Infrastructuring in participatory design

TLDR

Information infrastructure, introduced to the participatory design community in the mid‑1990s by Star and collaborators, has since been conceptualized and adapted within PD, prompting a review of its evolution to guide future work. The paper aims to review and reflect on the evolution of infrastructuring in participatory design, identifying themes that highlight key information infrastructure characteristics and inform future research. The authors conduct a literature review and thematic analysis of participatory design approaches to examine how information infrastructure has been adapted and negotiated. The study finds that the concept of information infrastructure has been adapted, appended, and negotiated across various participatory design approaches, forming the basis of infrastructuring.

Abstract

This paper reviews literature and reflects on infrastructuring in Participatory Design (PD) with a conceptual interest. It starts with the notion of information infrastructure introduced to the PD community in the mid-1990s by Star and collaborators. It traces how the notion has been adapted, appended, and negotiated within a number of PD approaches known as "infrastructuring." Based on this review, the paper discusses a number of themes arising from these approaches that relate to salient information infrastructure characteristics and speak to the specificity of infrastructuring in PD. This paper takes stock of what has happened in conceptual terms with regard to information infrastructure and infrastructuring in the field of PD to inform continuing work.