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Structuring future social relations: the politics of care in participatory practice

conference contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 20:07 authored by Ann LightAnn Light, Yoko Akama
This paper explores the political shifts that take place in participatory design (PD) when the focus is upon co- designing ongoing future societal relations, beyond the immediacy of designing objects or services during project- time. Reflecting on connectedness, it looks at the politics of participation through the lens of people’s interdependence, using feminist concepts of ‘care’ to explore the ethical commitments of designing. In particular, it speaks to Greenbaum’s claim, 20 years ago, that ‘we have the obligation to provide people with the opportunity to influence their own lives’ (1993:47). We explore the questions this raises now, as we design in an increasingly distributed and heterogeneous socio-technical context, to give a contemporary take on long-term commitments to political and ethical outcomes in participatory design. Three contrasting case studies are interrogated to discuss how structuring of social relations was enabled, offering insights into what the politics of care might mean.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

PDC '14: Proceedings of the 13th Participatory Design Conference: Research Papers

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

Volume

1

Page range

151-160

Event name

13th Participatory Design Conference

Event location

Windhoek, Namibia

Event type

conference

Event date

6th - 10th October 2014

Place of publication

New York

ISBN

9781450322560

Department affiliated with

  • Engineering and Design Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Creative Technology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2020-01-07

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2020-01-06

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