Democratic Co-Design: Lessons from the study of people in socio-economic difficult situations

People in socioeconomically difficult situations have first-hand experience with the limitations and problems of representation in its current form makes. This makes them knowledgeable about what representation can and should offer, and how it should be enacted. Based on participatory action research on political representation conducted in the city of Brussels, including with women in Molenbeek, this presentation zooms in on what the ideal relationship looks like from their perspective: a problem-solving principal-agent partnership. It introduces an alternative design to meet this ideal and illustrates how it could work.