Infrastructuring Public History Through Participation

This research article discusses the intersection of participatory design (PD) and public history (PH), focusing on how participatory practices can engage communities in historical narratives. The authors, Violeta Tsenova, Maurizio Teli, Joëlla van Donkersgoed, and Thomas Cauvin, present a secondary analysis of a PH project named HistorEsch, utilizing the conceptual framework of infrastructuring. The paper outlines how PD and PH practices can consider the historical context of a place and how these practices contribute to public formation and dissemination of historical knowledge. It emphasizes the importance of public participation in the historical narrative-making process and how this engagement can influence future research in both PD and PH. The article is structured to first introduce the relationship between PD and PH, followed by a discussion of the HistorEsch project, and concludes with insights on how these fields can collaborate to enhance participatory processes in public history. The findings aim to foster a renewed dialogue between PD and PH scholarship.