Victor Udoewa and Palak Dudani
System mapping is an important and critical step in a systemic design process. Being able to work with mapping, both by oneself and in collaboration with others, has become universalised and almost synonymous with being a systemic designer. However, while maps like models are useful, they are all ultimately wrong. As our perception of reality is shaped by our positionality and the technologies we have access to, maps as a tool represent and reveal our own interpretations and arguably situated understandings of shared realities.
In this paper, we explore how there may be pluriversal ways of understanding a system that de-centres mapping, such that the decision to use a specific method to understand a system can come naturally from the ways of being and knowing of the people involved in the process.
Our ways of being, knowing, and valuing influence our methods. Building a system map and then remapping is only one way to visualise a system. Going further, visualising a system is just one of many ways to understand a system. In a pluriversal systems practice, there are a multitude of ways to understand a system that are not map-based. These various ways come from different ways of being, knowing, and valuing, leading to different methods.
KEYWORDS: system visualisations, system mapping, pluriversal systems, decolonial design, system analysis, participatory, awareness-based