A local history of the politics of participation in designing

Joan Greenbaum told the HCI research community in 1993 that ‘as system developers we have the obligation to provide people with the opportunity to influence their own lives’ (1993:47). What did she mean? How might we understand that today? And what influence has this relationship had on my practice as an academic and activist? In this talk, I touch on the ideas of responsibility, ownership, reflective practice, citizenship and interdependence as they have appeared in more than 10 years of participatory work and conclude with some thoughts for the future, inspired by looking back.