LDoc Keynote 10 Workshop: What can participatory design contribute to participatory democracy?

'What can participatory design contribute to participatory democracy: A response to the call to Stand Up for Democracy', presented by Professor Lorraine Gamman and Professor Adam Thorpe.

We would like to welcome LDoc students to our 10th Keynote workshop, lead by Professor Lorraine Gamman and Professor Adam Thorpe.

This LDOC workshop invites participants to consider their research in relation to the themes of; democratising innovation and/or innovating democracy. Participants may create a poster or a short presentation of their PhD project, we would also like you to think about issues raised below.

Workshop structure
Following a brief introduction to the themes by the workshop facilitators participants will each have 10 minutes to present their work and reflect on whether or not, and if so how, you feel it relates to one or both of the themes presented. Each participant will receive feedback on their presentation from the tutors/group and there will be a plenary to reflect on and summarise the perspectives shared.

Context of discussion: background concepts you might find helpful

i) Democratising innovation
In 2005, Eric Von Hippel argued “innovation is being democratized, I mean that users of products and services - both firms and individual consumers - are increasingly able to innovate for themselves. User-centered innovation processes offer great advantages”. Later, in 2008 Leadbeater, suggested that technology and the web had enabled mass participation and collaboration in ways not before possible paving the way for ‘mass innovation’ that could harness the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ (Surowiecki, 2005) in addressing complex challenges. Indeed, the ‘wickedness’ of contemporary societal challenges, characterized by multiple ‘problem owners’ with contradictory desirable outcomes, demands exploration of the contribution of democratizing innovation beyond the user centred and market focused account of democratizing innovation proposed by Von Hippel. An alternative account is articulated by Binder et al (2015) below `

“Participatory design practices are particularly well suited for renouncing the obsession with ‘objects’, so dominant within design, and replacing it with things or thinging as socio-material assemblies that evolve over time. This leads us on to fertile ground for experimentation that goes beyond the taken-for- granted wisdom that the user is Kings and that human centeredness is a solid ground. In so doing, we suggest a shift from a focus on users and representation towards citizens and publics, including not only human, but also non-human participants”.

ii) Innovating democracy
Currently we have a very closed model of democracy, a top down model that offers few other than voting, as to how best to shape the future. Such restricted choice and engagement opportunities leads to disengagement from the democratic process for many people who choose none of the above when faced with a closed range of possibilities to address issues of concern. Worse still is the alternative, a rise in acceptance of an oversimplified version of events that lead some frustrated with current societal scenarios to become more accepting of populist propositions that ignore complexities and contradictions and lead to divisive and separatist responses. This scenario suggests a need to innovate democracy, to find new ways to distribute and diversify democratic decision making, to open up the process of governance so as to include more diverse perspectives and possibilities. Here it is suggested that design has a significant contribution to make.
Manzini and Margolin (2016) suggest design actions that might address the issue of innovating democracy include;

i) Design of democracy means to improve the potential of a given environment to sustain a high number of conversations for action.It addresses the structural elements that function as frames and regulators of human action in a democratic system. It focuses on institutions (such as: branches of government, agencies, bureaus, courts, and offices) and procedures (such as: laws, regulations, rules, and protocols).
ii) Design for democracy means to increase people’s opportunities to take informed decisions in the framework of different deliberative processes.It increases the opportunities for citizens to participate in deliberative processes. It focuses on transparency (which enables citizens to be aware of the on-going process of governance) and deliberative methods (which is the opportunity to be better involved in decision making processes).
iii) Design in democracy means to feed and sustain people’s conversations for action with triggering ideas and dedicated enabling systems. It refers to all the design initiatives that are particularly responsive to the goals of democracy. It may deal with the provision of basic human rights (such as access to food, shelter, health care, and education) and, more in general, with the transition towards a more resilient, fair and sustainable
society.
iv) Design as democracy means to extend people’s capabilities to have conversations and to move from them to practical actions. It sets a stage on which diverse actors can come together and democratically collaborate in shaping their present and future world. It engages diverse people and publics in co-design and co-production processes concerning different aspects of their everyday life.

Please arrive at least 5 minutes before the workshop is due to start to avoid delays.

Contact ldoc@rca.ac.uk if you have any questions.

*Non UAL students should head to reception and ask for Lynne Finn who will take you to the room

Tickets for the evening lecture can be reserved here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ldoc-keynote-10-lecture-what-can-participatory-design-contribute-to-participatory-democracy-tickets-37237261652

Bibliography

• Thomas Binder, Eva Brandt, Pelle Eh and Joachim Halse, “Democratic Design experiments: between parliament and labortatory, in CoDesign 2015, Vol 11, No.3-4,152- 165 (The above paper can be downloaded here : http://www.democracy-design.org/resources/)

There are many more texts you could read if you were interested they include;

• Thomas Binder, Eva Brandt, Pelle Ehn and Joachim Halse (2015), “Democratic design experiments: between parliament and laboratory, in CoDesign 2015, Vol 11, No.3-4,152- 165

• Gui Bonsiepe, Design and Democracy (2005 lecture), published Design issues, Volume 22, Spring 2006

• Otto von Busch & Karl Palmas (2016), Designing Consent; Can Design Thinking Manufacture

• Democratic Capitalism, Organizational Aesthetics, Vol 5, Issue 2 pp 10-24

• Carl Disalvo, Design, Democracy and Agonistic Pluralism (2010), Proceedings of the design research society conference 2010. 3

• Victor Margolin “Design and Democracy in a Troubled World (2012), paper of lecture given at Carnegie Mellon University, April 11, 2012

• Design Commission Designing Democracy: How Designers are changing democratic places and spaces, Policy Context, London, 2015

• Elina Kiski Kataja, From the Trials of Democracy Towards Future Participation, Sitra Memorandum, 21.3.217

• Julie Simon, Theo Bass, Victoria Boelman and Geoff Mulgan, Digital Democracy – the tools transforming political engagement, Nesta, 2017