Critical futures studies has been a provocative field of inquiry across the globe. In particular, actors who have been excluded from participating in the co-creation of their own horizons are actively pursuing new approaches with a view to the South. Environmental and ethnocentric futures challenge the Cartesian separation of culture and nature. This is why a question about the humanitarian movement now has a momentum, a vital impetus. How might humanitarian praxis be reconfigured through the lens of mutual aid? Peoples around the world have maintained their biocultural heritage on the basis of the biological and cultural diversity of their territories. These regimes of knowledge and practice are linked to fresh design frameworks beyond 'design thinking'. Thus, design and autonomy must strengthen local and global capacities for collaboration, preparedness and resilience. We need to embrace diversity, the alternatives to hegemonic notions of design and technology. Design for technodiversity is still a space to be occupied by academia, international organisations, social movements and governments. The latter is an ongoing movement nourished by amateur designers and practitioners in rural and urban areas, with limited connections to international or even national research centres. It is time to generate open practices that relate multiple epistemologies, territorialities and temporalities to the right to research for plural futures.

Speaker

Juan David Reina-Rozo (Universidad Nacional de Colombia)

Consultant and researcher of the Research Group on Technologies and Innovation for Community Development of the National University of Colombia. He has dedicated his professional life to reflect and act around the relationship between technology and society, with some experiences in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Uganda, and Nepal. He develops collaborative Research-Creation processes with rural communities in the Caribbean and Pacific coast of Colombia. In addition to the academic and working world, he spends his time climbing and hiking in the Colombian páramos.

This event is the third public keynote of the "What's the Future of Humanitarian Design Symposium", a part of the The Future of Humanitarian Design project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.