Developing a publics-oriented participatory design approach to reinvigorate public involvement of marginalized groups in the public policy domain

Disenfranchised populations on the margins of society typically struggle to have social and policy issues that concern them recognised and remedied by governments. Building on a Scandinavian participatory design approach, which traditionally aims to empower marginalized groups through participation in design, this thesis critiques and expands on a strand in participatory design that mobilises the notion of publics, developed by political theorist John Dewey, to propose that participatory design approaches and methods may contribute to the formation of publics by helping groups articulate complex societal issues. However existing research operates mostly at the community scale, is not oriented to the policy domain, and does not shed light on the process of public formation. This undermines the political force of Dewey’s concept of publics and limits the potential impact of design interventions in the policy domain. To situate participatory design with emerging publics more firmly in relation to public policy discourse and agenda-setting, this thesis develops and trials an alternative application of publics - called publics-oriented participatory design.

Adopting a constructivist worldview and interpretive epistemological orientation, this designinspired qualitative research synthesises insights from agenda-setting and feminist political theory and uses an interpretivist policy analysis to situate an emerging public in the policy context. Trialled with a self-organised social housing Tenant Group in rural England, this thesis contributes a more situated and holistic understanding of the application of the publics-frame in design and offers insights into the benefits of applying methods adapted from interpretivist policy analysis to inform design interventions with emerging publics. Meanwhile, the interaction between the proposed publics-oriented design approach and public formation groups raises challenges to certain assumptions in participatory design. Insights into publics formation with marginalised groups and contextualising practice are proposed.