beyond humans. The central hypothesis of this work is that more inclusive participation can lead to advances in design outcomes in the context of novel ecosystems and rapid ecosystem change that is characterised by such events as species extinction, habit loss and climate change. It also acknowledges that the expansion of participation has limits, conceptual, pragmatic and political, among others. Any practical engagement with this hypothesis requires a specification of all possible participations and a reappraisal of conceptual instruments of participatory design. This reappraisal needs to consider goals of participatory design, its values, its methods and its tools. This paper seeks to extend ideas of communicative and participatory democracies towards nonhuman biota and abiotic environments. This paper engages with this theoretical trial though a practical example derived from an ongoing ecosystem-restoration project. Amongst other measures, this project proposes to introduce artificial, prosthetic replacements for absent or disappearing habitat structures, such as large old trees. Ecological research demonstrates that such prosthetic additions are already or will soon be unavoidable in many types of global habitats. The paper uses this ongoing work to construct thought experiments that combine existing and planned technical implementations with imagined or prototyped possibilities. Analysis of these experiments results in stakeholder-centred narratives that can critique existing and imagine possible future relationships within cultures and ecologies. This work contributes to STS research by systematising its understanding of participation and providing tangible cases for critique and alternative interpretations.

Author

• Stanislav Roudavski, The University of Melbourne