Monthly Archives: March 2019

Project Speculation

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This week, I am speculating about my project I am working on with Instituto del Progreso Latino in Chicago. I am using the framework outlined by Christopher Frauenberger et al. in their paper “In pursuit of rigour and accountability in participatory design.”

Epistemology

  • Kinds of knowledge constructed
    • The biggest form of knowledge I see myself gaining is around the collaborative process. I hope that all project partners can learn more about what forms of communication and organization will work in this context to accomplish our goals of collecting and sharing out success stories from within the organization.
  • Degree of trust in the knowledge
    • I hope that the stories we are able to collect as  result of this design collaboration feel genuine and connected to what’s actually going on in the city. I hope to enable the creation of stories that people trust and that people feel a personal connection to.
  • Potential for transfer
    • It would be nice to see a workflow and supporting tools that could be shared freely online.
  • Sharing of knowledge
    • I hope that I am able to help design a system of sharing and collecting stories from my community organization partner that allows community members and a wider public to see the assets and successes of Pilsen/Chicago.

Values

  • Driving values
    • I think the driving values of this project are respect for community of Pilsen and equity in decision-making.
  • Change of values in the process
    • I don’t forsee any changes of values in this process. But I do hope that project partners feel comfortable pointing out when values seem to have shifted unintentionally, or when they need to shift to respond to unforeseen circumstances.
  • Reflection of values in the decisions
    • I hope that all decisions are agreed upon with regards to the goals and expectations of this project as agreed upon at the beginning of the collaboration process. I hope this shared understanding will contribute to mutual trust and shared ownership of decisions made. And I hope my project partner’s immersion in the community they serve help guide me to learn about any of my own blindspots I may have in my current position as a student at MIT.

Outcomes

  • Different interpretations of outcomes
    • I hope the interpretations of outcomes are pretty well aligned, owing to work put in at the beginning of the collaboration to align expectations and goals
  • Owner of outcomes
    • Instituto will be the owner of the outcome, though I hope that a process we come up with can be shared more widely to other organizations that might be able to benefit from what we learn.
  • Sustainability of outcomes
    • I hope that the outcome of this project is a process that can be used for several years.

Stakeholders

  • Stakeholders
    • Right now, the stakeholders in this process are the folks at Instituto and myself. It would be nice if
  • Participants
    • I hope that we are able to share out the success stories of the community that Instituto serves in a way that affirms and creates joy. I also hope that there might be a way to share stories back with the community in a way that makes them accessible and enjoyable memories/commemorations.
  • Benefits for stakeholders and participants
    • Instituto will have a tool/workflow that helps fill a communication need, and I hope the participants are able to feel celebrated and affirmed, and possibly have access to a recording of their success in an enjoyable way.
  • End of project
    • When this project ends, I hope that I am able to integrate this work with other projects I am working on with Instituto, and help maintain/refine this project as needed. However, I do hope that this project can develop something useful for Instituto, that they are able to sustain without much outside intervention. I hope I can help share any lessons learned with other similar groups as well.

Boston Activist Orgs Hackathon

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(Note: This was written pre-meeting with the community partner(s). Will be updated with more accurate information later.)

We will be developing a spring hackathon in conjunction with a number of local activist networks in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Boston anti-highway protest of 1969, which successfully prevented the construction of a massive highway system that would have (and, to some degree, still did) destroy and uproot numerous Boston neighborhoods. In organizing this hackathon, we hope to connect many of the Boston-area organizations preserving activist history while honoring and celebrating the history of activism in the city.

This will encapsulate a number of events, including but not limited to public displays, intergenerational engagement, street-level interventions, and public engagement with archival materials. Footage from the 1969 protests will be lifted from several archives/special collections also involved in hackathon creation. (Many of the organizations will be drawing from this material.)

In developing this hackathon, we will be working directly alongside the community and making their needs the topmost priority. As each organization involved has different contributions to to make to the upcoming event, we imagine that the ultimate decisions will be community-led and controlled.

As we will be working with several organizations, ranging from oral history groups to archival film sources, each with their unique goals and desires, there will undoubtedly be moments where people may disagree over design decisions. In such a case, it will be necessary to facilitate discussion between these organizations and create compromise.