Generosity in More-than-human Design
Karey Helms · Proceedings of DRS · 2024
Generosity in more-than-human design suggests an openness to change in grappling with human exceptionalism and nonhuman entanglements. Yet the risks of generosity in design practice are largely unarticulated, and it is unclear how designers might practically encounter and navigate them. In response, I first position generosity within feminist theory as an open dispossession and material exchange that is pre-reflective and asymmetrical. This articulation accounts for nonhuman organisms, objects, and agencies as inseparable from what it means to be a person. I then present three design cases that situate generosity in design practice. This includes specifying the relations explored, presence of openness, risks encountered, and applied findings. From these, I discuss the deliberate centering of the human designer and how practically engaging with generosity problematizes some more-than-human relations as more more-than-human than others.