otr(x)s iN–SiTU: Mattering Eco-Spatial Politics and the Making of Earth-Beings

Design has only recently begun to take an interest in what the non-human means both in the context of design, and what is most popularly called, The Anthropocene. Using an

emerging design approach, Transition Design, I use mapping tools and exercises not as a tool for collaboration but as a tool for reflexive inquiry - a tool with which to interrogate my own biases, ways of thinking and knowing. Taking (obvious) hints from Audre Lorde’s The Master s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s house – I dig my heels deeply into they “why” of how things are. Asking who is in charge of knowledge production and how that production of knowledge can be harmfully mediated via biased technologies and ways of seeing. As we see though, through an applied analysis, Transition Design still

struggles to maintain the radical views it includes in its curriculum. In a world where the prison-industrial complex and environmental injustice intersect deeply, we can only

begin to see how these two seemingly disparate areas of inquiry can be brought to bear through a new-materialist non-human perspective. I argue that if design and designers

want to engage in meaningful analysis of wicked problems of this epoch, then non-human centered approaches will be our saving grace. The emergence and realization of the

importance of land, situated bodies, and ecosystems asks designers to engage with more materially situated landscapes. Literally. Engaging in and enacting Non-Human discourses in our work is imperative for planetary liberation and justice of all species-beings.