Decolonial Thought and Feminist Theory in Architectural Design

Challenging the modern dynamics of power between

humans and nonhumans Decolonial Thought and Feminist Theory through

Maria Fernanda Castillo Giménez Registration numer 200202277 Module ARC6853 Theory and Research in Design Word count: 2084

content 03 04 04 07 12 13 14

Introduction Modernity and Colonialism To be the Other and its ties with Decolonial Thought and Feminism Decolonizing the Tinsley Canal through Feminist tactics Conclusion Biblilography List of Figures

Challenging the modern dynamics of power between

humans and nonhumans Decolonial Thought and Feminist Theory through

This essay aims to explore Colonialism —a concept initially coined to explain Western Male dominance over indigenous people and/or occupied territories— and interpret the notion to illustrate the dynamics of human dominance over nature in the Modern world. It also intends to delve into feminist tactics such as Speaking Nearby, prioritizing the voice of others.

The concept of Colonialism, specifically the theory of Decolonial Thought, and Feminist theory, will be linked to a project developed in Studio A during the last months of 2020, which will be presented as a case study to show how these ideas can converge in an architectural gesture.

The project is located along the Sheffield and Tinsley Canal, northeast of Sheffield City Center, and it consists of a network of Environmental Stations which is designed to foster different species of plants, animals, and other creatures.

Utopian

Figure 1. Taxonomy of futures as proposed in the book Speculative Everything: a variety of possible, plausible, and probable futures, where only some are preferable.

Image by Author.

Dystopian

Present

Overcoming the urge to accommodate only human beings Futures is fundamental to accomplish a Possible balanced relationship with nature.

To do so, we can use tools such as Plausible S p e c u l a t i v e D e s i g n w h i c h proposes the imagination of futures Probable as a means to create discussions and alternative ways of thinking. 1 Preferable Th e projec t of Environm ental Probable Stations combines this approach with Decolonial Thinking: it Plausible imagines a future where urbanity Plausible a n d e co l o g y c a n co ex i s t i n a sustainable manner, without Possible competing but rather growing symbiotically.

Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design, fiction and social dreaming. (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2013).

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Modernity and Colonialism Modern modus vivendi spreads a self-centered view of the world where individual prosperity is valued over collective success 2 , and the colonization of the environment is perpetuated by our own actions and habits.

It is interesting to address the connection between modernity and coloniality because, as Mignolo argues, modernity is commonly associated with a “rhetoric of salvation”, but underneath it lies coloniality, abusive and unequal in nature. 3 One of the key habits of modern-colonial life is the tendency to classify the living 4 . This way of thinking creates a separation between the One and the Other which allows humans to be more accepting of a system that encourages to use and extract from nature 5 .

This mentality ultimately derives in the denial of the existing environmental crisis, because to acknowledge this crisis, and most importantly, to recognize that it is rooted in a colonial mindset “would require questioning the conditions that enable [our] way of life —something few are willing to do” 6 . It should be noted that this way of thinking cannot be challenged solely by providing more information to the people without addressing the problem of coloniality 7.

2 Walter Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History. (Princeton, NJ, Woodstock: Princeton University Press , 2012).

3 Walter Mignolo, 'INTRODUCTION. Coloniality of power and de-colonial thinking', Cultural Studies, 21.2-3, (2007), 155-167 (p.

162).

4 Alexander, M. Jacqui. Pedagogies of crossing: Meditations on feminism, sexual politics, memory, and the sacred. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).

Janet McVittie, Ranjan Datta, Jean Kayira, and Vince Anderson, 'Relationality and decolonisation in children and youth garden spaces', Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 35.2, (2019), 1-17.

Denise Ferreira da Silva, 'Toward a Black feminist poethics: The quest(ion) of Blackness toward the end of the world.', The Black Scholar, 44, (2014), 81-97.

5 Denise Ferreira da Silva, Toward a Global Idea of Race (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007).

6 Sharon Stein, 'The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability: A Decolonial Approach to Climate Change in Higher Education', Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 35.3, (2019), 198-212 (p. 202).

