Research database

One of the Principles for ecosystem restoration adopted by the UN Environment Program states that it should strive to integrate all types of knowledge – including, but not limited to, indigenous, traditional, local and scientific ways of knowing – and practices in order to achieve greater kinship with nature, cooperation and effectiveness. The research project “Dialoging Species - Designing Common Worlds through Ethnography”, in short DSooE (as Zoe, i.e. “life”, in Greek), develops a protocol for the design of technologies enabling various species to share habitats in non-competitive ways, thus allowing ecosystem preservation and restoration. Such protocol entails the integration of various types of knowledge through ethnographic research. DSooE engages with two critical questions: - Is it possible for humans to keep inhabiting the world they share with other species without harming them, but on the contrary, Thriving with them? - Is it possible to do it without giving up what has always characterized humans, namely the fact that they are a habitat changing and a technology equipped species? In order to provide an answer to these questions and consequently develop the protocol for more-than-human inclusive design, DSooE expands Social Studies of Science and Technology’s research practices, especially those concerned with the dialogue between design and social sciences. Therefore, a multi-sited and multi-species ethnographic fieldwork related to the understanding of how fish and wolves relate, adapt to or reject technologies designed with the aim of allowing them thriving will be conducted in combination with a case studies analysis of cutting-edge more-than-human design projects, ranging from engineering constructions to service design. The fieldwork looks at a fluvial laboratory and at alpine pasture livestock protection in two Italian areas. The case studies analysis considers how design is approaching more-than-human socialities, by visiting design studios around Europe. Building on the approaches that design and social sciences have developed to address more-than-human concerns, ethnography is the main way to develop these enquiries. It will be, as well, a methodological principle for the protocol for more-than-human inclusive design. Methodologically, field research with animals is oriented towards Tsing's model of “critical description”, the one with humans is framed around expert interviews. Through the fieldworks a total of 86 interviews, of formal and informal character, will be collected. A systematic comparison among the various aspects and domains addressed by the project will be carried throughout the project. The members of the team can count on a deep reciprocal understanding gained through years of co-teaching in the Master in Eco-Social Design of Unibz. This pioneering study is based on a novel methodological approach, able to deliver a new scalable framework relevant for environmental policies in Italy and EU.