Service design as a practice of freedom in collaborative cultural producers

Abstract

Service design is strongly linked to practices that maintain workers' dependency on management. Social movements in Brazil eschew hierarchical management, instead seeking self-management based on solidarity, equality, and democracy. In recent years, social movements appropriated digital infrastructures to design and deliver collaborative services. This paper hypothesizes that this could be considered designing services as a practice of freedom. The hypothesis is explored through a descriptive study of the self-management practices of a particular collective associated with the Brazilian Digital Culture movement.