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The role and embodiment of the designer/artist in making publics is significant. This special issue draws attention to reflexive practices in Art & Design, and questions how these practices are embedded in the formations and operations of publics, grounded in six cases of participatory design conducted in the United States, India, Turkey, England, Denmark, and Belgium. From these design practices, typologies of participation are formulated that describe the role of the designer. These typologies describe different and sometimes conflicting epistemologies—providing designers with a vocabulary to communicate a diversity of participatory settings and supporting reflexive practices.

Abstract-Caught between the infinite promise unleashed by technology proliferation and the unprecedented scale of resource depletion, waste and inequity, we inhabit a space where critical alternatives are sought more than ever. As a reflection of the above, we find in HCI, a slant towards technological quick-fixes to existing sustainability problems, as opposed to a more holistic approach that includes behavioural and societal change. It is within this context that this paper is situated, where we propose a socioecological approach and argue our case for a life-cycle lens towards building systems that are in line with our current understanding of the earth's finite resources. We do so by presenting an illustrative case study of what such critical alternatives might look like, by examining the Fairphone movement. We contribute to a deeper understanding of how social value laden enterprises along with open technological design can shape sustainable relationships between our environment and us.

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Governmental policy makers can use social networking sites to better engage with citizens. On the one hand social networking sites are well accepted by citizens and a familiar environment where discussions are already taking place and social networking sites are also more important for politicians. Thus, a need for information retrieval (the policy maker gathering information), dissemination (the policy maker broadcasting information) and two-way dialog between the policy maker and citizens over these platforms. The idea is to connect both the policy makers and the citizens. In fact social media is a mass medium and it’s difficult to sieve through multitudes of comments to get to the crux of a debate. The authors’ approach to address this is to use automatic analysis components to summarise and categorize text. To be able to place successful tools that can be used in the policy maker’s everyday life within the design process is important. This paper describes the phase of combining the policy makers’ requirements with the technical feasibility to develop a software prototype, where the analysis tools can be validated within the domain of policy makers and policymaking. This paper sets up the environment for evaluating this approach and to address the question of usefulness with respect to a dialogue with citizens.