Feminist Tendencies, Tensions, and Co-Design Practice

As use of co-design methods increase in the public sector, practitioners operate at a nexus of complex social issues, such as gender equity. Contributing to recent discourses that interrogate how designers enact methods, this study investigates how a personal feminist perspective both shapes and is shaped by engaging in co-design. Drawing inspiration from Sara Ahmed, the study focuses on ‘the background’ of co-design and explores practitioner experiences through design research praxis narratives (DRPNs). These narratives illustrate how practitioners negotiate everyday norms that perpetuate inequity. Rather than outlining what practitioners should be doing, this phenomenological study explores how feminist co-design practice unfolds.