More-than-Human Participatory Approaches for Design: Method and Function in Making Relations

More-than-human philosophical approaches, premised on relations that prioritise care, interdependence and flourishing, have become attractive to think with. Yet designers also seek to enact their convictions as method. As soon as theories of relationality are substantiated in concrete form, tensions accrue and issues of representation and participation come to the fore. This paper takes the idea of Connecting Beyond Participation to consider styles of more-than-human engagement, how they relate to purpose and what they show us about our (human) place(s) in the world. In the final analysis, the questions generated may be less about how ideas of the more-than-human are managed in these processes, and more about how these tools reveal the ecological challenges we live with. Participatory techniques reviewed include enacting other species; being-with non-humans; and appointing a body to represent rights-of-nature in decision-making, looked at through designers’ mission to sensitize humans and/or understand or represent other species.