Editing Participatory design (section)

=== Emotional and ethical dimensions ===
Recent scholarship has highlighted the complex emotional landscape navigated by researchers engaged in participatory design, especially in contexts involving vulnerable or marginalized communities. Emotional challenges such as guilt and shame often emerge as researchers confront the disparity between their professional objectives and the lived realities of the communities they engage with. These emotions may stem from unmet expectations, perceived exploitation, or limited project impact. For instance, researchers may experience a sense of guilt when project outcomes fail to meet community needs or when research goals appear to benefit academic careers more than the communities themselves. The ethical dilemmas associated with balancing research agendas, funding constraints, and community needs can create a conflict between professional obligations and personal commitments, potentially leading to emotional burnout or moral distress. Consequently, there is a growing call within the field for frameworks that address these emotional aspects, advocate for ethical reflexivity, and promote sustained engagement strategies that align more closely with community well-being and autonomy. This perspective broadens the traditional scope of participatory design by acknowledging the emotional toll on researchers, thereby emphasizing the need for supportive structures that account for these emotional and ethical intricacies.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Christensen |first1=Lars Rune |last2=Ahsan |first2=Hasib |chapter=The Researcher's Plight: Guilt and Shame in Participatory Design and Action Research |date=2024-08-31 |title=Participatory Design Conference 2024 |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3661455.3669865 |series=PDC '24 |location=New York |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |volume=2 |pages=19–23 |doi=10.1145/3661455.3669865 |isbn=979-8-4007-0654-7}}</ref>