Conference Agenda

This exploration aims to enhance the understanding of the pluriverse through a storytelling and experiential workshop. Over the last 10 years, the design field —and DRS in particular — has opened up to address the historic dominance of white European and North American men in design discourse and research. We have seen the emergence of multiple voices, perspectives, initiatives, concepts, and theories under the labels of decolonial, diverse, inclusive, pluriversal, multicultural, participatory, situated, and equitable, among others. However, sometimes such “plural” terms have been used interchangeably. 

We argue that each one of those terms is important, valid, and valuable in itself, representing different theories of change, specific objectives, strategies, and conceptual frameworks. Each emerging from different groups of people with particular histories. Placing them in the same box only limits their power to promote genuine and substantial transformation to design research and practice. Metaphorically, we can think of placing several dots of colored ink on a palette. These colorful ink dots can be used to paint any form we imagine.  However, if we mix the dots before we paint, all we have is grey or greyish brown. The goal of this exploration is to pay attention to the particular hue of pluriversality —so we can understand how it can be used in tandem with other transformative hues across multiple color schemes.