Entangled Methodologies for Participatory Multispecies Futures
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The Anthropocene is most known for its impact on biodiversity loss; however, it’s also an era that negatively impacts and excludes the most marginalized communities. This disconnect is particularly evident and further exacerbated in contexts like Koshi Tappu, Nepal, fraught with increasing daily human-wildlife conflict as a result of being home to over 80,000 people while situated directly adjacent to the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR). Also located in a sensitive geopolitical region next to the border of India, macroeconomics, political tumult, and ethnic conflicts further heighten these pressures and conflicts. My attempt through the DDes was to understand how the field of design, particularly multispecies design, could contribute to this contentious, conflicted context. The research objectives aimed to develop a multispecies design methodology that helps build understanding, foster empathetic relationships, and mitigate conflict between human and nonhuman stakeholders, particularly focused on conflict species and local communities living with them. Additionally, I aimed to contribute new case studies from the Global South and explore potential practice platforms through teaching and practice that could directly support and advance this work. The research revealed four key insights: firstly, that the methodology is a two phased process, that gives space to immerse in understanding, unpacking, and documenting the conflict space before moving to the solution space. Secondly, if we are to engage people, participatory design methods need to go hand-in-hand with multispecies design methods. Thirdly, to engage communities, each step of the process needs to include “learning” opportunities that unlock inherent learning potential in communities and landscapes. Fourthly, the methodology artifact is a library of tools designed to support facilitators, whether designers or educators, in engaging participants, whether students or communities, through a participatory multispecies design process. Finally, I feel that I’ve only scratched the surface of the enormous potential inherent in developing a Participatory Multispecies Learning Tool Library that operates as a support structure for engaging in Multispecies Conflicts worldwide.