Conference Agenda

This paper presents an innovative co-design participatory power pyramid, which foregrounds how people living with dementia (PLWD) are (and can be) involved in co-design projects. The pyramid provides a scale of participant involvement in co-design activities based on the premise that design is a process that encom-passes a series of interlinked activities, actions, and thinking that, when com-bined, result in a designed outcome. The co-design participatory power pyramid has been created to define and better understand the spectrum of co-design projects when working with PLWD. However, it is anticipated that the frame-work will be applicable to other co-design research practices. The pyramid makes explicit the differences between co-design projects labelled as ‘to’, ‘for’, ‘with’ and ‘by’. The paper provides examples to highlight how the framework is an appropriate tool as it encourages self-empowerment in collaboration and inde-pendence in action that are perceived to be aspirational in co-design activities.

As the population ages, chronic disease management (CDM) has become a challenge for current public health services. Previously, designing for patients with chronic diseases often saw them as passive objects of design, hindering their agency. Understanding patients' agency is very important for health management, but the empowerment approach in the health field is often a disguised paternalism. This study aims to use the empowerment theory to reframe the possibility of the design empowering CDM and propose corresponding means of empowerment. We identified four types of design empowerment in CDM and articulated specific empowerment strategies through case studies. Our study therefore enriches the theoretical landscape regarding the role of design empowerment within CDM, offering insights for amplifying the voice of design at the crossroads of empowerment and CDM.

This study investigates the extent of the empowering effects of making and collective production activities on people with disabilities and the assistive products they use. The universal and participatory design approaches intend to empower people with disabilities, but how a person with a disability can be empowered, and the requirements for it are highly dependent on the individual and the context. The research utilizes the elements of The Empowerment Theory to assess the resulting empowerment of participants’ making-related experiences. Semi-structured interviews and participant observations were conducted to understand the role of making and collective production activities in enabling the participation of people with disabilities in designing, adapting, and making their own assistive products. Analyzing the disability-related making activities through the lens of a social empowerment theory allows this study to contribute to empowering people with disabilities by defining the current barriers on their participation and understanding the effect of making.

This paper discusses how craft practice may offer empowerment strategies for critically reflective spaces, that allow for social transformation, using the case of traditional textile communities of women in rural Pakistan where development opportunities are limited. It uses the reflective practice of its design researcher, to explore established power relations, and search for new dialogues that build meaningful relationships for creating new forms of power in interrelated social, development and design contexts. This practice-based discussion contends with the embedded layers of power arising from social constructs and those extending beyond. A combined methodology, ‘Power Signifiers’ is presented as a critically reflective approach for social and design practice, building on the social sciences discourse of power analysis and power relations frameworks through forms of non-obvious power in developing contexts. Theories of power and empowerment provide a platform that designers can build on in examining agencies of making in design collaborations.