Ecologies of Contestation in Participatory Design

Sawhney, Nitin; Tran, Anh-Ton

doi:10.1145/3385010.3385028

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The outcome from this activity informs the activities to identify key partners, gather data and doing analysis, and make outcomes visible and accessible. While untangling participatory design processes can be difficult (Sawhney and Tran, 2020), the framework presented in this paper demonstrated its value to do just that, to fill the gap of developing playable city design approaches that are inclusive and meaningful for the local community. Current research extends this research to focus on the development of a data approach to enhance rhythms in neighborhoods (2018-2023) in urban environments (Nevejan et al, 2018).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Analysis of the case study in Bouwlust provides insight into which methods are essential within the design framework proposed in this paper. To untangle participatory design processes and methods is a challenge (Sawhney and Tran, 2020): they are not easily separated because they influence each other constantly. To this end, researchers can move back and forth between the four activities of our framework using methods that can contribute to multiple activities at the same time as depicted in Figure 6.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Together We Can Make It Work! Toward a Design Framework for Inclusive and Participatory City-Making of Playable Cities

Slingerland

Lukosch

Hengst³

et al. 2020

Front. Comput. Sci.

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Making it work together can be challenging when various stakeholders are involved. Given the context of neighborhoods and cities specifically, stakeholders values and interests are not always aligned. In these settings, to construct long-term and sustaining participatory city-making projects, to make it work together, is demanding. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a design framework for inclusive and participatory city-making. This framework is inspired by the playable city perspective in that it endorses an open, exploratory, and interactive mindset of city actors. An extensive literature review on approaches taken for playful and participatory interventions in local communities provides the foundations for the framework. The review brings forward four pillars on which the framework is grounded and four activities for exploration of the design space for participatory city-making. A case study from The Hague (NL) is used to demonstrate how the framework can be applied to design and analyze processes in which city stakeholders together make it work. The case study analysis complements the framework with various research methods to support researchers, urban planners, and designers to engage with all city stakeholders to create playful and participatory interventions, which are inclusive and meaningful for the local community. The research contributions of this paper are the proposed framework and informed suggestions on how this framework in practice assists city stakeholders to together make it work.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Together We Can Make It Work! Toward a Design Framework for Inclusive and Participatory City-Making of Playable Cities

Slingerland

Lukosch

Hengst³

et al. 2020

Front. Comput. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, in the case of the automated parking control system, stakeholders from the city including different municipal actors, private providers, and citizen advocacy groups would need to be engaged in the process to ensure the emerging service remains trustworthy, while the compliance framework is robust and accountable, based on the priorities of the city as well as the right and values of all stakeholders involved. Design research workshops that we hosted in New York City to examine urban mobility data with stakeholders, described in previous sections of the article (Sawhney 2020), offer an approach for examining conflicting objectives and demands, while engaging urban practitioners, technology experts, and citizen advocates to devise cooperative understanding of the implications of using Urban AI for equitable mobility in the city. Employing participatory methodologies for urban informatics offers a cultural shift in policy and governance towards collaborative city-making (Foth 2018), while nurturing shared responsibility among municipal authorities and city residents for a kind of cooperative digital urbanism.…”

Section: Reconciling Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a pluralistic democracy, constituted by diverse stakeholders, there needs to be room for differing views, disagreements and "conflictual consensus" to emerge as real alternatives to imposed dispositions, forced choices and tokenistic participation. Chantal Mouffe (1999, 2013 proposes the notion of agonistic pluralism and elevates contestation (the act of arguing or disagreeing) as a political alternative to the pursuit of consensus; this serves to confront the multiplicity of voices and complexity of power structures embedded in a pluralistic society (Sawhney 2020). Contestations in urban mobility are emerging situations of dissent and the deliberation of alternative views, to counter the lived experiences and societal implications of increasing datafication and algorithmic decision-making involved in smart-city infrastructures constituted as forms of Urban AI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contestations in urban mobility: rights, risks, and responsibilities for Urban AI

Sawhney

2022

AI & Soc

Self Cite

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Cities today are dynamic urban ecosystems with evolving physical, socio-cultural, and technological infrastructures. Many contestations arise from the effects of inequitable access and intersecting crises currently faced by cities, which may be amplified by the algorithmic and data-centric infrastructures being introduced in urban contexts. In this article, I argue for a critical lens into how inter-related urban technologies, big data and policies, constituted as Urban AI, offer both challenges and opportunities. I examine scenarios of contestations in urban mobility, defined broadly to include equitable access, movement, and liberty to engage with the socio-cultural, political, and urban fabric of cities. I anchor my arguments through a framework of rights, risks, and responsibilities for critically examining and configuring the roles, values and ethical implications for all stakeholders including human, AI and non-human entities within an urban ecosystem. As a way forward, I examine the European Commission’s proposed regulations on AI systems through an illustrative case study of an automated parking control system introduced by the City of Amsterdam. In moving beyond the city to broader urban ecosystems, I highlight the role of engaging Indigenous perspectives for designing and reconciling the implications of equitable and sustainable Urban AI ecosystems in the future.

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“…The anti-COVID-19 measures resulted in three distinct periods: before, during, and after the first lockdown in the Netherlands. We adopted the Ecologies of Contestation framework [29] as a lens to examine the dynamic community context in the case study [22] from four angles: the Socio-cultural, Power, Constructed, and Value-based Ecologies. Analysis through the Ecologies of Contestations framework helped to reveal the context dynamics that influenced the design process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Reality Kicks In: Exploring the Influence of Local Context on Community-Based Design

et al. 2022

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Social sustainability is becoming an increasingly important topic in design practice, calling for more contextual perspectives on the process of design for social sustainability. This paper presents a retrospective case study analyzing the design process of a serious game which aimed to empower teenagers to organize events to strengthen community bonds. The community context in which the collaborative project took place underwent significant contextual changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis using the Ecologies of Contestation framework shows the influence of multiple contextual levels (Socio-cultural, Power, Constructed, and Values-based) on the design process. Moreover, the paper discusses multiple contextual factors which influenced the design process and presents four suggestions for designers to anticipate and benefit from dynamics in these contextual elements. The suggestions regard (1) integrating the temporal dimension in the collaborative design processes, (2) carefully considering (value) alignment between actors, (3) leveraging values in the collaborative design process, and (4) acknowledging and responding to the multilayered nature of communities throughout the design process. As such, this paper explores the relationships between the community context and the collaborative design process to contribute to more resilient design practices.

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Ecologies of Contestation in Participatory Design

Cited by 11 publications

References 15 publications

Together We Can Make It Work! Toward a Design Framework for Inclusive and Participatory City-Making of Playable Cities

Together We Can Make It Work! Toward a Design Framework for Inclusive and Participatory City-Making of Playable Cities

Contestations in urban mobility: rights, risks, and responsibilities for Urban AI

When Reality Kicks In: Exploring the Influence of Local Context on Community-Based Design

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