Collective wondering: Enabling productive uncertainty in agroecological codesign
Published in: CoDesign, International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts
Special issue Designing for Reimagined Communities, edited by Brian Dixon and Lynn Sayers McHattie.
This paper explores the transformative relations of unknowable
possibility in three urban communities which upcycle human
waste. Working with communities – human and nonhuman – is
approached by applying the dynamic model of collective wondering
conceived as (i) provisional proposition, (ii) responsiveness to
difference, and (iii) affirmation in/of uncertainty. The communities
act in concert with people, microbes, and earthworms to address
unsustainable food systems. Their profoundly self-implicating
engagement on the material, social and cultural level stems from
a pendulation between actionable immersion (wondering at) and
perspectival detachment (wondering about). Community – understood
as togetherness in wondering – becomes a conduit for
imaginative, counter-intuitive thinking, and doing that can diversify
existent, dominant, and hegemonic perspectives. Three agroecological
cases illustrate how cultivating a rich, interactive context for
exchanging or moving positions give birth to a plurality of perspectives,
human and nonhuman, on the world. Since physical, social,
and cultural positions in people and groups are never fully determined,
codesign that provides ample possibility for repositioning –
including unsettling bathroom routines, group debates, compost
care, and agroecological tinkering – is crucial for opening perspectives
and influencing how people act in close relation with unknowable
otherness.
Keywords: Agroecological exploration; community; ferment; human waste; situational analysis; social creativity.
Acknowledgements:: Heartfelt thanks to Sarah Daher, Benson Law, Britta Boyer, Noel Benson, Timothy Jachna, Gerhard Bruyns, Nathan Felde,
Vlad Glăveanu, Tang ManYi and the three anonymous reviewers for contributing generously to this paper.
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