Reviews Gone South: A Subversive Experiment on Participatory Design Canons

Abstract

In this paper, we present a performative exercise aimed at revisiting, from Latin American “Southern” perspectives, two seminal articles in Participatory Design (PD): “Co-creation and the new landscapes of design” by Sanders & Stappers, and “Participation in Design Things” by Ehn. The goal is to turn peer review into a critical tool to inform established knowledge in PD with Latin American perspectives, using five principles: citational justice, epistemic justice, emancipation, relationality and positionality. Through this exercise we offer reflections, experiences, and literature to critically expand PD’s core as the field moves to global contexts. We discuss two tensions in this move: 1) design as socio-historical production, and 2) emancipatory commitments of participation when ’turning South’. We end with a critical reflection about the potential and limitations of our reformulation of peer review and its Southern politics. We offer these reflections to PD as a way to invite radical political solidarities across borders.