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Paper Short Abstract:

The paper explores possibilities in the anthropology of technics and technodiversity to expand design anthropology toward less anthropocentric futures. It examines what design anthropology could learn from fermentation processes to contribute to the growth of alternative worlds.

Paper Abstract:

The paper explores possibilities in the anthropology of technics and technodiversity, expanding design anthropology towards less anthropocentric futures. It examines what design anthropology could learn from fermentation processes to contribute to the growth of alternative worlds. Drawing on perspectives from technodiversity (CATT, 2022; Hui, 2019), cosmotechnics (Hui, 2016) and Pluriversal Design (Escobar, 2018) the paper explores how the anthropology of technics could stretch design anthropology towards a less anthropocentric practice, thereby contributing to more plural and sustainable worlds. Based on the ethnographic experience of 'growing materials' in Chile—using fermentation processes to create biomaterials—I investigate how the co-activity between microorganisms, humans, and the territory enriches critical views on design anthropology from the vernacular perspectives of care, contributing to the growth of other possible future worlds. The paper focuses on methodological reflections using the Chaîne opératoire in more-than-human practices, theoretical considerations entangling views on technodiversity, pluriverse, cosmotechnics, and design anthropology, and analytical perspectives from ethnographic work. It addresses how in fermentation processes and material growth, technical activities are also activities of care, proposing that design anthropology could embrace more-than-human care as a technical structure in its methods and perspective to contribute towards less anthropocentric and more sustainable futures.