7 Alexis Shotwell, Against purity: Living ethically in compromised times. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2016).

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To be the

“Other” and its ties with

Decolonial Thought and Feminism Incidentally, this classification of the living is central to coloniality, as it follows the logic of dehumanization used by European colonialism.8 The very idea of Other is a colonial construct that implies inferiority.

This construct also relates to Feminism, as explained by Simone de Beauvoir. 9 She defined othering as “the process of labeling women as less than the men who had historically defined, and been defined as, the ideal human subject” and further argued that the status of Other placed women in a second place to men.

T h e t h o u g h t s p ro p o s e d i n d e Beauvoir's book have been further developed and translated into different spheres of society; there are numerous traits which can cause certain groups to be othered apart from gender. 10 Economic status, race, religion, and sexual identity have all been used to create a separation between human beings, which significantly hinders the capability of the One to understand the struggles of, and much less advocate for, the Other.

Figure 2 . Satirical work by South African artist Anton Kannemeyer that conceptualizes a trait used for "othering" people. The adjective is defined in contrast to what was considered the One way of being. (Kannemeyer, 2012)

But this separation is not limited to humanity; we extend those views to hierarchize all creatures, placing human beings above all others.

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Macarena Gómez-Barris, 'The Colonial Anthropocene: Damage, Remapping, and Resurgent Resources', Antipode Foundation, (2019), in <https://antipodefoundation.org/2019/03/19/the-colonial-anthropocene/> [accessed January 2020].

9 Simone De Beauvoir, El segundo sexo (Barcelona, España: Debolsillo, 1999).

10 The meaning of life according to Simone de Beauvoir, dir. by Iseult Gillespie (TED Talks, 2020).

11 Stein, The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability.

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The project's design approach explores this relationship between humans and nonhumans, pretending to somewhat shift the power structure between them, or at least challenge our views regarding our place in this planet.

The focus and user of the project is nature – the Other, while the human actors are relegated to operators or custodians; not the subject for whom the structure is built but merely a means to reach the objective.

Throughout the design process, to beat the tendency to place the human being at the center of the project proved to be difficult. Inadvertently, the initial design approaches adopted a form familiar for humans, a shape to which we are accustomed, and which in the end was not thought of to cater the nonhuman as evidently as originally intended (see Figure 3).

The urge to unconsciously accommodate human beings is notably rooted in the centrality which we confer ourselves in every aspect of life. As mentioned earlier, there are tools that can challenges our perception of reality and force us to shift positions with the Other.

Figure 3. Station unintentionally designed to somewhat look like a stereotypical human "house" while it pretends to provide habitat for nonhuman creatures. Image by Author.

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A useful tool to do so is Feminist Theory, which helps us address, analyze, or revise prevalent structures of power and inequality 12, which in the modern-colonial world repeatedly occur between humans and nature. 13 The main feminist tactic referred to in this essay is Speaking Nearby, positioning ourselves in the place of the Other in a non-intrusive way.14 It should be noted that this form of speaking is an interesting way of addressing an issue when one does not personally suffer from it, as opposed to speaking as or speaking for the affected 15 , in cases where a person in a privileged position wants to tackle an issue that affects a more vulnerable or exposed social group of which he or she is not a part of, e.g. white people reflecting on systematical racism or men addressing sexism.

It is noteworthy that, in the case of human vs nonhuman, this is the only way we can “speak” about the issue if we hope to advocate for nature, given that nature is unable to literally speak as or for itself.

Decolonizing the Tinsley Canal through Feminist tactics Humanity is already facing a catastrophic panorama in terms of the environmental crisis, but we continue to perpetuate a system strongly tied to Modern habits-of-being and thus, Coloniality 16 which can only worsen this scenario.

