Imaginations’ forgotten partners & upending Anthropocentric reality

Two probing dimensions highlight the importance of nonhuman partners (materials, matter, biotic and abiotic entities) in proceeding with capable anthropology to upend anthropocentric reality. First, how nonhuman partners attempt to make themselves known and their attempt accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic interruption. Second, design thinking emerges from thinking with/along/for nonhuman partners.

 Paula Zuccotti, an ethnographer artist, posted on social media ‘what are the 15 things that are helping you get through this?’ when the pandemic lock down forced most people into isolation. Zuccotti believes in the power of objects and how they become constituting components of humans’ everyday stories. Many people photographed their 15 objects, shared the photos with Zuccotti, and a pattern emerged from all objects. She noticed in the photos. one object is universal: a laptop. Some objects are common such as cooking items, and people’s choices were ‘introvert’ (focus on themselves), with function, comfort and emotional connection being more important than trends and brands. These objects varied, from crosses, books, musical instruments, eyeglasses, masks, pens, remote control, sex toys, phones, headphones to the coffee maker. These objects were nonhuman partners that helped those in isolation to form their comfort zones and get through difficult times and make sense of the global pandemic which disrupted everyone’s life trajectory. These objects provided comfort via functions and contributed meanings to the isolation, self and a place where one perceives as home. For instance, cooking became an essential practice in facing shot down of restaurants and eating outside homes. Headphones became an extension of most people’s bodies to communicate with outside, work or study. These objects redefined home as just a place that one goes after work to sleep, rest, hang out, spend the weekend and rush out again the following day. Homes gained centrality, and this centrality would be impossible without partnership with nonhumans. For instance, headphones became more than a tool since longer durations and continuous usage forced humans to pay attention to how designs produce comfort and a better experience.

Meanwhile, there was another surprise emerged for Western European well-privileged humans. Some of their nonhuman partners would not appear per demands. Before pandemic, a purchase order would be placed, and the desired electronic equipment like webcam, cameras and game console would arrive at their doors very soon. However, the pandemic shocked and slowed down the supply chain. The shortage of microchips slowed the manufacturing process, and it is said that it will not catch up; therefore, there will be a rise in prices of cars, phones, TVs and any other microchip dependent item.

The nonhuman partners who individuals asked for them did not show up because another invisible nonhuman partner called COVID-19 interfered with humans. COVID-19, the pandemic, the lockdown and the isolation messed up the value regimes that frame nonhuman partners. The value regime around nonhumans was no longer a matter of monetization, health, comfort, social class, prestige and capital but rather the uncertainty of life. For instance, the hand sanitizing gel, which was usually an essential nonhuman partner for most Euro-American backpackers travelling somewhere beyond their hygiene comfort, became a persistent reality. It became the nonhuman partner that reminded humans of the threat of infection, dirt and transmission of the virus. The hand sanitizing gel was not just to clean your hand but rather a ritual reminder that the virus is lurking around, so sanitize your hand before leaving the supermarket. Nonhuman partners such as the hand sanitizing gel, face mask, headphones and clothes feed everyday imagination and humans’ sense of life. Accordingly, these imaginations and sense of life shape humans’ sense of humanity (being human), individuals, persons, characters, along nonhumans. In other words, humans experience becomings in partnership with nonhumans and learn what it means to be alive. Therefore, I echo Eduardo Kohn, who wrote:

Anthropology of life recognizes that life is more than biology as currently envisioned. Not only because biology is everywhere semiotic but also because distinctively, human capacities, propensities, techniques, practices, and histories reconfigure life in new ways.

Nonhuman partners are integrated into how everyday lives are imagined, how imaginations invite nonhuman partners and how imaginations to craft, speak and listen to nonhuman partners. Nonhumans partners make themselves known through the meaning-making and imaginative trajectories (knowing, acting, valuing) that facilitate how humans make sense of life and their humanity. In addition, nonhuman partners render themselves known through scarcity and finitude since humans’ limited imaginations are yet to conceive planetary resources are finite. Therefore, anthropology must follow nonhumans, as the forgotten or neglected partners, to find out how humans/social actors/individuals relate to the world and life at large.

The second dimension which highlights the importance of nonhuman partners is how thinking with/along/for nonhuman partners generates design-thinking. Here, design-thinking operates in the form of a critical engagement with nonhumans and social interactions that emerge from nonhumans' designs. For instance, Mr Moore, a former employee of Marks and Spencer faced an unexpected reality while researching how to bring high quality, comfortable, wearable and affordable female underwear to Pakistan. He was inspired by the Marks and Spencer (The British retail chain) quality of female underwear. However, most Pakistani women could not afford it. So he decided to manufacture and produce good quality female undergarments in Pakistan and conducted small market research. During his study in Pakistan, he realised that ‘men and women have very different ideas when it comes to underwear… men tend to mean “sexy and appealing”. They talk and decide on laces and see-through fabric etc. Whereas women want comfort and reliability of the product they use’. Mr Moore understood female underwear is primarily designed, thought about and produced by men for women. Male designers impose their imaginations and presume their imaginative expectation of other men; then, they impose their masculine archive of desires over the underwear, which is the nonhuman partner for women. It is male designers imaginative limitation that produce these objects according to male desires rather than actual female-users who purchase, wear and suffer through male-imposed designs.

Applying design-thinking on Brassieres and other female undergarments generate critical questions about nonhumans beyond mere functional tools. Critical questions through design-thinking remind how nonhumans and humans relate to each other. Anthropology should ask how this relationship is regulated, managed, and designed: the critical exploring human-nonhuman relationship points at the limits and crisis of imagination. Finally, thinking through/along nonhuman and their partnership with humans are the design-thinking and critical evaluation of humans negligence and their forgetfulness about nonhumans.

Here, you can listen to my podcast series Hopeless World of Reality; the fifth episode discusses imagination and forgotten partners.