Design as Democratic Inquiry

Abstract

My work in community-based participatory design began with a series of workshops I held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2007, but it would have never progressed to this without the support of a community of designers and scholars. Most notably, I am indebted to Pelle Ehn for all the conversations over the years, and throughout those conversations the constant encouragement. The underlying concept for this book was inspired by the work of Thomas Binder, Eva Brandt, Pelle Ehn, and Jochaim Halse. Thomas, Eva, Pelle, and Jochaim, this book would not be what it is without your ideas and the examples you set through your practice and scholarship. Thank you. Time and again, colleagues from Denmark and Sweden generously invited me to participate in discussions with them. Those discussions inform this book, and their bold work continues to move me. In particular, I am so appreciative of the opportunities to learn from

Prototyping Ethics-As-Practice: A Framework For Designing Data-Driven Product Service Systems

“…Identifying and debating the sociotechnical imaginaries materialised through current design practice is necessary to argue for or against a course direction which could potentially cater towards a diferent ethics [20,26]. At the same time, imaginaries can ofer an interesting opening to envision alternative futures, for how we might confgure social, ethical and political relations diferently [10]. Imaginaries have been used to approach future making from diferent angles, particularly through speculative making [5] and design experiments [11].…”

Constructive controversies : Redesigning democratic debate and ethical deliberation in the smart city

“…We argue that design should focus on developing more sensitivity to, and awareness of societal, political and economic factors that influence transdisciplinary collaboration. We suggest connecting more strongly to the humanities and recommend the works of DiSalvo (2012DiSalvo ( , 2022 and Sawney and Tran (2020) as valuable examples, that engage in a conversation between design and theories on democracy and power relations. In line with Malazita (2018), we argue that critically-oriented design approaches can be leveraged in educational settings to help students from both design and engineering schools, to engage with social and political theory through their work.…”

“…DiSalvo, 2022) has become increasingly salient in recent years (e.g. DiSalvo, 2012DiSalvo, , 2022Björgvinsson et al 2010;Ehn et al, 2014;Ozkaramanli et al, 2022). Design's creative impetus, generative qualities and ability to create a levelplaying field among different stakeholders through the use of boundary objects such as mock-ups, prototypes and scenarios, have been positioned as meaningful, if not necessary, in addressing today's wicked problems (Buchanan, 1992).…”

“…Over the last decades, several PD scholars (e.g. Björgvinsson et al, 2012aBjörgvinsson et al, , 2012bEhn et al, 2014;Disalvo, 2010Disalvo, , 2015Disalvo, , 2022Hillgren et al, 2016;Sawney & Tran, 2020) have incorporated the notion of democratic engagement through controversies, conflict and agonism in order to 'address controversial issues and allow a polyphony of voices rather than aiming at consensus' (Hernberg & Mazé, 2018, 1). PD activities can support the incorporation a diversity of actors, and the articulation of multiple perspectives around technological impacts in smart cities , creating the conditions for agonistic public spaces that aim at constructively dealing with disagreements without necessarily solving conflict (Björgvinsson et al, 2012b).…”

“…Moreover, these approaches connect strongly to insights from Science and Technology Studies, Philosophy of Technology and Political Theory and reflect on design's role in public debate. For example, the work of DiSalvo (2010DiSalvo ( , 2012DiSalvo ( , 2022 relates to Mouffe's theory of agonistic pluralism (1999). The concept of agonism runs counter to tacit consensus, highlighting inherent disagreements and confrontations that may lead to productive deliberations, resistance or contestation.…”