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More-than-Human Participation (Review)

This note prepares materials for the review of more-than-human participation.

Cf.

Definitions

Agents

Who and how can participate. Human or nonhuman, living or nonliving, individual or collective.

Design

Framing of design as the key disciplines and site for conversations that and move from critique to action.

Escobar, Arturo. “Autonomous Design and the Emergent Transnational Critical Design Studies Field.” Strategic Design Research Journal 11, no. 2 (2018): 139–46. https://doi.org/10/ggnz7m.

Escobar, Arturo. “Designing as a Futural Praxis for the Healing of the Web of Life.” In Design in Crisis: New Worlds, Philosophies and Practices, edited by Tony Fry and Adam Nocek, 25–42. Oxford: Taylor & Francis, 2020.

Escobar, Arturo. “Reframing Civilization(s): From Critique to Transitions.” ARQ (Santiago), no. 111 (2022): 24–41. https://doi.org/10/g84hrv.

Participation

Decisions

More-than-human participation

  • environmental sustainability and justice
  • relational and agential characteristics of technical objects

Aspirations

  • evidence driven
  • real-world impact
  • justice
  • thriving

Inclusions and Exclusions

Roudavski, Stanislav. “The Ladder of More-than-Human Participation: A Framework for Inclusive Design.” Cultural Science 14, no. 1 (2024): 110–19. https://doi.org/10/g8nn27.

Cf. Ladder

Refer to the ladder and only include the rungs with the direct path towards commoning. Include approaches that aim to empower the decision-making by nonhuman beings. Mention and briefly discus but exclude artistic, evocative, metaphorical, critical and other approaches that fail to produce impact or do not empower nonhuman participants.

  • evidence-based approaches
  • practice and action
  • ethical, justice-related and political considerations

Mention but exclude for the purposes of this review:

  • nonliving things as agents, unless relevant in terms of distributed hybrid systems such as ecosystems
  • Indigenous and traditional knowledge
  • French and continental philosophy
  • metaphorical and symbolic determinations such as social relationships between inanimate objects, etc.

Benefits

  • fairness
  • access to nonhuman expertise and innovation
  • sustainability, biodiversity, health, resilience

Challenges

  • communication
  • expensiveness
  • time-consuming
  • knowledge and skills
  • ethics
  • power dynamics
  • cultural acceptance

Practical examples

Create a grouping or a table of examples of more-than-human participation in design.

  • by place
  • by agents
  • by degree of participation
  • by impact

Approaches and Methods of More-than-Human Participatory Design

List defined and justified reserach methods with specific advantages and limitations. This is likely a gap, a possibility to cross-map existing methods and key questions.

  • personas
  • decentring
  • speculative design
  • hypotheticals

Review Methods

Cf. Review

  • Scoping or narrative review. Options: use established dimensions or allow topics/themes to emerge from literature.
  • Qualitative mapping
  • Kew unanswered questions, see Unanswered Questions
  • Manifesto Manifesto

Precedents and Fields

  • HIC, animal-computer interaction
  • geography, more-than-human geography, animal geography
  • more-than-human anthropology, multispecies ethnography
  • new materialism, posthumanism, object-oriented ontology
  • Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous design

The understanding of the need to move beyond human-centred design.

Coulton, Paul, and Joseph Galen Lindley. “More-Than Human Centred Design: Considering Other Things.” The Design Journal 22, no. 4 (2019): 463–81. https://doi.org/10/ggkjk4.

Giaccardi, Elisa, and Johan Redström. “Technology and More-Than-Human Design.” Design Issues 36, no. 4 (2020): 33–44. https://doi.org/10/gh6rvm.

References

Agenda and Research Questions

Sheikh, Hira, Peta Mitchell, and Marcus Foth. “More-Than-Human Smart Urban Governance: A Research Agenda.” Digital Geography and Society 4 (2023): 100045. https://doi.org/10/gscb6b.

