Abstract
Designing and researching across multiple knowledge systems requires vigilant negotiation, reflexivity and care. These dynamics are heightened on the lands now called Australia, where settler-colonial researchers (such as the authors) engage with diverse Indigenous knowledge systems. We examine how our own ways of being and knowing come into relation with others, surfacing tensions that shape the role of pluriversal design within our situated practices. We critique reconciliation narratives that risk reaffirming colonial hierarchies by positioning reconciliation as a destination, or a reconciling between binaries of Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. We argue, instead, for embracing generative tensions as openings for dialogue. Drawing on two case studies engaging Indigenous perspectives within dominant Anglophone frameworks, we reflect on thresholds to knowledge and how practices at the cultural interface can be supported by pluriversal approaches. We offer relational and accountable insights for designers embedded in the constancy of onto-epistemic plurality.
Keywords
Pluriversality, reconciliation, onto-epistemological design, knowledges
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1584
Citation
Nolan, G., and St John, N. (2026) Beyond binaries of reconciliation: Working across knowledge systems at the cultural interface, 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.2026.1584
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Beyond binaries of reconciliation: Working across knowledge systems at the cultural interface
Designing and researching across multiple knowledge systems requires vigilant negotiation, reflexivity and care. These dynamics are heightened on the lands now called Australia, where settler-colonial researchers (such as the authors) engage with diverse Indigenous knowledge systems. We examine how our own ways of being and knowing come into relation with others, surfacing tensions that shape the role of pluriversal design within our situated practices. We critique reconciliation narratives that risk reaffirming colonial hierarchies by positioning reconciliation as a destination, or a reconciling between binaries of Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges. We argue, instead, for embracing generative tensions as openings for dialogue. Drawing on two case studies engaging Indigenous perspectives within dominant Anglophone frameworks, we reflect on thresholds to knowledge and how practices at the cultural interface can be supported by pluriversal approaches. We offer relational and accountable insights for designers embedded in the constancy of onto-epistemic plurality.