Communication in infrastructuring, or tales from a collaborative project

Abstract

We present empirical examples of approaches to communication taken by the consortium of a large scale participatory design project in Europe, framed in terms of organisational communication in an infrastructuring process. The examples are understood generally in terms of the goal of fostering internal communication practices away from hierarchical relationships, which align with the political goals of participatory design and of the project. More specifically they are also understood in the framework of strategies and tactics in terms of actions taken within an infrastructuring process. The examples relate to the role of the words consortium partners use to describe and talk about the project across different disciplines; the metaphors we construct to assist the design, development and communication; and the use of tags to assist filtering and management of mailing lists.