Where’s Love in E-Waste? (PDC)

This workshop focuses on how the notion of love can help explore and define participatory strategies targeted at dealing with issues surrounding e-waste. In particular, we are interested in discovering how Participatory Design practice, open innovation activities, and inclusive discussions can offer ways of transforming people’s relationships with e-waste from negative affective relationships into positive ones through engagement, co-creation, and group envisioning. The workshop series focuses particularly on existent e-waste, accepting it as an (unfortunate) outcome of current production strategies in need of change.

The overall goal of the workshop series is to document multiple perspectives, methods, and examples of value-centered and participatory, open, and transdisciplinary approaches that focus on looking at and utilizing e-waste as key ingredient to create positive transformation and/or outcomes. Some possible questions to consider in the context of this workshop include:

• Can participatory and transdisciplinary practice transform e-waste into a conduit for community reconciliation?
• Can reflection on the materiality and aesthetics of e- waste trigger practices to ultimately benefit those directly impacted by e-waste?
• Can e-waste become something positive if looked at differently thanks to a participatory and inlcusive lens?
• Can notions of love and participation help us engage e-waste differently, making beauty out of it despite its negative impact on landscapes and society?
• What is the role of design and engineering practitioners when e-waste is a direct by-product of design engagements?