This system has already proven to be unable to create a sustainable world17, so we need to challenge and dismantle the beliefs that enable the continuity of these practices; in a way, ironically, replicating the process of “implanting the colonial matrix of power”. 18 The most effective way in which we can challenge this mindset is by demonstrating to the oppressor that they are not separated, but rather entangled with what they mistakenly label as the Other. We must make the connection between the exploitation we infringe upon nature and the adverse, though apparently unrelated, environmental conditions we face. As Stein so eloquently phrased it, “the violence we have done to nature, we have also done to ourselves.” 19

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Catalina Mejía-Moreno, 'Lecture 3: Feminist Ethnography in Design Research'. Module ARC6853 Theory and Research in Design. 2020. Available at Blackboard Collaborate Online Delivery, The University of Sheffield. [20 November, 2020] 13 Stein, The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability.

14 Derek Stanovsky, 'Speaking As, Speaking For and Speaking With: The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Men Teaching Feminism', Feminist Teacher, 11.1, (1997), 10–19.

15 Stanovsky, Speaking As, Speaking For and Speaking With.

16 David Rousell, 'Dwelling in the Anthropocene: Reimagining university learning environments in response to social and ecological change', Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 32, (2016), 137–153.

17 Arturo Escobar, 'Worlds and knowledges otherwise', Cultural Studies, 21.2, (2007), 179–210 (p. 197).

18 Anibal Quijano, 'Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and latin America', Nepantla, 1.3, (2000), 533–580.

19 Stein, The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability. (p. 207)

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The Environmental Stations proposed within the project are aimed to be a small gesture that can exemplify this entanglement of the One and the Other. These are structures which serve a dual purpose: to constitute a habitat for vulnerable species of plants, insects, animals, and other living creatures, and to collect data from the ecosystem so that humans can learn and understand the impact of human activities.

Since the theory of Decolonization is at the center of the project, the challenge was to find a way to intervene in the natural environment without causing a negative impact or introducing elements that would change the way nature develops. To do so, the project will be built with nature. There are two design proposals for two different stations, each of which use a different technology that allows nature itself to be the structure of the project.

Figure 4 illustrates de location of both of these design proposals along the length of the Tinsley Canal, which are directly related to the types and frequency of the human activities that take place in the different areas.

Figure 4. Distribution of the Stations along the Canal. Its location is determined by the human activities performed in the area.

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Figure 5 shows the design for Station A, which will be built through a process called tree shaping that consists of controlling the growth of a tree to adapt to the shape needed to serve a specific function. 20 Building with living organisms guarantees a more balanced relationship between architecture and nature, given that the structure grows by itself, needs little to no maintaining, changes with the seasons and does not disturb the environment during the “growing” or the occupancy of the building, does not generate waste and once its lifespan is over, it goes back to nature. 21

Figure 5. Design for Station A using a building method based on tree shaping, which allows nature and architecture to be part of a system.

Image by Author

20 Thomas Vallas & Luc Courard, 'Using nature in architecture: Building a living house with mycelium and trees', Frontiers of

Architectural Research, 6.3, (2017), 318-328.

Vallas & Courard, Using nature in architecture.

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Figure 6 shows a different way in which nature can be part the structure. In this case, the technique proposed is aimed at harboring life within the structure. The main material is a bio-receptive brick which provides or creates spaces, cracks and crevices that can allow plants, insects and small creatures to live. There will also be an earth wall and a wild patch on top of the station to provide further habitat opportunities for a wide variety of creatures.

Every station will foster different species and eventually lead to an increase of population. Because of the conditions of each station and the elements used for the structure, there is an interesting balance between human intervention and the natural environment. Nature is both the user and the structure of the station, and human beings are the managers, thus creating a different dynamic than the one we are used to in typical buildings.

As mentioned before, the Stations will be interconnected in an Urban Network that can act as an educational device and provide insight to develop strategies that may allow us to balance the urbanized human world and the natural habitats we coexist with.

Figure 6. Design proposal for Station B, where the structure is built to generate the conditions that will encourage nature to colonize the space and be entangled with the structure. Image by Author.

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The proposed Urban Network of Environmental Stations aims to address the problem of modern-colonial lifestyle by not only telling the consequences of our actions but to display the impact they have on the ecosystem, including human colonization of the environment and invasion of natural habitats.

Human visitors will see how the nonhuman population is affected by the presence or lack of human activity in the area, both through the data collected, which will be displayed in every Station (see Figure 7), and by observing for themselves the creatures which were not abundant in the area previously. The data collected will be processed and exhibited to explain the changes that allowed these creatures to thrive where they were previously scarce.

