Institutioning the common: the case of commonfare

Abstract

Participatory Design (PD) has recently seen efforts to reinvigorate its political capacity, including reflections on the relations between its practices and institutions and a renewed political agenda in the contemporary stage of capitalism, such as the one of nourishing the common. This paper addresses both of these directions, questioning how a renewed political agenda of PD intersects the processes of institutioning in which PD itself takes part. To do that, we refer to an European-funded project called Commonfare, aimed at designing a digital platform fostering the emergence of a new economic model in the domain of the institutions of the welfare state. We conclude by discussing how a PD political agenda based on the critique of the current forms of capitalism aligns with or challenges existing institutional frames, supporting the emergence of new institutions.