Co-designing for common values: creating hybrid spaces to nurture autonomous cooperation

Abstract

The paper concerns the development of digitally-mediated technologies that value social cooperation as a common good rather than as a source of revenue and accumulation. The paper discusses the activities that shaped a European participatory design project which aims to develop a digital space that promotes and facilitates the 'Commonfare', a complementary approach to social welfare. The paper provides and discusses concrete examples of design artifacts to address a key question about the role of co-and participatory design in developing hybrid spaces that nurture sharing and autonomous cooperation: how can co-design practices promote alternatives to the commodification of digitallymediated cooperation? The paper argues for a need to focus on relational, social, political and ethical values, and highlights the potential power of co-and participatory design processes to achieve this. In summary, the paper proposes that only by reasserting the centrality of shared values and capacities, rather than individual needs or problems, co-design can reposition itself thereby encouraging autonomous cooperation.

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“…Instead of platform capitalism, the co-design community has supported alternatives, such as platform collectivism, being mutual beneficial for stakeholders (Carroll and Beck 2019). Co-design projects have facilitated a more equal participation, such as a citizen-centric cityplanning (Light and Seravalli 2019); and commonfare.net, where underprivileged populations have been able to share their stories, and find dignity and meaning (Bassetti et al 2019). Non-extrativist alternative platforms, also understood as commons, have collectively managed resources that are used to benefit the users (Poderi 2019).…”

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“…Co-designing technology, laws, systems, and cities are becoming more common and have had success delivering solutions, which work for all parties involved. [47][48][49] Co-designing RAI is another aspect, which could greatly improve attitudes and outcomes, and having RAI education either separate or part of this process could be an important way to drive success.…”

Repositioning CoDesign in the age of platform capitalism: from sharing to caring

“…All the papers to some extent demonstrate co-design practice that directly engages with the tensions of collaboration and commodification identified above. In particular, articles by Bassetti et al (2019), and Carroll and Beck (2019) present very different perspectives on the use and experience of co-design in this context. Bassetti et al (2019) bring social cooperation to the forefront of the design process of 'Commonfare', to promote a welfare of the common, a politically engaged project that has involved the participation of many people across three European countries as pilot sites.…”

“…In particular, articles by Bassetti et al (2019), and Carroll and Beck (2019) present very different perspectives on the use and experience of co-design in this context. Bassetti et al (2019) bring social cooperation to the forefront of the design process of 'Commonfare', to promote a welfare of the common, a politically engaged project that has involved the participation of many people across three European countries as pilot sites. Where the Commonfare project seeks to support participation on an inter-country scale across Europe, Carroll and Beck (2019) present a study of involvement between their research team and water quality experts across multiple co-design hackathons in a small area of the USA.…”

“…The emphasis of this contribution is also that of learning from successful initiatives, in particular, from the available knowledge on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as a paradigmatic case of platform as commons. Bassetti et al (2019) give a case study of co-design for developing a digital space that promotes and facilitates the 'Commonfare', a complementary approach to social welfare. They show how the use of co-and participatory design processes is fundamental to achieving a common good that values cooperation and rejects commodification.…”