Figure 7. Floor plan of Station A . Image by Author.

In addition to this, it is also fundamental that the Station provides insight as to what it means for humans the presence or absence of these species in this ecosystem. The existence of certain creatures can be strongly related to our own well-being, e.g. the lack of pollinators may ultimately deprive us from gardens, flowers or fruits that we like; the absence of certain vegetation can have adverse effects on the climate or create an imbalance in the ecosystem which might eventually keep us from doing certain activities that we enjoy (such as picnics, fishing, hiking, etc.).

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It is important to address the issue from this perspective, as emotional or subjective as it may seem, given that a fundamental aspect of the modern-colonial mindset involves the unwillingness of the colonizer to view how they are connected to and interdependent with the Other (McVittie et al., 2019). By showing the relation between One and the Other, we might be more open to change the dynamics of this relationship and perhaps, learn to change these habits.

This Network is developed alongside other projects within Studio A, most of which consider the relationship between human and nonhuman actors as a starting point for the design proposal.

It is interesting to note that, to balance these two actors, the projects tend to limit the action field of humans along the length of the Tinsley Canal to allow for nonhuman actors to develop safely and comfortably, as seen in the project pictured below.

Figure 8. Project by Studio A colleague Xiaoxing Pan. The design seeks to imitate water voles' nests while making humans feel out of their comfort zone. (Pan, 2020)

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McVittie et al. 'Relationality and decolonisation in children and youth garden spaces'

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conclusion The environmental crisis is undeniably getting worse, due to humanity's moderncolonial habits.23 Changing our way of being is certainly challenging, but we could lessen our impact in the environment if we begin to make space for nature and reduce our footprints on the natural environment.

The first step towards this is to eliminate the notion of separation between the One and the Other, and to show just how intertwined and related we both are.

The logic of Decolonial Thought and Feminist Theory combined with the design process led to the proposition of a project capable of showing how interrelated the human and nonhuman actors could potentially be in a balanced world, by giving more space to the Other while showing the colonizer its own colonizing tendencies and evidencing that the crisis cannot be addressed by perpetuating the mentality that caused it to begin with .

Each Environmental Station seeks to be the voice of nature to start a conversation with humans, creating a space where the impact of human action, or the absence of it, can be observed, quantified, and associated with environmental consequences that affect our daily life.

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Escobar, 'Worlds and knowledges otherwise’

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. Jacqui. Pedagogies of crossing: Meditations on feminism, sexual politics, memory, and the sacred. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).

Arvin, Maile; Eve Tuck & Angie Morrill, 'Decolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy', Feminist Formations, 25.1, (2013), 8-34.

De Beauvoir, Simone. El segundo sexo (Barcelona, España: Debolsillo, 1999).

Dunne, Anthony & Raby, Fiona. Speculative Everything: Design, fiction and social dreaming. (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2013).

Escobar, Arturo. 'Worlds and knowledges otherwise ', Cultural Studies, 21.2, (2007), 179–210.

Ferreira da Silva, Denise. Toward a Global Idea of Race (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007).

Ferreira da Silva, Denise. 'Toward a Black feminist poethics: The quest(ion) of Blackness toward the end of the world.', The Black Scholar, 44, (2014), 81-97.

The meaning of life according to Simone de Beauvoir, dir. by Iseult Gillespie (TED Talks, 2020).

Gómez-Barris, Macarena. 'The Colonial Anthropocene: Damage, Remapping, and Resurgent Resources', Antipode Foundation, (2019), in <https: //antipodefoundation.org/2019/03/ 19/the-colonial-anthropocene/> [accessed January 2020].

Kannemeyer, Anton, Alphabet of Democracy (South Africa: Jacana, 2012), p. 4.

Lanting, Frans. Tall trees rising above rainforest canopy, aerial view, Sabah, Borneo (1991) in <https://www.robertharding.com/preview/1173-2217/tall-trees-risingabove-rainforest-canopy-aerial-view/> McVittie, Janet; Ranjan Datta, Jean Kayira, and Vince Anderson, 'Relationality and decolonisation in children and youth garden spaces', Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 35.2, (2019), 1-17.

