Architectural Studies Visions of Design from Anthropology: Arturo Escobar

Design as the Healing of the Web of Life:
A Praxis for Regional Transitions in Colombia.

Arturo Escobar
Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Ad-hoc Professor, Ph.D. Program in Design and Creation, Universidad de Caldas, Colombia.

In the face of deepening social and ecological crises, design is emerging as a crucial domain of thought and praxis about life itself and the creation of worlds. This confers upon design/ing an ineluctable ontological-political dimension. This lecture outlines ongoing reorientations of design/ing as a relational praxis of ontological re-existence and repair, against the ravages of globalization, and describes the early stages of application of an “autonomous transition design” framework in the Cauca River Valley in Southwest Colombia.

Over the past twenty years, anthropologist Arturo Escobar has closely worked with Afro-Colombian organizations resisting the devastation of their territories and lives by extractive operations. His best-known book is Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995, 2nd Ed. 2011), and his most recent book is Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds (2018).
Sponsored by: The Lamont Fund, the Lurcy Fund, and the Amherst College Architectural Studies Program.