A Power Lexicon: Exploring Articulations of Power during an Eco-Social Design Semester Project

Abstract

The Masters in Eco-Social Design at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano is a practice-oriented, transdisciplinary programme exploring how design can contribute to more resilient, solidarity-oriented, and just futures. Towards this end the Masters collaborates with numerous citizen-led organisations, social cooperatives, and other everyday “change agents.” Despite power being always at stake in such co-design projects, talking about it remains complex. Designers often lack the language with which to address competing interests and power dynamics in design processes. Drawing from how power has been discussed in participatory design and from the findings that emerged from a research project exploring collaboration in social design education on the Masters, the paper articulates a “Power Lexicon.” The aim of the lexicon is to provide design students, researchers , and partners with grounded terms which can be employed to explicitly discuss and negotiate power dynamics in community-based design processes.