Politics of Care

This chapter discusses the politics of care. The question of a politics of care urges designers to acknowledge the interdependencies of design with the world outside. The chapter argues that a deeply engaged, critical and situated design approach is necessary to rebuild a common understanding of how, why, for whom and what, where and when, we need to tackle today’s challenges and to develop a culture of mutual care. In this respect, many lessons can be learned from design processes that are, in one way or another, oriented towards future change. Unfortunately, a lot of this practice-based knowledge remains implicit or only resides in the heads of the involved parties. Therefore, this chapter aims to reflect on how designers actively engage in collective ‘caring’ practices in concrete case studies.