Decolonizing design is a trendy perception frequently discussed in theory but seldom

ratified as practice. In Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence Escobar who seems
interested in post-colonist realities attempts to change this notion. My main argument in this piece is
that For so long, design researchers have been waiting for social researchers
to take heed of the ontological politics of designing. Arturo Escobar does so
but precisely to clear a space in global consumerist modernism for urgently
needed alternatives.

Designs for the Pluriverse is a heavy-hitting theoretical framework with

potential to inform the practice of the design scholar or professional in any
field, from planning or architecture to product design, engineering, and
beyond. The work makes sense of generations of decolonial scholarship,
pushing the reader towards understanding their design work as more
relational, long-term-oriented, and transformative than previously assumed.
In this impassioned call for design for the pluriverse, Arturo Escobar asks
how we might translate insights of a relational ontology into politics of
transformative change. He turns to the prospects of ‘transition,’ led by
autonomous communities and social movements in Latin America and the
global South. This remarkable book is a way forward for all who are yearning
for the radical remaking of design, as a contribution to decolonizing and
remaking worlds
Summary of Escobar’s article

In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice
aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply
attuned to justice and the Earth. Noting that most design—from consumer goods and digital
technologies to built environments—currently serves capitalist ends, Escobar argues for the
development of an “autonomous design” that eschews commercial and modernizing aims in favor of
more collaborative and placed-based approaches. Such design attends to questions of environment,
experience, and politics while focusing on the production of human experience based on the radical
interdependence of all beings. Mapping autonomous design’s principles to the history of decolonial
efforts of indigenous and Afro-descended people in Latin America, Escobar shows how refiguring
current design practices could lead to the creation of more just and sustainable social orders.

Escobar identifies and clarifies why universal abstractions and categorical dualities are
so problematic. In particular, Escobar argues that the notion of a “One-World World” of
the West is both built by and builds (i.e. reproduces) a particular way of being that he
terms as “ontological dualism” (81). Escobar contends that ever since the
Enlightenment, the Cartesian model has colonized modes of being along a hierarchy of
culture/nature—where a dynamic and universal (i.e. European) culture observes and
manipulates an inert nature (but not vice versa). The result is a distancing from the
Earth via notions of “self” and “other” with dangerous consequences. The failure of the
“civilizational model” (ix) of the West, Escobar contends, is evident through the onset of
ecological catastrophe.
Escobar, therefore, proposes an ontological shift away from Cartesian divisions. Escobar
stresses how this ontological shift needs to be relational (132). Escobar dismantles the
Cartesian approach to world design, criticizing Cartesian rationality and belief in an objective
external world as destroyers of communal and place-based forms of relating. He quotes Greene:
"Ecological civilisation is not something to be arrived at, but something ever to be created." Design
for a post-carbon world must breathe in the full richness and complexity of human life, a concept
which cannot be contained in the rigidity of most academic writing. A relational ontology,
Escobar contends, reorients the way humans interact with each other and the world—or,
along a multi-directional axis as opposed to a single, straight line.
Escobar also discusses how this reorientation can be achieved. Design, Escobar insists,
is the solution. Referencing Tony Fry, Escobar (117) argues that design can—and must—
shift culture from fundaments of the “Enlightenment” (i.e. manipulating “inert” material
through a vertical structure of “objective” and “expert” control) to fundaments of the
“Sustainment” (i.e. maintaining a “flourishing” and dynamic mesh of relations
comprised of ever-emergent ways of being through a horizontal plane of decision-
making). Chapters five and six are explicitly dedicated to parceling out the role of design
in both catalyzing (via Designs for Transitions) and maintaining (via Autonomous
Design) the pluriverse.
In his discussion of Autonomous Design, Escobar is careful to explicitly demarcate
“autonomy” in the contexts of Latin American, place-based activism and decolonial
struggles. Escobar makes it painstakingly clear that “autonomy,” in the way he is using
the term and in the contexts of Latin America, does not mean closed-borders (199).
Autonomous Design is therefore wholly distinct from the violent projects of nationalism
and ethnic essentialism at the heart of rising, Rightwing governments of the
contemporary West. Autonomous Design is not about separation but rather about
openness—about the possibility for emergent cultures and ontologies to flourish.
Autonomy, counter-intuitively, means plurality—and is fundamentally at odds with the
notion of a One-World World or other claims for a single, universal, essential, or
objective truth or culture. Autonomous Design, therefore, can both activate and
maintain the pluriverse.

While explicitly clear about the radical potential of Autonomous Design, Escobar falters
in his discussion of how designers can foster this transition. This shortcoming emerges
from Escobar’s reliance on “future logics”—a paradoxical choice considering his
previous critique of abstract, linear logics. Escobar does acknowledge this contradiction
(218-223), but leaves it unresolved. Escobar’s argument for the destruction of
ontological dualisms in favor of the interwoven and unpredictable intimacy of
relationality is therefore weakened because of his own reliance on temporal
abstractions/linear notions of futurity. Escobar’s discussion of Designs for Transitions
(chapter five) accepts a forward-looking orientation. This preoccupation with the future
as opposed to the here and now, is a distancing mechanism on par with ontological
dualisms. So how can the distancing logic embedded in Escobar’s proposed Designs for
Transitions be resolved? How can the distanced gaze of both Cartesian
dualities and futurisms be ruptured to achieve Autonomous Design?
By sidestepping his problematic reliance on abstract futurisms, Escobar leaves these
questions unanswered and the reader not fully satisfied. But this open-endedness is,
indeed, what Escobar is hoping to achieve (203). The onus is placed on the reader to
resist the “very seductive notion” (86) of a universal, unwavering truth and instead,
embrace the existence of an ever-emergent plurality of relations—or, to accept an
indeterminate mode of being and becoming. Escobar concludes his book with an
important yet somewhat unsatisfying call to action. In order to address the ecological
turmoil of today, humans must dispel held assumptions, dualities, and abstractions. The
ideas proposed in Designs for the Pluriverse highlight the need for Autonomous Design,
but fail to offer a way to get there. Escobar does not and, indeed, cannot prescribe the
exact contours or conditions for how this transition will (or should) occur.