Institutioning the common. The case of Commonfare

Abstract

Participatory Design (PD) has recently seen eforts to reinvigorate its political capacity, including relections 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.