Ecofeminist Design for Digital Third Spaces

O Our experiences of otherness intertwined with our sociality are rife with alienation and exclusion, as we are forced to navigate spaces that are inherently not designed for us. In this existential experience of being in the world, marked by ever-present otherness, we seek spaces of belonging where we feel at home. We find safe spaces by secluding ourselves in hermitage with those who are closest to us, or by escaping to surround ourselves with trees, communing with other living things that give us solidarity and sociality. But physically accessing these individual safe spaces is not always possible. When the normative rules and expectations of society corner us and make us feel threatened, we find ourselves seeking refuge in spaces carved out in the in-between of social norms—in subcultures, in bubbles, in small nooks, in third spaces that are neither here nor there. In this regard, digital third spaces are poignant in that they offer many of us access to sanctuary and a feeling of safety and belonging. Exploring our experiences in such spaces, we propose that by envisioning and designing for these digital in-betweens, we could approach design futures that move away from oppression, normativity, polarization, and alienation, and strive for care, interconnectedness, diversity, and solidarity. Critical theorist Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of third space [1] stems from his conception of hybridity in postcolonial Insights → Third spaces are liminal in the sense that they exist between a plethora of socially constructed binaries. → Third spaces are a necessary tool for ecofeminist designers that enable them to create spaces of shared solidarity imbued with ecological sensitivity.