Social Design doesn't exist: an ethnomethodological study into social design practices

Social design is a practice that has become increasingly popular over the last two decades. Public organizations that face difficulty increasingly request and use the services of social designers to ‘tackle societal issues’, a role that social designers themselves have gladly accepted. Still, what constitutes of the practice of social design remains largely unknown, both in literature, as by practitioners themselves. Therefore, this research takes an ethnomethodological perspective into researching social design empirically, through its own practice. This study takes seriously the decisions, articulations and taken for granted understandings of social design and presents them as objects of study. Through this approach, this study found that social design is being enacted by a constant negotiation of what it is, what it can or should do through fun, new, designed objects and ways of doing. It is also enacted by making societal issues into matters of discussion. This research ultimately contributes to a better understanding of social design to as to invite further reflection upon this recent, increasingly popular practice.