Out of Scandinavia to Asia: adaptability of participatory design in culturally distant society
Abstract
Participatory design (PD) has historically started and traditionally been conducted in Scandinavian contexts, where participation is an integral part of the social value. In this paper, we report our experiences conducting PD approaches in Japan, where social value systems and understandings of participation differ from Scandinavia. The project shows how Japanese utilize PD to solve an extraordinary, disastrous tsunami situation. We exemplify how negative parameters for participation vanish and new social value is created locally and temporary when certain conditions are fulfilled. We argue that culturally distant societies can reasonably adapt PD and use the most of its essence by providing a localized micro-mechanism for consolidating the conditions.
