Discovering design: enhancing the capability to design at the cultural interface between first Australian and western design paradigms

Abstract

This thesis claims that the First Australian design paradigm is distinct from the paradigms of design articulated in the Western canon (such as the rational and reflective design paradigms). I also investigate what it means to design at the cultural interface between First Australian and Western design paradigms, and identify the capability dimensions that are valued when expanding the freedom to design, from within a First Australia design paradigm as well as at the cultural interface. The methodology is informed by approaches to decolonising research at the cultural interface, which respect Indigenous ways of knowing, doing and being. My approach to the methodology informs the phenomenological basis of this study; I use Ricoeur’s approach to hermeneutical phenomenology (HP), as it appears to be suited to cross-cultural interpretation and compatible with the principles of Indigenous standpoint theory that guide research at the cultural interface. The results reveal that First Australian design should be understood as a process of experiential, reflective, respectful, relational discovery, rather than creation. It emphasises the relational aspect and should be understood as a process of connecting people with each other, and to the wider social and natural systems, to maintain a sense of harmony. When designing at the cultural interface between First and Later Australians, the most important differences and tensions seem to occur in the axiological and epistemological dimensions: the principles, the normative questions of what should be designed associated with innovation and creativity, the knowledge system characteristics, and issues of cultural identity and community. Valued capabilities when expanding the freedom to design at the cultural interface include the capability to develop empowering partnerships, and to maintain the integrity of cultural reproduction at the cultural interface.