Mejía-Moreno, Catalina. 'Lecture 3: Feminist Ethnography in Design Research'.

Module ARC6853 Theory and Research in Design. 2020. Available at Blackboard Collaborate Online Delivery, The University of Sheffield. [20 November, 2020]

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Mignolo, Walter. 'INTRODUCTION. Coloniality of power and de-colonial thinking', Cultural Studies, 21.2-3, (2007), 155-167 (p. 162).

Mignolo, Walter. Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton Studies in Culture/Power/History. (Princeton, NJ, Woodstock: Princeton University Press , 2012).

Newalkar, Rucha Vivek, Architecture of care in the urban public space: A philosophical inquiry in 'Ethics of care' to inform the nature of the urban public space. (Iowa: Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations, 2017).

Otto Steininger. Orange man standing out from crowd of blue people. Recovered f rom https://www.ikon-images.com/stock-photo-orange-man-standing-outfrom-crowd-of-blue-people-illustration-image00012640.html Pan, Xiaoxing, Design for water voles. The University of Sheffield: MAAD Studio A Project (2020).

Pulido, Laura & Juan de Lara, 'Reimagining 'justice' in environmental justice: Radical ecologies, decolonial thought, and the Black Radical Tradition', Sage Publishing, 1, (2018), 76–98.

Quijano, Anibal. 'Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism and latin America', Nepantla, 1.3, (2000), 533–580.

Rousell, David. 'Dwelling in the Anthropocene: Reimagining university learning environments in response to social and ecological change', Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 32, (2016), 137–153.

Shotwell, Alexis. Against purity: Living ethically in compromised times. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2016).

Stanovsky, Derek. 'Speaking As, Speaking For and Speaking With: The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Men Teaching Feminism', Feminist Teacher, 11.1, (1997), 10–19.

Stein, Sharon. 'The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability: A Decolonial Approach to Climate Change in Higher Education', Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 35.3, (2019), 198-212.

Vallas, Tomas & Luc Courard, 'Using nature in architecture: Building a living house with mycelium and trees', Frontiers of Architectural Research, 6.3, (2017), 318-328.

Villanueva, Pilar, Why Decolonial Feminism: New Possibilities from Abya Yala (2019) <https://towardf reedom.org/story/archives/women/why-decolonial-feminismnew-possibilities-from-abya-yala/> [accessed December 2020].

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LIST OF FIGURES 03

Figure 1. Taxonomy of futures as proposed in the book Speculative Everything: a variety of possible, plausible, and probable futures, where only some are preferable.

Redrawn from Dunne & Raby, Speculative Everything.

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Figure 2. Satirical work by South African artist Anton Kannemeyer that conceptualizes a trait used for othering people. The adjective is defined in contrast to what was considered the One way of being.

Anton Kannemeyer, Alphabet of Democracy.

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Figure 3. Station unintentionally designed to somewhat look like a stereotypical human "house" while it pretends to provide habitat for nonhuman creatures.

Image by Author.

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Figure 4. Map of the Tinsley Canal that shows the distribution of the two types of Stations will be distributed along the Canal.

Image by Author.

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Figure 5. Design for Station A using a building method based on tree shaping, which allows nature and architecture to be part of a system.

Image by Author.

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Figure 6. Design proposal for Station B, where the structure is built to generate the conditions that will encourage nature to colonize the space and be entangled with the structure.

Image by Author.

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Figure 7. Floor plan of Station A. Image by Author.

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Figure 8. Project by Studio A colleague Xiaoxing Pan. The design seeks to imitate water voles' natural habitat while making humans feel out of their comfort zone.

Xiaoxing Pan, Design for water voles.

Photograph on page 03 by Frans Lanting. Tall trees rising above rainforest canopy, aerial view, Sabah, Borneo.

Illustration on page 04 by Otto Steininger. Orange man standing out from crowd of blue people.

Illustration on page 13 by Author.

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