Each of us develops and enacts strategies for living our everyday lives. These may confirm the general tendency towards new forms of connected solitude, in which we work, travel and live alone, yet feel sociable mainly by means of technology. Alternatively, they may help to create flexible communities that are open and inclusive, and therefore resilient and socially sustainable.In Politics of the Everyday, Ezio Manzini discusses examples of social innovation that show how, even in these difficult times, a better kind of society is possible. By bringing autonomy and collaboration together, it is possible to develop new forms of design intelligence, for our own good, for the good of the communities we are part of, and for society as a whole.

Responds to the general interest in using design thinking to effect change at an individual and social level - for example books such as Paul Dolan's Happiness by Design and Rutger Bregman's Utopia for Realists

PrefaceYou are here. A point of view and of action on the world1. Light communities. Social forms in a fluid worldIf the world becomes fluid. Transformative social innovation. Local discontinuity in the transition. Social commons and their regeneration. People, encounters and conversations. Community as a space of opportunity. Continuity of place. Meaningful encounters and their enabling ecosystems. The value of lightness2. Life projects. Autonomy and collaborationProjects, designers and design capability. The crisis of the conventional mode. Difficulties, risks and opportunities. Projects, autonomy and new conventions. Capabilities, tools and results. Life projects as bricolage. Complexity and individual responsibility. Exploring and transforming the field of possibility. Collaborative projects and autonomy. Collaborative living, as an example. Communities of interest and communities of purpose. Enabling ecosystems and designing coalitions. Collaboration and relational values.3. Politics of everyday life. Design activism and transformative normalityEveryday life makes policies. The world seen (and constructed) by those who live in it. Change the world from where you are. The systemic effects of everyday choices. Can we escape the control apparatus? Transgressive tactics and strategies. From activism to transformative reality. Innovation trajectories and design choices. The Platform economy and the new co-operative movement. Sharing economy and collaborative economy. Collaboration, efficiency and relational value. Everyday-life policies, other policies and other democracies.4. Project-centred democracy. Ecosystems of ideas and projectsThe complex nature of democracy. A regime capable of learning. The dimensions of the crisis. Experimenting distributed democracy. Participatory democracy and social innovation. Participatory enabling ecosystems. The scenario of project-centred democracy. Infrastructure for project-centred democracy. Diffuse design capabilities.AfterwordAnother book. Design experts and diffuse design capability