Lars Rune Christensen

This article examines the challenges of designing AI-enabled welfare allocation systems in public administration, with a focus on the ontological issues that arise in a co-design process. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish municipality, the study explores how social workers and IT designers struggled to align their respective understandings of a welfare benefit called ‘loss of earnings’. While IT designers sought to structure case work as a predictable, rule-based process suitable for symbolic AI modelling, social workers emphasised the need for discretionary freedom in terms of not only case outcomes but also work processes. This mismatch led to ontological trouble, where fundamental differences in what welfare allocation is—and ought to be—persistently shaped the co-design process. The article highlights that digital transformation in public administration is not just a technical challenge but may also be an ontological one, requiring digital design to navigate multiple, conflicting realities. Second, it demonstrates that co-design does not always lead to mutual learning but may instead expose persistent friction between stakeholders' worldviews. Third, it argues that rather than resolving ontological differences, co-design should create spaces for articulating and negotiating them, helping to safeguard values such as professional discretion and holistic decision-making in AI-enabled welfare services. The findings underscore the need for CSCW scholars and practitioners to engage with the ontological dimensions of AI design critically, ensuring that digital transformation respects the complexities of public sector work.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Ghanaian officials and international developers in the field of health information systems, we investigate how innovations in health data infrastructures are aligned with global practices of epidemiological accountability. The digital health information system DHIS2 has been adopted in various low- and middle-income countries, including Ghana. While global stakeholders render public health a matter of efficiency and accountability, public health professionals attune at various levels to emerging global health priorities and data practices, e.g. the translation of standard case definitions and quantitative measures into local contexts, or innovations in reporting channels of key public health indicators.

Participatory Design (PD) aims for inclusivity, but the level of inclusion varies widely. Inclusion often means integrating stakeholder perspectives into design processes, often neglecting bi-directionality, where communities also have agendas. True collaboration rests on mutual understanding, acknowledging the dynamic nature of community collaboration and the holistic impact of shaping relationships. This workshop will explore collaboration challenges and practices with marginalized communities. It will draw on the organisers’ extensive experiences with diverse groups, including nomadic and resettled indigenous communities in Namibia, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, and Syrian war refugees in Jordan. The workshop encourages sharing and reflecting on experiences with marginalized communities, welcoming contributions from participants to enrich discussions and enhance collective understanding of collaborative practices.

This paper delves into the emotional landscape of researchers engaged in participatory design and action research. It addresses the less-discussed aspects of unwanted emotions, such as guilt and shame, experienced by researchers during and post-project. The paper explores the guilty dichotomy between the researchers' intent to contribute positively and the reality of unmet expectations. The unease stemming from perceived exploitation and the limitations of project impact is scrutinised, highlighting the tightrope walked in participatory design. Furthermore, the paper discusses the paradox of professional recognition versus the ongoing adversities faced by what may be marginalised communities. Through reflective analysis, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the emotional landscape traversed by researchers in participatory design and action research. It underscores the need for supportive frameworks that address these emotional aspects, advocating for ethical reflexivity and sustained engagement strategies that align closely with community needs and well-being.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in Jordan, this article investigates how datafication through digital screening technologies helps shape mental health issues in the face of widespread uneasiness about the subject, especially among the intended beneficiaries. We argue that the refugees and their health care providers face a dilemma: on the one hand, the desire to make mental health issues visible and clinically actionable through datafication and, on the other hand, the wish to keep mental health issues out of public view to avoid potential stigma.

Screening refugees for mental health issues, medical assistants use a digital tool that produces a numerical score but also, importantly, attunes to the moods of their clients and the atmospheres of their homes. In this article, we propose the concept of numeration-attunement as helpful for medical anthropology. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among medical assistants working in the Kutapalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, we explore their assessment of the mental health of the refugees: its numeration-attunement. To develop the notion of numeration-attunement, we draw on numeration research as well as phenomenology. Comprehending how medical assistants assess the mental health of refugees requires attention both to numeration and datafication by way of a screening tool as well as the revelatory character of attunement to moods.