‘Hey, I can do that too!’: How skilful participation thrives in a co-sewing café

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date

2022-04-03

Department

Department of Design

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

17

Series

CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, Volume 18, issue 2, pp. 243-259

Abstract

Participants’ skills are highly important for a democratic design process, enabling everyone to participate and skilfully use designed tools and methods. This is particularly relevant for matters of participation in extended participatory design (PD) contexts that grow in scope and time span, such as in peer production communities. However, relatively little PD research has been devoted to the relation between skills and participation. Using a case rich in practice, a co-sewing café, this paper aims to understand the spectrum of participation by deeply examining the diversity and interrelation of the skills the participants practised in the café. To analyse the case, the paper compiles a tentative analytical framework based on PD and peer production literature. I ran and documented this ‘research through design’ experiment over eighteen months, hosting hundreds of participants. The diversity of the participants’ skills was elucidated through the rich materials from the practice and then placed along a learning spectrum of skilful participation. The paper concludes with an overview of the different skills practiced and developed in the café and suggests that designing for skill development can contribute to sustaining participation in such contexts.

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Keywords

infrastructuring, makerspaces, Participation, participatory design, peer production, skills

Other note

DOI

10.1080/15710882.2020.1823994

Citation

Hirscher, A L 2022, '‘Hey, I can do that too!’ : How skilful participation thrives in a co-sewing café', CoDesign: International Journal of CoCreation in Design and the Arts, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 243-259. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2020.1823994

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202211236576

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[article-cris] Taiteiden ja suunnittelun korkeakoulu / ARTS