Are you co-creating?
Check out our new companion for navigating more inclusive collaboration
Co-creation toolkits promise inclusive innovation – bringing communities, designers, and organizations together to solve complex problems. But what happens when ‘bringing everyone into the same room’ isn’t enough?
Our recently released companion: Are You Co-creating? – A Critical Companion to More Inclusive Collaboration challenges the hidden assumptions in popular co-creation methods. Unlike traditional toolkits that provide step-by-step instructions, it acts as a critical lens, helping facilitators recognize power dynamics, cultural differences, and knowledge hierarchies that standard approaches often ignore.
Our companion principles: critical reflexivity, reciprocal relationships, and knowledge equity can transform co-creation from extractive consultation into genuine collaboration. Through real stories from Nepal to Rwanda, this guide shines a light on what can happen when facilitators truly share power, compensate expertise, and let communities lead decision-making from problem definition to implementation.
Essential reading for anyone who’s ever wondered if their ‘participatory’ project is actually participatory. Read and save the full companion.