Abstract
This paper employs environmental humanities theories through design, translating them into a more-than-human experiential pedagogy. Drawing on Haraway’s (2016) concept of humans as “humus” and Braidotti’s (2013) notion of the subject as embodied and embedded, it presents an approach that uses the human body to cultivate ecological literacy and make ecological relations tangible through personal involvement. In two public workshops, participants produced phosphate fertiliser from their urine, revealing connections between bodily and planetary metabolisms. This linked the biogeochemical flow of phosphorus within the Planetary Boundaries framework (Rockström et al., 2009) to everyday routines, reframing urine from taboo to resource. The experiments deepened awareness of human entanglement in ecological systems and demonstrated the practical implications of more-than-human design. Three interrelated learning dynamics emerged: embodied ecologies, aesthetic resonance, and planetary intimacies. The project shows design's role beyond the professional realm by following Fry's (2012) view that every-body is a designer.
Keywords
More-than-Human Design, Embodied Ecological Literacy, Posthuman Pedagogy, Planetary Intimacies
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1351
Citation
Weigand, I. (2026) Becoming humus: Embodied ecological literacy through designing, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1351
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Becoming humus: Embodied ecological literacy through designing
This paper employs environmental humanities theories through design, translating them into a more-than-human experiential pedagogy. Drawing on Haraway’s (2016) concept of humans as “humus” and Braidotti’s (2013) notion of the subject as embodied and embedded, it presents an approach that uses the human body to cultivate ecological literacy and make ecological relations tangible through personal involvement. In two public workshops, participants produced phosphate fertiliser from their urine, revealing connections between bodily and planetary metabolisms. This linked the biogeochemical flow of phosphorus within the Planetary Boundaries framework (Rockström et al., 2009) to everyday routines, reframing urine from taboo to resource. The experiments deepened awareness of human entanglement in ecological systems and demonstrated the practical implications of more-than-human design. Three interrelated learning dynamics emerged: embodied ecologies, aesthetic resonance, and planetary intimacies. The project shows design's role beyond the professional realm by following Fry's (2012) view that every-body is a designer.