Konferensartikel

Natural disasters are predicted to become more frequent and severe. Building on Sangiorgi’s (2011) principles for transformative practices in service design; the paper discusses a case study of working with communities and emergency agencies in Australia over a five-year period and the process of designing their adaptive capacities for collective and continuous development in strengthening resilience. When transition of intention and ownership is critical in sustaining any community work; what can be enabled in others and ‘let go’ in the process of doing design? By following the passage of methods through people’s practices; the paper tells the story of how the methods were adapted; embedded and enacted through those who were part of the fabric of change. What were being ‘designed’ were not just a service performance but people’s adaptive capacity for survival as well as the practices of those who attempted to enable transformation.

Transformative services; community; natural disasters; participatory design