Beyond architectural technology. Transdisciplinarity and resignification for decolonial teaching methodologies

In 1930, the resistance movement against the British Empire in India catalyzed the re-appropriation of traditional textile techniques in the Indian textile industry as a political strategy. Moreover, this action gave rise to the concept of socially appropriate technologies. Thirty years later, in the 1960s, the need for a transdisciplinary approach between social and technical sciences empowered the term appropriate technology and opened a whole new perspective on society, culture, and knowledge. In the European postmodern context, similar concepts such as democratic, alternative, adequate, or intermediate technologies were also developed. Lewis Mumford, Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, and Ivan Illich were three of the most important 20th-century intellectuals and representatives of this new “movement.” They all had in common the idea that technology could not be universal and therefore challenged the uncritical technology transfer from the Global North to the Global South. In the new century, the unquestioned acceptance of global and decontextualized technologies continues to be debated. As a result, concepts such as Grassroot Innovations, Social Innovations, and Tecnologías Sociales have emerged in non-Western countries. They oppose the paternalistic approaches and downsizing projects generated by the North-South Global power and dominance relationship, as well as by technological determinism and its instrumentalist character. This article aims to contribute to the academic debate on the social role of the architect, his reflexive character, and the importance of a transdisciplinary and decolonial view in his work. The focus will be on those professionally trained in contexts of the Global North and who wish to contribute to improving areas belonging to the Global South. This ability to observe the projects with two different lenses is critical to proposing new teaching methodologies open to other areas and disciplines of knowledge and to the alternative, subaltern and popular knowledge of the communities.