Design in general, including participatory design, has been and is still closely entangled with an idea of progress molded by modernism, technological development, rationality and economic growth. Today, when trying to shift towards other motivations and meanings in designing, we as designers find ourselves being haunted by this legacy. In this workshop we invite participants to make present and carefully untie designs’ entanglements with progress and to craft concrete imaginaries of a more socio-ecological just design after progress. Through this workshop we hope to start building a community around present-ing design histories and making a repertoire of narratives of how to be better haunted in participatory design. 

The workshop will take the form of a séance that is based on stories and images from the participants’ ongoing work that speaks to where they have sensed a haunting by the ghosts of progress embedded in design. This could for example be in a design method that you are using, a learning objective in your design curricula, an evaluation criterion, a design outcome that you have been involved with as a professional design practitioner, design educator or design researcher. It is imperative that the participants are in agreement with the workshop organisers that the séance is in itself an experimental attempt to explore a non-linear way of searching for the barely present or not easily discernible ideals or mechanisms of progress in participatory design. It is not to be confused with calling for supernatural spirits or deceased kins.