CFP – Design Knowledge in the Era of the Environmental Collapse

18 Mar CFP – Design Knowledge in the Era of the Environmental Collapse

Themed Issue of She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation
Guest editors: Stanislav Roudavski and Paul Walker

Acute environmental crisis is the primary problem of the future. The pervasive exploitation of the environment leads to severe degradation of habitats unprecedented levels of animal suffering, mass species extinction, and the collapse of multiple ecosystems. Human activities expand beyond the safe operating space for planetary systems. Disregard for these boundaries poses global existential risks.

The challenge of addressing the environmental crisis requires innovative approaches that go beyond mitigation of harm. These approaches will have to produce novel techno-social orders able to emancipate all types of nonhuman life, including animals and plants. Beyond life, future societies will have to value the agency of abiotic environments. The resulting orders should and can take the form of shared, more-than-human cultures and practices. Who can specify and bring forth such unfamiliar futures?

This issue of She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation seeks to question the capacity of design to specify preferred future states in conditions of environmental collapse.

The full version of the call can be downloaded here.