Abstract
This paper examines the evolving nature of participatory design as it shifts from co-located, real-time engagements to asynchronous, delegated participation—a transformation conceptualized here as homework. Through two case studies—a toolkit for activist self-organization and a workbook-based remote design process—the paper explores how participation, when structured as homework, redistributes agency, responsibility, and knowledge production across time and space. The analysis of this paper highlights how Participatory Design, when mediated through artifacts such as toolkits and workbooks, can both enable and constrain engagement, shaping power dynamics and the ethics of care in distributed collaboration. The discussion critically examines how delegation impacts environmental justice, counter-narratives, and infrastructuring, raising questions about the unseen labor of participation, the risks of reinforcing existing knowledge hierarchies, and the potential for new relationalities in asynchronous collaboration.
Keywords
Participatory design; Infrastructuring; Delegation; Asynchronous Participation; Distributed Collaboration
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.33
Citation
Smedberg, A.,and Hylander, J.P.(2025) Homework: The politics of participatory design in distributed contexts, 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.2025.33
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Homework: The politics of participatory design in distributed contexts
This paper examines the evolving nature of participatory design as it shifts from co-located, real-time engagements to asynchronous, delegated participation—a transformation conceptualized here as homework. Through two case studies—a toolkit for activist self-organization and a workbook-based remote design process—the paper explores how participation, when structured as homework, redistributes agency, responsibility, and knowledge production across time and space. The analysis of this paper highlights how Participatory Design, when mediated through artifacts such as toolkits and workbooks, can both enable and constrain engagement, shaping power dynamics and the ethics of care in distributed collaboration. The discussion critically examines how delegation impacts environmental justice, counter-narratives, and infrastructuring, raising questions about the unseen labor of participation, the risks of reinforcing existing knowledge hierarchies, and the potential for new relationalities in asynchronous collaboration.