Joanna Saad-Sulonen

The CommIT project is a first step in consolidating a comparative study between the North and South of Europe on the design-in-use and infrastructuring of ecologies of digital artifacts and services by self-organised, volunteer-based urban communities, to shape information infrastructures to support their needs. By design-in-use and infrastructuring, I refer to the continuous processes of choosing, using, adapting, and combining digital technologies, as studied in participatory design and Computer Supported Cooperative Work literature. 

The project builds on and continues my earlier work on this subject in Denmark and Finland. The urban communities I have worked with and studied there were driven by a desire to engage in sustainable production and consumption, often as a reaction to, or because of a sensitivity towards, the unfolding climate crisis. They took part in urban gardening for producing their own herbs and vegetables or in the creation of a grassroot service for directly connecting with local organic. For the CommIT project at IMéRA, I would like to put in place a similar empirical research study, based on a combined ethnographic and participatory design study in the Aix-Marseille region. I will combine the empirical study with a theoretical exploration of the links between participation in design as understood in northern Europe (with the legacy of Scandinavian PD tradition) and in France (with the ergonomics tradition), hence my collaboration with Professor Nathalie Bonnardel and her colleagues at the PsyCLE Center and the Institute of Creativity and Innovation (InCIAM) at the Aix Marseille University.