Structuring Future Social Relations: The Politics of Care in Participatory Practice

The paper reviewed [1] provides a historical background of participatory design (PD), including its political and ethical origins, and motives. PD was initially goal-driven, with focus on co-designing with workers to improve their workflow and workplace environment. Modern PD as expressed in this paper merges the designer with participants and their problems, i.e. “becoming with”. The design goals within this paper are ambiguous and exploratory, but one constant throughout the case studies is participant reflection to discover solutions to their specific social problems.

The author argues the need for the emersion of designers with participants’ environments, and although there are benefits as discussed by the author – participants are experts in their own life, and the design problem relates directly to them, e.g. the politics of care – they have not discussed any negatives of modern PD, e.g. participants joining to sabotage the work, or participants not returning to future workshops.

The three diverse case studies within the paper exemplify modern PD where the focus is societal, observant, and political. The authors demonstrate the complexity of social relations and structures, and reimagine these social relations and care through user participation and interaction amongst themselves. The role of the designer in all case studies was a “facilitator and enabler, helping others to reflect and co-create” [1], which is the opposite of the original goal-driven designers role.

Having a background in software engineering and experience of user-centric design I am familiar with user-participation to achieve agreed goals for participants. Although the case studies used in this paper focus on building social relations rather than the use of technology, I would argue that designers must have specific goals and outcomes in mind when developing technologies with communities. Understandably, this depends on the context of the participants problem, but demonstrates the role-diversity of a modern designer.

[1] A. Light, Y. Akama. Structuring Future Social Relations: The Politics of Care in Participatory Practice. 2014.

I have chosen “Wild at home: the neighbourhood as a living laboratory for HCI” by J.Carroll and M.Rosson, which contains rich examples of participatory design within communities across multiple years, and the idea of a living laboratory, which builds upon participatory designer.