The More-Than-Human trend in Design research: a literature review

The implications of contemporary technological and environmental changes are driving a transition in all human practices toward approaches that widen and shift the focus of design beyond human needs. These approaches leverage new ideas and concepts coming from the posthumanist perspective, which has been gaining momentum across several disciplines, and has recently reached the design field. As several researchers have started to take interest in those themes, experimental methods and practices have been growing along with different definitions, which may accentuate the complexity of producing consistent advances in the discipline. The main objective of this article is to review the existing literature on design practices and approaches that, during the last decade, have evolved beyond the focus of a single user and are thus defined with terms such as More-Than-Human Centered Design, Ecosystemic Design, Posthuman Design, Community-Centered Design and Multispecies Design. The outputs of the integrative literature review aim to offer a clearer picture of the phenomenon.