Reimagining co-design on Country as a relational and transformational practice

Abstract

ABSTRACT Undertaking participatory work with Indigenous people requires a reflexive and critical reimagining of how non-Indigenous design researchers engage with place. This paper draws upon reflexive learnings from a co-design education programme with young adults from Ntaria, Western Arrarnta Country in the Central Desert of Australia. Co-designing with Ntaria youth involved deeper questioning of the dynamics of participation, catalysing a change of pace and a shift from engaging as a Design Researcher and Educator to a person open to different ways of relating. This embodied transformation required leaning into uncertainty and discomfort as a new practice of waiting and becoming relational, attuned to the temporal rhythms of people and ‘Country’. While the stories are highly personal and contextually specific, the paper aims to inspire others to reflect and question alternative ways of being a design researcher. By shifting away from de-personalised accounts of research that emphasises roles, skills, processes, and methodologies, this paper reimagines co-design as co-ontological ways of becoming, which troubles research traditions of replicability and generalisability. For co-design to be reimagined this way, we argue the significance of onto-epistemes that are beyond dominant research orthodoxies to respect and embrace pluriversal ways of participating, learning, and teaching design.