Existing Reviews on the Topic (broadly taken)

Reviews

Coghlan, Simon, and Adam P. A. Cardilini. “A Critical Review of the Compassionate Conservation Debate.” Conservation Biology 36, no. 1 (2022): e13760. https://doi.org/10/gj97xb.

Coskun, Aykut, Nazli Cila, Iohanna Nicenboim, Christopher Frauenberger, Ron Wakkary, Marc Hassenzahl, Clara Mancini, Elisa Giaccardi, and Laura Forlano. “More-Than-Human Concepts, Methodologies, and Practices in HCI.” In Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–5. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2022. https://doi.org/10/g8wm4d.

Eriksson, Eva, Daisy Yoo, Tilde Bekker, and Elisabet M. Nilsson. “More-than-Human Perspectives in Human-Computer Interaction Research: A Scoping Review.” In Proceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 1–18. NordiCHI ’24. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2024. https://doi.org/10/g8kv92.

Hernandez-Santin, Cristina, Marco Amati, Sarah Bekessy, and Cheryl Desha. “A Review of Existing Ecological Design Frameworks Enabling Biodiversity Inclusive Design.” Urban Science 6, no. 4 (2022): 95. https://doi.org/10/jsxw.

Matthews, Ben, Skye Doherty, Jane Johnston, and Marcus Foth. “The Publics of Design: Challenges for Design Research and Practice.” Design Studies 80 (2022): 101106. https://doi.org/10/g8r8zk.

Ogden, Laura A., Billy Hall, and Kimiko Tanita. “Animals, Plants, People, and Things: A Review of Multispecies Ethnography.” Environment and Society 4, no. 1 (2013): 5–24. https://doi.org/10/gh7b3k.

Prebble, Sarah, Jessica McLean, and Donna Houston. “Smart Urban Forests: An Overview of More-Than-Human and More-Than-Real Urban Forest Management in Australian Cities.” Digital Geography and Society 2 (2021): 100013. https://doi.org/10/gj4mrj.

Ribeiro, Paulo Jorge Gomes, and Luís António Pena Jardim Gonçalves. “Urban Resilience: A Conceptual Framework.” Sustainable Cities and Society 50 (2019): 101625. https://doi.org/10/ghmfms.

Shachat, Madeleine Eve. “Nonhumans as Stakeholders: A Literature Review.” Master Thesis, Jyväskylä University, 2024.

Syal, Sita M., and Julia Kramer. “Design and Justice: A Scoping Review in Engineering Design.” Journal of Mechanical Design 147, no. 051404 (2024). https://doi.org/10/g84hrt.

Vacanti, Annapaola, Francesco Burlando, Isabella Nevoso, and Massimo Menichinelli. “The More-Than-Human Trend in Design Research: A Literature Review.” In Disrupting Geographies in the Design World: Proceedings of the 8th International Forum of Design as a Process, edited by Erik Ciravenga, Elena Formia, Valentina Giafrate, Andreas Sicklinger, and Michele Zannoni, 80–89. Bologna: Università di Bologna, 2023. https://doi.org/10/g8r87w.

Evidence and Gap Mapping

James, Katy L., Nicola P. Randall, and Neal R. Haddaway. “A Methodology for Systematic Mapping in Environmental Sciences.” Environmental Evidence 5, no. 1 (2016): 7. https://doi.org/10/ghh46n.

Akama, Yoko, Ann Light, and Takahito Kamihira. “Expanding Participation to Design with More-Than-Human Concerns.” In Proceedings of the 16th Participatory Design Conference 2020 - Participation(s) Otherwise, 1–11. PDC ’20. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. https://doi.org/10/gjzcwz.

Grobman, Yasha J., Wolfgang Weisser, Assaf Shwartz, Ferdinand Ludwig, Roy Kozlovsky, Avigail Ferdman, Katia Perini, et al. “Architectural Multispecies Building Design: Concepts, Challenges, and Design Process.” Sustainability 15, no. 21 (2023): 15480. https://doi.org/10/gv4c3f.

