Distributed fieldwork and networked co-design for collaborative economies

he article opens a window on the complex knowledge generation processes shaping large, cross-national Research-through-Design projects. We describe and discuss the distributed fieldwork and co-design activities conducted along a period of over two years in a European project, to consider the implications that a cross-national field brings forward to a multidisciplinary and culturally composite research team --a collectivity-of-practice--in terms of collaboration, knowledge co-generation and sharing, and internal dynamics. More specifically, we focus on the epistemological and methodological challenges of studying and supporting collaborative economy initiatives through ethnography and co-design practices, particularly in the case of projects involving distributed fieldwork and networked co-design. From the viewpoint of research, the most debated issue concerned the construction of the research tools and the actual way to use such tools in practice. In order to understand the complexity of networked co-design, we reflect on cooperation between "resident" and "nonresident" ethnographers. This reflection unveiled important themes such as the effect of direct vs. mediated relations, access and field participation on collaborative design processes. We discuss such processes highlighting the role of design artefacts as boundary negotiating objects and considering how the cultures at stake and the practical work of a cross-national project may intersect and affect collaboration in several ways. We close the paper with practical suggestions on how to bring about a successful co-design process traversing cultural, epistemological and political issues.