Abstract
This paper proposes an Epimethean mode of design that works with reproductive labour as a counterpoint to Anthropocenic narratives of progress. Rather than innovating new futures, design is approached as a practice of aftercare, sustaining endangered forms of life-making within existing institutions. Drawing on a long-term participatory design project at a large hospital maternity ward, the paper theorizes Epimethean design as a mode of infrastructuring that resists the translation of care into productivity and reclaims reproduction as a site of ontological and political contestation. At the same time, it argues that confronting reductionist ideas of productivity requires a double movement: undoing, by protecting fragile reproductive practices from capture within technosocial regimes, and doing, by cautiously reworking these regimes from within. This dual stance positions design as both an act of maintenance and a generative force, enabling reproductive labour to contest and redefine what counts as productive work.
Keywords
participatory design, Infrastructuring, post-anthropocentric design, reproductive labour, designing for care
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1265
Citation
Olander, S., and Lenskjold, T. (2026) Epimethean design in practice: Infrastructuring reproductive labour in the maternity ward, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1265
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Included in
Epimethean design in practice: Infrastructuring reproductive labour in the maternity ward
This paper proposes an Epimethean mode of design that works with reproductive labour as a counterpoint to Anthropocenic narratives of progress. Rather than innovating new futures, design is approached as a practice of aftercare, sustaining endangered forms of life-making within existing institutions. Drawing on a long-term participatory design project at a large hospital maternity ward, the paper theorizes Epimethean design as a mode of infrastructuring that resists the translation of care into productivity and reclaims reproduction as a site of ontological and political contestation. At the same time, it argues that confronting reductionist ideas of productivity requires a double movement: undoing, by protecting fragile reproductive practices from capture within technosocial regimes, and doing, by cautiously reworking these regimes from within. This dual stance positions design as both an act of maintenance and a generative force, enabling reproductive labour to contest and redefine what counts as productive work.