Clarke, Rachel, Sara Heitlinger, Ann Light, Laura Forlano, Marcus Foth, and Carl DiSalvo. “More-Than-Human Participation: Design for Sustainable Smart City Futures.” Interactions 26, no. 3 (2019): 60–63. https://doi.org/10/gf35h5.

Introduction to a special issue on more-than-human design:

Giaccardi, Elisa, Johan Redström, and Iohanna Nicenboim. “The Making(s) of More-Than-Human Design: Introduction to the Special Issue on More-Than-Human Design and HCI.” Human–Computer Interaction 40, no. 1–4 (2025): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2024.2353357.

Haldrup, Michael, Kristine Samson, and Thomas Laurien. “Designing for Multispecies Commons: Ecologies and Collaborations in Participatory Design.” In Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2022, edited by Vasilis Vlachokyriakos, Joyce Yee, Christopher Frauenberger, Melisa Duque Hurtado, Nicolai Hansen, Angelika Strohmayer, Izak Van Zyl, et al., 2:14–19. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2022. https://doi.org/10/gq6sfx.

Heitlinger, Sara, Marcus Foth, and Rachel Clarke, eds. Designing More-than-Human Smart Cities: Beyond Sustainability, Towards Cohabitation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.

Heitlinger, Sara, Ann Light, Yoko Akama, Kristina Lindström, and Åsa Ståhl. “More-Than-Human Participatory Design.” In Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Participatory Design, edited by Rachel Charlotte Smith, Daria Loi, Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, Liesbeth Huybrechts, and Jesper Simonsen, 79–110. London: Routledge, 2025.

Westerlaken, Michelle, Jennifer Gabrys, Danilo Urzedo, and Max Ritts. “Unsettling Participation by Foregrounding More-Than-Human Relations in Digital Forests.” Environmental Humanities, 2022. https://doi.org/10/gqzpm2.

Hupkes, Tisha, and Anders Hedman. “Shifting Towards Non-Anthropocentrism: In Dialogue with Speculative Design Futures.” Futures 140 (2022): 102950. https://doi.org/10/gqbkmq.

Rice, Louis. “Nonhumans in Participatory Design.” CoDesign 14, no. 3 (2018): 238–57. https://doi.org/10/gfvpfx.

Romani, Alessia, Francesca Casnati, and Alessandro Ianniello. “Codesign with More-Than-Humans: Toward a Meta Co-Design Tool for Human-Non-Human Collaborations.” European Journal of Futures Research 10, no. 1 (2022): 17. https://doi.org/10/gqvdsm.

Veselova, Emīlija, and İdil Gaziulusoy. “Bioinclusive Collaborative and Participatory Design: A Conceptual Framework and a Research Agenda.” Design and Culture, 2022, 1–35. https://doi.org/10/gn8psk.

Questionnaire Draft

Aim to capture the current landscape and future directions.

Allow respondents to vote for the respondent-specified answers or provide their own.

  1. Academic background

    • What is your training?
    • Who are your key audiences?

  2. Ethical and strategic objectives

    • What are the long-term objectives of this field?
    • What ethical positions guide research in this area?

  3. State-of-the-art

    • What are the foundational concepts of this field?
    • How has the field evolved in recent years?

  4. Key focus areas and research questions

    • What are the critical unanswered questions in this field?
    • What emerging trends could shape the future of the field?
    • What do you anticipate will be the next major breakthrough?

  5. Unique contributions

    • In what ways does this field offer insights distinct from other research areas?

  6. Challenges, approaches, and methods

    • What new methodologies or technologies are being adopted?
    • How are these innovations transforming research practices?

  7. Impact and applications

    • What are the potential applications of research in this field?
    • How is this research being translated into practice or policy?