participatory design

Making Commons: Attempts at Composing Prospects in the Opening of Production

[PUBLICATION] This thesis accounts for a designerly inquiry into the swamp of the opening of production. The “opening of production” refers to the rising of openness, collaboration and sharing in processes through which things are made and services delivered. It is defined as a swamp, because it represents a complex landscape where theory and practice meet and where diverse views and understanding of what openness, collaboration and sharing may entail are intertwined. Author: Anna Seravalli.

Design Matters in Participatory Design

Preview on Google Books

Item record on MUEP: http://muep.mah.se/handle/2043/14804

Bannon, Liam J. and Pelle Ehn. (2012). Design: Design Matters in Participatory Design. In Simonsen, J. and Robertsen T. (eds.) Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design. New York, NY.: Routledge, pp 37-63.

EXCERPT – This chapter examines the ways in which the field of Participatory Design engages with the field of design – as both at topic, a research field and a practice. We highlight what we consider are core themes in design, especially as they relate to Participatory Design concerns. […] Our aim, from the title of the chapter, is to address the question of whether, and in what way, design actually matters for the Participatory Design community. The intent is to show how Participatory Design work is inextricably bound up in more general design debates, even if the topic of design per se is not always a front-line issue.

Design Things and Design Thinking: Contemporary Participatory Design Challenges

[PUBLICATION] In this paper, the authors argue that a fundamental challenge for designers and the design community is to move from designing “things” (objects) to designing Things (socio-material assemblies). By Björgvinsson, Ehn and Hillgren, published in Design Issues.

Drawing Things Together

[PUBLICATION] The design challenge to “draw things together” was put forward by philosopher Bruno Latour in 2008. There are three related words in the challenge: drawing, things, and together. We find this challenge utterly relevant to contemporary design practice and design thinking, and have collectively for a decade reflected upon how to respond to such a challenge. This article summarizes it.

Agonistic participatory design: working with marginalised social movements

This article is currently not available for open access. If you’re behind the subscription firewalls of academe, download it here.

Item record on MUEP: http://muep.mah.se/handle/2043/14331

Björgvinsson, E; Ehn, P & Hillgren, P-A. (2012). Agonistic participatory design: working with marginalised social movements. CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, 8:2-3, 127-144.

ABSTRACT – Participatory design (PD) has become increasingly engaged in public spheres and everyday life and is no longer solely concerned with the workplace. This is not only a shift from work-oriented productive activities to leisure and pleasurable engagements, but also a new milieu for production and ‘innovation’. What ‘democratic innovation’ entails is often currently defined by management and innovation research, which claims that innovation has been democratised through easy access to production tools and lead-users as the new experts driving innovation.

Call for Submissions: Making Futures – Challenging Innovation (PDC workshop, Aug 13, Roskilde)

In this workshop, we will challenge the logic of innovation by exploring the potential of participatory design cases that demonstrate a repertoire of differently situated practices of ‘future-making’; futures made locally, in heterogeneous communities, and with marginalised publics. The workshop will focus on map-making and storytelling to form landscapes of multiple futures.

Making Futures: Marginal Notes on Innovation, Design and Democracy

[PROJECT PORTFOLIO] Making Futures is a book that is in the making; a collected edition of stories written by people that for many years have been working with and thinking about innovation, design and democracy. By sharing alternative stories about what design and innovation can be, we hope to provide a richer, and more profound image of what innovation constitute which in the longer run may contribute to a more sustainable future-making.