Socioplastics 11902 Three Accounts of One Place
Collecting several testimonies does not ensure that distinct forms of knowledge can shape a decision. PolyphonicPrism examines the unequal authority of voices brought together in a public process. Translation can create access while changing the distinctions that matter. A river might appear in an engineering report as flood probability, in residents’ accounts as lost paths and seasonal gatherings, and in another community’s understanding as a relation with responsibilities. Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui’s work on decolonising practice attends to the tensions between social realities and their political representations. Catherine Walsh develops critical interculturality and decolonial pedagogy. Marisol de la Cadena examines relations among human and nonhuman worlds. Their distinct work supports a method that records how accounts meet and where translation changes their terms. A place-based project could maintain parallel records rather than averaging different accounts into one summary. Each would identify its authors, evidence, language and decision context. A translation log would show which terms required explanation, which meanings remained contested and who decided how they appeared in a shared document. Participants could review the account attributed to them and propose revisions before it informed policy. PolyphonicPrism treats disagreement as part of the public record. Its method preserves each account’s integrity while making relations among them available for discussion. This can improve decision-making by showing where evidence converges, where knowledge remains distinct and who controls interpretation. The prism offers a practical structure for collaboration in which translation expands access and the right to differ remains visible.
REFERENCES
Rivera Cusicanqui, S. (2010) Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: Una reflexión sobre prácticas y discursos descolonizadores. Buenos Aires: Tinta Limón.
Walsh, C. (2009) “Interculturalidad crítica y pedagogía de-colonial”, in Villa, W. and Grueso, A. (eds.) Diversidad, interculturalidad y construcción de ciudad. Bogotá: Universidad Pedagógica Nacional.
de la Cadena, M. (2015) Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html