Governing with Nature : Applying More-than-Human Design to the Management of Shared Urban Green Space

Sacks, Justin and Coulton, Paul and Galabo, Rosendy (2022) Governing with Nature : Applying More-than-Human Design to the Management of Shared Urban Green Space. In: [ ] With Design : Reinventing Design Modes. Springer, Singapore. ISBN 9789811944710

Abstract

A commons refers to a shared resource that is governed by a community of people, in contrast with a resource managed by a private company or public agency. The commons literature offers robust and respected frameworks for understanding how a community manages a commons. However, decolonization critiques in the commons field identify the need to account for other ontologies when we think about what constitutes a community. A recurring theme, particularly in indigenous ontologies, is the location of humans as part of nature rather than separate from nature. What does it mean to govern a shared resource as a more-than-human community? The workshop will draw on real world scenarios about the management of urban green space. The aim of the workshop is to understand how people design governance rules for a shared resource like urban green space when asked to incorporate nonhuman species as equal actants. Workshop participants interested in the following topics will find this workshop helpful: emerging issues in codesign and participatory design research, design as political work that challenges mainstream capitalist economics, and exploring the role of nonhuman species in design. Participants do not need a background in any of these fields. The workshop will spend significant time in the first part of the workshop creating a shared grounding in theoretical issues regarding the commons. Workshop participants can therefore expect to gain an understanding of several emerging design research approaches, including the commons and more-than-human design.