Displacement: Attending to the Role of Things in Theories of Practice Through Design Research

In this chapter, we focus on understanding the role of non-human elements or what we refer to as things in everyday domestic practices through the concept of displacement. Our concept of displacement is informed by design research inquiries known as material speculations and postphenomenological notions of withdrawal and multistability. We use displacement alongside the philosophical concepts and design research to explore our understanding of things in theories of practice. Displacement describes how things are part of practices without us knowing fully what a thing is, its direct use by humans, or the particular practices they are embedded within.