Diversities of Design: Celebrating Plurality in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Within an Australian context, the realisation of decarbonised and de-colonial futures requires scrutiny of the socio-political industrial complex upon which the contemporary Australian settler-colonial project was founded. Central to this scrutiny is the need to investigate, contemplate and address a history of systemic racial violence and its impact on Country. Diversities of Design explores the capacity for the entangled fields of design, architecture and environmental planning to celebrate and empower oppressed Indigenous and First Nations peoples and expertise. This article seeks to highlight the contemporary value of indigenous expertise through the lens of current projects in environmental design, exploring how contemporaneous and historical traditions, technologies and voices can coalesce within the context of net zero transitions and the emergent habitats of the Anthropocene.

Keywords

• Indigenous knowledge
• climate mitigation
• Anthropocene
• de-colonialised worlds