Characterising Futuring Strategies for Biodiverse Speculative Design and Systems Design

Abstract

In this paper, it is proposed that new tools and techniques for speculative design practice are needed to guarantee the biodiversity of global systems, and that they can be based in the non-normative strategies of futuring that exist within culturally diverse and ecologically-engaged communities. Furthermore, these tools and techniques can be used to build an ecology-centred practice of speculative design for community action. Taking a research through design approach that draws on critical theories of ecosophy, queer ecology and queer futures, the presented research, as a part of an ongoing doctoral work, aims to characterise the futuring strategies of such communities through participant and desk-based qualitative research. Preliminary reflections are that the communitarian and ecological future-making strategies described in theory are present in material and imaginative practices. Such strategies are multi-faceted and richly contextual and resonate across theoretical, practical and speculative domains. Moreover, these approaches possess common and recurring aspects of care-taking, non-linear temporality, relationality, storytelling, and playfulness.