design. Tradition refers to how the designer improves the present, with the risk of naturalizing objects and systems that carry embodied but invisible meanings that are really not desirable from an ethical point of view. Transcendence aims at more fundamental change, where designs can take on a new role that is perhaps impossible to conceive under current norms. While the idea of design for social change and other value-driven movements has grown immensely in the past decade, we can still observe how a great deal of co-design projects take a normative starting point and do not move toward transcendence. This observation is no critique against design as problem solving; surely it is needed to support people in managing mundane problematic situations. But from an empowering perspective, and in relation to ethics in design, this is of great concern to the co-designer. Designers are immersed in complex entanglements of different value systems—their task is not easy. Attempts at acting upon values that are so culturally and politically embedded as to become invisible paradigms can seem like Don Quixote fighting windmills. Such values can be ingrained so deeply that we run the risk of unconsciously supporting values we really don’t believe in. One example of such hegemonies that are hard to challenge is the idea of economic growth as an essential and indispensable element for the well-being of a society. Consequently, it becomes hard to collaboratively develop other aspects of well-being that do not prioritize economics. There are many other examples in relation to community work. If we want co-design with communities to provoke interest, critical engagement, and collective action, we need to take this tension seriously.

 

MUTUAL LEARNING AS COLLECTIVE CRITICAL THINKING

We have highlighted several ethical dilemmas that designers face in engaging with(in) processes bringing together different actors and interests, and in dealing with larger societal, organizational, and policy frameworks.

A fair question would be whether and to what extent a designer should engage with such complexity. We claim that we don’t have much of a choice, since participation has gone mainstream. From industry to the public sector, there is a growing and transverse interest toward multidisciplinary perspectives, and new alliances across sectors and organizational structures. Yet, even when the best intentions are at play, participation is always at risk of becoming instrumental to logics of exploitation and control rather than empowerment and democratization. How and why that happens is often beyond the control of single individuals; rather, it depends on preexisting interdependencies, which are often difficult to influence and change. Should we then give up on participation? Is the democratic design agenda outmoded? Our view is that this agenda is becoming even more urgent. This urgency is shared by designers and other societal actors who are looking with anticipation at the developments around the sharing economy, open innovation, and new models for public welfare.

There is a need for a more nuanced understanding of opportunities and risks with participation and, out of that, more reflective and cautious frameworks and approaches for action. In particular, the notion of mutual learning is key. Within the co-design tradition, mutual learning emerges among people who collaborate in a design process, learning about each other’s practices and the process’s point of focus. In line with a renewed interest in mutual learning within co-design [ 5], we see mutual learning as key in creating awareness among participants about the limits of representation, preexisting accountabilities, and struggles between tradition and transcendence. We propose that an ethical design approach in complex participatory processes has to focus on supporting learning between participants as a matter of actively fostering collective critical thinking about the conditions in which participatory processes emerge, as well as their opportunities to move for ward.

Key in this effort is the collective articulation—together with

DOI: 10.1145/3280938 © 2018 ACM 1072-5520/18/11 $15.00

participants—of the role of cultural norms, organizational structures, professional cultures, and policies in facilitating and hindering democratization efforts. Additionally, particular attention should be given to how participatory endeavors can be adopted by participants in their own practice and promoted within their communities and organizations. Here, the collective effort should be about the articulation of opportunities and risks in the scaling and spreading of participation. By integrating these elements, co-designers and participants can navigate the complexity and challenges of the era of participation in an ethical way that addresses the conditions and scaling of participation.

Endnotes

1. Boyte, H.C. Everyday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2004. Referred by Olivier, P. and Wright, P. Digital civics: Taking a local turn. Interactions 22, 4 (Jul.–Aug. 2015), 61–63. DOI: https://doi. org/10.1145/2776885

2. Ehn, P. and Badham, R. Participatory design and the collective designer. Proc. of the Participatory Design Conference. 2002.

3. Light, A. and Akama, Y. The nature of ‘obligation’ in doing design with communities: Participation, politics and care. In Tricky Design: Ethics Through Things. T. Fisher and L. Gamman, eds. Bloomsbury, London, 2017.

4. Suchman, L. Located accountabilities in technology production. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 14, 2 (2002), 91–105

5. DiSalvo, B., Yip, J., Bonsignore, E., and DiSalvo, C. Participatory Design for Learning. Routledge, 2017.

 

Per Linde is an interaction designer and assistant professor at Malmö University.

He is chair of the management board for the Internet of Things and People research platform and coordinates the project Exploring Sustainability and Security in Future Living. His current research addresses ubiquitous computing, Io T, and participatory design processes.

→ [e-mail]

Anna Seravalli is a designer and senior lecturer at Malmö University. In her research she collaborates with citizens, civil servants, activists, and entrepreneurs to explore questions about democracy and participation in urban production and city making. She is the coordinator of Malmö University’s DESIS lab. → [e-mail]