Democratising knowledge: co-creating the future, insights from the iWeek 2013

Citizens knowledge and laymen knowledge are increasingly recognised as valuable assets in creating innovations to reach social or environmental benefits. This entails a deep form of knowledge democratisation, where different groups in society are involved in the process of knowledge construction. Acknowledging the plurality of worldviews can therefore ensure that not only the views and interests of dominant groups are reproduced, thereby making the arena of knowledge production more democratic. However, democratising knowledge may sound beautiful, but bringing it into practice successfully is highly context dependent and not as straightforward as one might hope. Enabling circumstances have to be in place to include all relevant actors, give everyone a voice, and create inclusive processes of participation. During the iWeek 2013, an unconference on ‘interactive methods for social change’, organised by OtherWise (the Netherlands), various case-studies were presented on recent experiences with interactive methods for fostering participation. In this paper we will look at three case-studies, in Haiti, Kenya and the Netherlands, which were explored during the iWeek 2013. The participatory process and its outcomes were analysed. The analyses suggests that, whereas in some cases co-creation might be considered as the ultimate stage of participation, in others co-design might be more effective to reach social and environmental benefits.