Local Cultures – Global Spaces

Abstract

The publication of Arturo Escobar’s 2018 Designs for Pluriverse marks a decisive moment for design disciplines. Already since 2010, architecture schools in the Global North have opened a critical space for reimagining the role and positionality of architects within a more expansive understanding of stakeholders in the production of space, including non-human agents. By bringing together critical discourses in architecture, philosophy, and cultural studies, this new mode of thinking about space-making practices situates the land, the living beings, and the “cultural community” on a continuum. Furthermore, heightened social and political awareness on the ambiguities of cultural representations and the identity struggles of indigenous communities has added yet another layer to the complexities of design in the context of racialized groups. Current discussions not only demand a recognition of loss of cultural identity among indigenous people, but also the degradation of the “natural” habitat that supports the condition of possibility for certain type of dwelling. This paper focuses on South Arnhem Land, Australia, exploring architectural schemes for a pluriversal landscape for Yokngu people. Drawing on Philippe Descola’s anthropological work on Australian First Nations and Bruno Latour’s notion of Terrestrial, this paper offers a window onto the predicaments of decolonial design.