Design Ethics¶
We shape our beers and thereafter they shape us.¶
By: José Hirmas Stark
For this report I will analyze my master’s project, trying to elaborate an ethical assessment about it.
Social Food Narratives is a research project that gives a new role to food, exploring the meaning behind it, for understanding cultures, the re-generation communities, seeking human relationships with the world.
Why is this important? Humans need food to survive, so is a “thing” that is extremely bonded to life and existence. During time, cultures and communities have elaborate different types of food, shifting what we eat, how we eat and why we eat. From the first civilizations (and before that) to the current food design trends, today food is much more than just a nutrition solution. Technologies have played a significant role here, processing ingredients and raw material, accelerating the offer and distribution, democratizing specific recipes, traditions, and rituals. But at the same time, lack of access and social-economical segregation (non-equitative distribution) has generated a food elite system. Right now, people are still dying of hunger in some parts of the world. Right now, the overproduction (and overconsumption) is generating the extinction of natural resources. The relationship we have with food is also a mirror of how we are as society.
Does this project re-present the person I am? Absolutely, due to my authentic interest in food as a means of social development. Food is more than eating, but a trigger for social understanding. I consider myself a social entity, part of a whole. The person I am today has been nurtured by the set of relationships throughout life. In this sense, I got inspired by Ubuntu theory about caring ethics: ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’, which translates as “a person is a person through other people”. For me, food has always been much more than nutrition, but rather a tool for social encounters and cultural exploration. I deeply believe that we must investigate new roles in the food system and the meaning for different people, seeking new bonding between beings and promoting extreme consciousness about our environment situation.
The last months I have been exploring with beer crafting and tasting, from understanding all the process of fabrication to sensing different flavors and aromas. This passion has induced to know breweries and to start contacting different producers, not only in Barcelona, but also in many parts of the world, generating conversation and interviews about “what beer means and represent”. During this process, I have been understanding the design process of beer and how the brewer is also a designer, engaging in the practice itself. The main actors in here are brewers and brewery, raw material suppliers and clients, but also all the local environment (neighbors) where the brewery is located. The positive effect of a brewery is mainly connected to social encounter and the generation of community. The negative effect has relation with the abusive consumption, health issues and security.
As a designer, the main values of this project sense of community, inclusivity, and respect. The beer transforms into the “excuse” for understanding culture, backgrounds, and people. Also, it can be seen almost as a common good, but a conflict occurs when fixing prices and with specific types of beer that are not likable to everyone.
What does craft beer mean? It is about the technology used? Or the amount of beer produced? Or the process of how it is made? Or the flavor? Part of my research is about revealing traditions, rituals that are attached to beer culture. For this reason, it becomes more important trying to answer the question about: “what is behind a beer”.
Bibliography:
- Ethics for designers, Jet Gispen.
- Revisiting The Traditional African Cultural Framework Of Ubuntuism: A Theoretical Perspective, Nyaumwe and Mkabela(2007)
- Technology and the Lifeworld, Don Ihde.
- All Art is Ecological, Timothy Morton.