Digitising the Physical: The Evolving Role of Collaboration Tools in Citizen Participatory Design Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic in Seoul

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Temes de Disseny #40 - The Role of Designers in Society: Ethical, Theoretical and Practical Perspectives
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Oxana Jeoung-Rakova
Seoul National University, Anthropology Department
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9722-0605

This case study investigates how the digital transformation of urban design governance following the COVID-19 outbreak has led to changes in approaches to citizen participatory design in Seoul, South Korea. Drawing on empirical data from the Seoul Citizen Design Bureau – an annual participatory program initiated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government since 2015 – and interviews with facilitators and participants, the study ethnographically examines the emergence of new local design actors amid unforeseen circumstances like the pandemic. The research sheds light on the diverse capacities and intermediary roles of digital collaboration tools such as ZoomTM and MuralTM, which not only enabled citizen involvement in design during the pandemic but also challenged established practices in institution-driven participatory design in Korea. By contextualising this analysis within a turbulent historical juncture, the study demonstrates the effectiveness of remote ethnography in uncovering the influence of “more-than-humans” in participatory design within the unique sociocultural setting of South Korea.

Keywords
Citizen participatory design, institution-led design, collaboration tools, digital materialities, COVID-19

Article Details

How to Cite
Jeoung-Rakova, Oxana. “Digitising the Physical: The Evolving Role of Collaboration Tools in Citizen Participatory Design Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic in Seoul ”. Temes de Disseny, no. 40, pp. 136-55, doi:10.46467/TdD40.2024.136-155.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

(c) 2024

Author Biography

Oxana Jeoung-Rakova, Seoul National University, Anthropology Department

Oxana Jeoung-Rakova is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Seoul National University. Her research focuses on participatory design and its relation to social and political life in contemporary South Korea, enriched by more than 10 years of professional experience in the Korean design industry. The results of her applied anthropology projects have been honoured with IF Design Award, German Design Award, Good Design Award (Korea), Web-Award Korea and others. Jeoung-Rakova's academic publications have appeared in Design Studies, Journal of the Brand Design Association of Korea, Journal of Advertising and Promotional Research, Marketing and Marketing Research and others. She is an associate editor of Korean Anthropology Review: A journal of Korean anthropology in translation.

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