What Are Pluriversal Politics and Ontological Designing?. Interview with Arturo Escobar

Abstract

What is ontological design, and how do we define Pluriversal politics? In this long interview, Arturo Escobar describes the fundamental shifts in contemporary social theory placing life at the center of his scholarly inquiry. He discusses the reappearance of the debate about ontology through the ontological turn in social theory. His statement involves the idea that every design action has implications for the making of life, the kinds of worlds we construct, and how life is produced. Escobar introduces the concept of ontological design and the connected vision of his Pluriversal politics as the emerging areas of critical design studies. These approaches challenge the extractivist ideology of the Global North and its impactful action, which originated the actual crisis of climate, energy, biodiversity, inequality, poverty, and of social and collective meaning linked to the western capitalistic, patriarchal, colonial, supremacist mode of existence that has been spreading throughout the world through globalization and development.