Victor Udoewa and Palak Dudani
In part one of this pluriversal systems paper series, we examined system mapping as a method or activity and looked at all the various, alternative, and pluriversal ways to visualise or sense a system beyond system mapping. However, we can go further, because system mapping is only one method or activity in various phases of activities in a systems methodology like systemic design. In this paper, we turn our attention to that broader systems methodology called systemic design and explore alternatives. Just as with pluriversal visualisations and sensing of systems, there are various, alternative, and pluriversal systems practices beyond systemic design.
We examine a number of these systems practices, placing them in context. We discuss their advantages and disadvantages and when it is best to use them. The use of the term systems practice instead of methodology is important. This is because certain pluriversal, place-based practices are not methodologies in the Western sense. These specific practices are not a collection of methods or a set of guiding principles or philosophies that aid one in choosing a particular method or activity at a particular point in a process. Instead, many of these pluriversal approaches are practices, praxes, or praxeologies. They differ in the same way that Western maritime navigation methodologies differ from a number of Indigenous, oceanic wayfinding practices.
Keywords: pluriversal design, pluriversal systems practice, decolonial systemic design, affirming methodologies, systems praxeologies