Conference Agenda

When scientists embrace a different paradigm, this naturally leads to a shift in aca-demic behavior. While the importance and necessity of the pluriversal design framework are evident, understanding how this paradigm influences academic conduct is less clear. Through a systematic literature review of 103 academic papers on the pluriversal approach, it is deducted what it is that researchers do or suggest to do when shaping their research and design practice through the pluriversal de-sign paradigm. In this study, the pluriversal design paradigm is distilled into a set of foundational prerequisites and design principles. These design principles can be applied by both scholars and practitioners across various design contexts. Since be-havior and ethics are intertwined, this study also delves into the ethical considera-tions of pluriversal design.

In the realm of design, research publication undergoes a transformative shift in evaluation and emerging forms that prompt investigation into the distortive impact of the current assessment framework on publication diversity. The complexity of assessing research quality within institutional frameworks and career metrics hinders innovation, and globally, debates on impact factors drive a shift to qualitative, responsible evaluation. The article explores how collaborative methodologies enable new assessment practices for design communities in the Global South, challenging Western-centric peer-review norms to adopt a more pluriversal perspective. It includes an introduction problematising the status of publication assessment in the general scientific domain. The paradigm of pluriversality is then introduced as a background framework to discuss and nurture new opportunities in the assessment of scientific research and publication in the design field and adopted as a reference in two proposals, shown in the case studies.

Design has been instrumental in preserving the coloniality of making – a set of ideological, cultural, political, market and relational processes that operate to identify, categorise and hierarchise different making practices that benefit the metropolises at globalised production structures. This paper presents a theoretical examination of the coloniality of making based on the anticolonial scholarship of the Design & Oppression Network. The examination proceeds with three prospective studies to overcome this form of coloniality in fashion, interaction, and graphic design. The first part of each study denounces how design reproduces the hierarchy between intellectual and manual labour and justifies class, gender, race, technology, international geopolitics and further oppressive hierarchies. The second part announces the possibilities for reconnecting manual and intellectual labour while designing alter/native ways of being and living together.

This essay posits that a Place-Based approach is the prerequisite for fostering fruitful and mutually-respectful form of social design in the emerging paradigm of pluriversality – contextualized within the contemporary global order. The concept of "Place" serves as the nexus between the Local and the Global: it's where intermediaries reside, translation unfolds, and power dynamics intensify. By examining four historical phases from the pre-colonial period through post-modernity, this work looks into the evolution of the concept of Place and its role in the construction of power. This discussion encourages designers to ground themselves in the local, embedded within communities, while connecting with the global, recognizing and navigating inherent conflicts. From grassroots organizing to trans-local collaborations, place-based design embraces pluriversality across various dimensions, interweaving tales of revolution and innovation. The paper highlights the potential of indigenous philosophy as theoretical frameworks to nurture global alliances in design practices, aimed at societal transformation.