ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a view of co-design as a term that is widely used to minimally indicate some form of engagement with beneficiaries, but whose use may conceal significant ideological and conceptual distinctions. Although the importance of design and "design thinking" is widely, if not universally, recognized within social innovation communities, the world of the designer has been evolving and itself contains multiple strands of practice and perspective. The focus of Participatory Design on achieving mutual learning around provisional artifacts is also a key way of enabling innovation, rather than being bound by pre-conceived constraints. The aspects of design practice demonstrate the particular concerns of the Participatory Design tradition, and contrast it markedly with "user-as-subject" approaches. Participatory Design is concerned with achieving genuine participation, not as a means to an end, but as an expression of fundamental values that are embedded in its heritage, values of emancipation or the "giving of voice", and of locally expressed democracy.
