Ferreira, Ana MargaridaPinto, António Manuel Gorgel CoutoBuzzo, DanielJeffcott, Craig Colin2026-04-142026-04-142026-01-15http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/62677Through a process of reflective design practice, this research explores the potential of Speculative Design to addressing the global biodiversity crisis through supporting Community Biodiversity Activism. It situates the biodiversity crisis as part of a wider monocultural Polycrisis in which Speculative Design itself is implicated, attracting criticism for a deficit of diversity of practitioners, practice, outcomes and impact. It also frames the Polycrisis as crisis of imagination: it has a Defuturing effect, making it difficult to imagine futures beyond a singular monocultural present. This Research through Design inquiry is situated in these entangled contexts as a form of Practice-Based Post-Qualitative Inquiry with an emergent methodology, predominantly based around the techniques of Research Creation and Design Experimentation. The inquiry draws on the Conceptual Figure of the Strange Stranger as a More than Human guide to frame ways of future-making that oppose such a monocultural present; to explore how these ways of future-making could be materialised through Speculative Design to support Community Biodiversity Activism; to understand how they might transform Speculative Design and design research practice; and to draw some general and speculative insights towards the emergence of a more biodiverse programme of Speculative Design.engSpeculative designMore-than-human designResearch through designCommunity activismBiodiversitydoctoral thesis101642180