War and peace in codesign

Abstract

This paper argues that codesign should look into how codesign comes into being in practice, what I call design before design, and the pragmatic and political questions that arise in this context. Using the example of the work that goes into creating and sustaining interest in codesign among prospective participants the pragmatics and politics of codesign itself is questioned. It is argued that codesign is not necessarily in the interest of the people it is ostensibly ‘for’, and that codesign in its implementation of its particular ideals of participation and democracy is following a ‘logic of war’ where winning, losing or making a tactical retreat are the only possibilities. However, as code signers it is suggested that we exchange this logic with a more diplomatic and designerly approach to allow for both creativity and concession out of a concern for improving codesign.

Keywords:

• Codesign
• participation
• politics of design
• power
• empowerment
• participatory design

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the reviewers for helpful and constructive critique that has improved the paper considerably.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Sanders and Stappers (2008) have confidently suggested that design practice in the future will converge towards codesign.

2. I have previously written about this in Pedersen (2007).

3. I am not the first to question that the codesign agenda does not align with its purported beneficiaries. For an early feminist inspired critique, see Markussen (1994).

4. Similarly, Yndigegn (forthcoming) describes in detail how seniors in a codesign project-resisted participation in design activities.

5. Redström (2008) speaks about ‘design after design’ as a way to pinpoint how design of artefacts not just takes place before they are put into use, but also after when they are adapted, reconfigured, etc. by users themselves. Design before design is not meant to focus on design of the artefact, but rather on design of the design activities – that which is a condition for the possibility of designing artefacts at all.

6. For a description of this work see Pedersen (2007).

7. Traditionally, participatory design in Scandinavian was based on Marxist class analysis where designers should empower workers through ‘work-oriented’ technologies to overcome capitalist and managerial dominance in the workplace (see Ehn 1988; Asaro 2000).

8. I’m here indebted to authors – inspired by Foucault’s analyses of power and governmentality – that have problematised a simple relationship between empowerment and emancipation, and a simple distribution of power between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ of power. See, e.g. Cruikshank (1999), Dean (2010), Fogh Jensen (2013).