Writing PD: accounting for socially-engaged research
Abstract
As participants in participatory process, PD academics report on the practices and outcomes of their work and thereby shape what is known of individual projects and the wider field of participatory design. At present, there is a dominant form for this reporting, led by academic publishing models. Yet, the politics of describing others has received little discussion. Our field brings diverging sensibilities to co-design, conducting experiments and asking what participation means in different contexts. How do we match this ingenuity in designing with ingenuity of reporting? Should designers, researchers and other participants all be writing up participatory work, using more novel and tailored approaches? Should we write more open and playful collaborative texts? Within some academic discourse, considerable value is placed on reflexivity, positionality, inclusivity and auto-ethnography as part of reflecting. Yet, PD spends no time in discussing its written outputs. Drawing on the results of a PDC'16 workshop, I encourage us to challenge this silence and discuss "Writing PD".
