Description
Book SynopsisCo-Designing Publics brings together a mix of academics, activists, and practitioners to discuss and debate discourses from scholarly research, grassroots activism, and design ideas for future action. The “Co-Designing Publics” global research network, funded by a grant awarded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, has a sustained focus on the public realm and its production through informal strategies in cities of the global south. As cities are increasingly confronted by multiple crises [e.g. Covid-19 pandemic, climate crisis] and conditions of precarity [e.g. urban inequality, inadequate public infrastructure], such circumstances call for more interactive, collaborative, and creative approaches for [re]designing their public realm. Based on these premises, the book integrates discussions of three critical and interrelated phenomena: creative ways of mobilising communities around common concerns and desires [i.e. co-designing publics], deployment of grassroots tactics and social innovations [i.e. informal strategies], and production of spatial networks of public spaces intertwined with their ongoing governance [i.e. public realm]. Contextually grounding these discussions in cities of the global south enables us to learn how innovative co-design practices operate around issues such as homelessness and affordable housing, sustainable and equitable energy systems, waste management, cooperative models of property ownership, the promotion and protection of human rights, and the production of peace in contexts of violence. The book thereby draws from and presents public conversations between academic research and case studies of activism [from Bogota, Bengaluru, Cape Town, Jakarta, Phnom Penh, and Sao Paulo].
Table of Contents01 Co-Designing Publics: A Theoretical and Investigative Overview Aseem Inam................................................................................. 4 02 Co-Design as Engagement with the City: Rujak Center for Urban Studies, Jakarta Elisa Sutanudjaja and AbdouMaliq Simone............................26 03 Public Realm Ethnography: Understanding and Studying the Public Realm Alasdair Jones............................................................................39 04 Co-Design as Long-Term Process: Hasiru Dala, Bengaluru Nalini Shekar and Neha Sami...................................................44 05 Co-Design as Contestation of Power: União Nacional por Moradia Popular, São Paulo Evaniza Rodrigues and Fernando Lara....................................54 06 Who Really Designs? Marianela D’Aprile.....................................................................64 07 Co-Design as Resistance: Cambodian Center for Human Rights, Phnom Penh Sopheap Chak and Simon Springer........................................71 08 Co-Design as Participation: Project 90 by 2030, Cape Town Lorna Fuller, Gabriel Klaasen and Charlotte Lemanski..........81 09 Subversive Aesthetics in the Americas Macarena Gómez-Barris...........................................................91 10 Co-Design against Traditional Power Structures: ASOMEVID, Cali Alexander López, Melanie Lombard and Carlos Tobar.........94 11 Do It Responsibly or Don’t Do It at All Panthea Lee..............................................................................108 12 Co-Designing Publics International Symposium: Closing Thoughts Charlotte Lemanski..................................................................115 13 Epilogue Aseem Inam.............................................................................126
