Artful infrastructuring in two cases of community PD

Abstract

In this paper, we use the notions of artful integrations and infrastructure to analyze two cases of community Participatory Design 'in the wild'. Though the communities are quite different on the outside, they bear surprising similarities when it comes to collaboration in technology design. We identify several features of how the community members artfully integrate their everyday materials, tools, methods and practices into collaborative processes of infrastructuring. The notions of 'artful integrations' and 'infrastructure' sensitize our analysis towards a more conceptual understanding on information system development as multi-relational: socio-material, socio-historical and processual. We conclude by suggesting some refinements to the notions in the context of community PD.