Notes on the Ontology of Design

Note to readers: This ‘paper’ ended up being actually the draft of a short book; the book is likely to have one more chapter, dealing with globalization, development, and environment issues; it is also likely to have examples, and to be written in a less academic manner, or so I hope. I’ve had several tentative titles over the past few years, the most recent one being The Ecological Crisis and the Question of Civilizational Transitions: Designs for the Pluriverse. I’ve been reading, and working with, most of this material for a long time, but some of it is new (to me); this is particularly true for Part I on design. I suspect the text is quite uneven as a result. Part IV is largely cut-and-paste from several texts in English and Spanish, particularly the long preface to the 2 ed. of Encountering Development. This part will need additional re/writing besides editing and reorganizing. The references are somewhat incomplete; there are a few key design references of which I have been made aware very recently that are not, or not significantly, included (e.g., on participatory design, postcolonial computing, and human-computer interaction).