Performing Citizenship through Design

In the face of global protests and conflicts over spatial rights, this paper proposes another framework for participatory design. As participation necessitates the question of participation in, what and for whom, we wish to bring in perspectives from citizens studies in which citizenship is something to be claimed, enacted and performed, as a potential for decolonizing the universal claim of participation in “participatory design” and reflecting on role of the designer in current social struggles. Instead of creating neutral participatory spaces for democratic dialogue, we argue that the designer may recognize the productivity of affective relations. With examples from a deportation camp in Denmark and a seminar in marginalized spaces of São Paulo, we address to how designers and activists turn the gaze from making minority groups participate in design and instead work with embodied and mediatized perspectives and the ethics of affect in the design process.