Abstract
The Design Eurocentric legacy shaped its research practices based on separability and objectification. This paper seeks to reflect on the movement of experimenting and conceiving new methods as the beginning of major changes in the decolonizing design enterprise. The reflection stems from two main concepts: relationality and accountability. By going into the field, embodying other ontologies and epistemologies, I suggest that dismantling assumptions is an enriching and often painful process. It is by embracing uncomfortable positions and by unlearning that designers are able to reimagine design practices for decoloniality. This reflexive exercise is shaped as a conversation between my personal experiences – mainly in two distinct territories, Favela da Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro and the Janeraka Indigenous land, in the Mid Xingu River region – and academic theoretical learnings.
Keywords
Design; Indigenous; decolonial; research; positionality
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0049
Citation
Lima, J.(2021) Introducing Relationality to Design Research, in Leitão, R.M., Men, I., Noel, L-A., Lima, J., Meninato, T. (eds.), Pivot 2021: Dismantling/Reassembling, 22-23 July, Toronto, Canada. https://doi.org/10.21606/pluriversal.2021.0049
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Introducing Relationality to Design Research
The Design Eurocentric legacy shaped its research practices based on separability and objectification. This paper seeks to reflect on the movement of experimenting and conceiving new methods as the beginning of major changes in the decolonizing design enterprise. The reflection stems from two main concepts: relationality and accountability. By going into the field, embodying other ontologies and epistemologies, I suggest that dismantling assumptions is an enriching and often painful process. It is by embracing uncomfortable positions and by unlearning that designers are able to reimagine design practices for decoloniality. This reflexive exercise is shaped as a conversation between my personal experiences – mainly in two distinct territories, Favela da Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro and the Janeraka Indigenous land, in the Mid Xingu River region – and academic theoretical learnings.