The Relational Becoming of a Participatory Design Commoner

Authors

Sanna Marttila, IT University of CopenhagenFollow
Frederick van Amstel, University of FloridaFollow
Joanna Saad-Sulonen, Aalto UniversityFollow
Andrea Botero, Aalto UniversityFollow
Giacomo PoderiFollow
Maurizio Teli, Aalborg UniversityFollow
P.D. CommonerFollow

Abstract

This research expands the understanding of the collective designer behind Scandinavian Participatory Design with the Latin American notion of relational ontology, which posits a worldview where everything and everyone are mutually constituted through evolving relationships. Drawing from three thematic workshops with design practitioners and scholars that explored intersections between commoning and designing, this research unveils the relational becoming of a participatory design commoner. This includes the production of a shared subjectivity—the collective designer—as integral to commoning design and designing commons. Specifically, we explore the role of participatory designers in commoning through their subjectivity in their infrastructuring actions and affective engagements with objective commons.

Keywords

Relational ontology; Participatory Design; Commons; Commoning; Becoming; Collective Designer

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.22

Citation

Marttila, S., van Amstel, F., Saad-Sulonen, J., Botero, A., Poderi, G., Teli, M.,and Commoner, P.(2025) The Relational Becoming of a Participatory Design Commoner, in Brandt, E., Markussen, T., Berglund, E., Julier, G., Linde, P. (eds.), Nordes 2025: Relational Design, 6-8 August, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.22

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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