Applying design in the context of communities of practices has emerged as a field that aims to address global challenges in a local and distributed context.
Through this conversation we aim to raise interest, to valorise and to celebrate the people who daily practice design in social contexts, and to offer a platform to engage in introspection as a tool of design research. In addition, we aim to explore the methodological implications of adopting Autoethnography as a method of scholarly inquiry in the context of design. The adoption of autoethnographic perspectives enables designers and communities to be situated within their context instead of being outside observers. This type of scholarship emphasises a deeper understanding of individuals, groups, and localities, prioritising creative forces such as intuition, imagination, and tacit knowledge over the divergence of generalist principles.