Uncertainties Revisited: Actor-Network Theory as a Lens for Exploring the Relationship between Uncertainties and the Quality of Participation

Abstract

In this article the authors use Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to explore the relationship between uncertainties in co-design processes and the quality of participation. They investigate discussion of uncertainties in social processes concerning the nature of actors, actions, objects, facts/matters of concern and the study of the social. To discuss uncertainties in co-design, and more specifically in infrastructuring processes, this article groups the diversity of articulations of the role and place of uncertainty in co-design into four uncertainty models: the (1) neoliberal uncertainty model, (2) uncertainty management model, (3) disruptive uncertainty model and (4) open uncertainty model. The authors qualitatively evaluate the relationship between the role and place of uncertainty in two infrastructuring processes in the domain of design for healthcare and the quality of these processes. They elaborate on how ANT supported them in developing a ‘lens' to assess how uncertainties hinder or contribute to the quality of participation.