A study exploring the creation of community-owned infrastructure and participatory design
Just futures co-lab and Community Owned Health Knowledge Infrastructure (COwHKI)
Overview
About Just Futures Co-lab:
The Just Futures Co-lab acknowledges technologically mediated futures in the plural and as visions that are also structurally accessible and socially just in the present. We have come together to call this space a “co-lab” to make explicit in name and practice the anti-caste, anti-colonial, queer, and feminist processes and politics of collaborative and community-centered knowledge production and project making in and with the digital.
Project Space - Initiated by: Dr. Naveen Bagalkot
We are building a pilot for a Community-Owned Health Knowledge Infrastructure (COwHKi) using low-cost, open source and locally configurable components for/with a collective of women health navigators (HNs) trained and supported by the Movement for Alternatives and Youth Awareness (MAYA), in Channapatna, Karnataka, India. Building on ongoing collaborative engagements and using our feminist and situated practice of participatory design, we plan to utilise the COwHKi to: a) build a community archive of locally rooted and relevant health information, and b) collectively speculate on the possibilities it offers towards both supporting the current and emerging care work of the HNs and enabling other forms of engagement by the community stakeholders with the evolving archive.
My Inquiry
To discover and learn how interventions with community, through a participatory design process, have led to the creation of design of tools and support systems enabling to structure and assist them.
Project
Self-directed inquiry
Studio
Just Futures Co-lab
Mentor
Mentor
Dr. Naveen Bagalkot
Dr. Kush Patel
Inquiry Abstract
We rely on design to mediate so many aspects of our reality, yet we rarely take part in the design process. There is a striking lack of influence on the decisions and how they are made, particularly by the people most adversely affected by design - about visual culture, new technologies, community planning, or political and economic systems.
This study aims to discover and learn how interventions with community, through a participatory design process, have led to the creation of design of tools and support systems enabling to structure and assist them. Through this study, I hope to better understand and speculate how we can translate the experiences of familiar community knowledge-sharing practices into a digital environment for MAYA health navigators in Channapatna (COwHKi project).
In order to create a digital artfact for a community, local comprehensive planning must be undertaken, mapping necessities through participatory design in which visions, for its future, are formed. Underpinning areas of research involve identifying how the roles women play in these created systems, and mechanisms to increase their participation and contribute to transforming gender roles.
Inspiration
"Domination should not be the goal, but the encompassing of all ideas, views, and differences which can then be transformed into real, and realistic, future change." (Ursula K. Le Guin. 1986)
The carrier bag story by Ursula Le Guin contains no one hero. There are, instead, many different protagonists with equal importance to the plot. Instead of heroes, we have people. In reality, the most meaningful social change is the result of collective action. The carrier bag gatherer is not a hero but rather someone rooted in a shared existence. That made me think, if the novel, not actively taken over by some hero, it is indeed unheroic. Perhaps it is not, it is a new kind of narrative. A narrative that is needed, a more loosely fitting carrier bag.
If there is an external design led intervention, in most cases, the team's interactions with the community would be during the initial early research stages and the late evaluation and testing phases which keeps those who are part of the system and who would use it at the periphery. This marks the designers at the centre of the system enclosing themselves while marginalizing the "others" (the community) on whom they depend.
What if they are to deviate from hero centric path to a more sack shaped, being rooted in a shared experience where they take a step back and facilitate the sharing of knowledge and gather the observations, learnings into their carrier bag? This question connected me to the idea of a “Living lab” introduced to me by Dr. Naveen Bagalkot, where all aspects of a projects is participatory.
Introduction
Visual Abstract for the co-lab
Through the COwHKI project space I wanted to be a part of a learning environment where I could see how community research projects are conducted. The pilot project aims to develop an archive that is locally configurable health knowledge infrastructure with a collaboration of women health navigators (HNs) who have been trained and supported by the Movement for Alternatives and Youth Awareness (MAYA) in Channapatna, Karnataka., India. It was important for me to be an observer and learner on the journey. The overlap of other project spaces such as Future at the Peripherals and Queer futuristics would provide me with different perspectives and knowledge pool that I would adopt to my practice.
I started with an idea to document dialogues, as the days unfolded within the COwHKi project space, it took the shape of documenting the conversations that are weaved into the creation of invisible or visible systems within a community. These conversations arise when a community identifies if, what and why they require a particular change or to act on a particular case. The COwHKi project employs participatory design to make the community at the centre of the process, also to equip Health navigators with design thinking practices to make them more resilient. Learning this helped me to locate myself in the project space; to study the creation of a community-owned infrastructure or systems based on participatory design.
Positioning
My position within the lab was to participate by sharing ideas, conduct field research, capture photographs of onsite visit, speculate ideas on how to create seamless transitions for the users- be it digital or non-digital services and infrastructural changes, learn what an archive is and it’s importance. I wanted to learn how I could be part of creating a system that would be truly helpful and useful for the community.
Field Visit
Movement For Alternatives And Youth Awareness (MAYA) founded in 1991 is a Karnataka-based NGO. MAYA Health program is MAYA’s 4th initiative which addresses the demand for quality primary Healthcare by creating a new channel of dedicated, trained, technology enabled healthcare micro-entrepreneurs called Health Navigators (HNs) who act as the last mile connect between the healthcare ecosystem and the citizens of rural-semi urban India.
Our role during the field visit was to observe and learn how participatory design is conducted through the activities conducted with the HNs. HNs record videos of clients that share locally rooted medicinal practices. The motive of the sessions was to familiarise HNs to the process of tagging videos in PAPAD. PAPAD is an audio annotation tool developed by Janastu. These activities will provide them with skills in understanding and utilizing advanced digital tools that will be introduced later in the project in order to help raise their livelihoods and gain digital independence. Collecting and archiving locally rooted medical practices will help capture oral histories and practices.
A brief of the session - Please note, due to confidentiality and privacy reasons, I would be sharing a brief account of our field study
Dr. Naveen Bagalkot updated us that he would be asking the health navigators to annotate and make notes of the community health information videos they recorded onto sticky notes placed on a chart. We were asked to observe and listen in on their conversations.
We spoke to HNs to gather insights on their journey with MAYA and about their work in general. Pain and success points of their work were noted in our diaries.
An HN, who has worked with MAYA for almost 16years shared with us that it is her curiosity that leads her to keep learning new things. Through the data collected by HNs, she gets to know alternatives to counter tablets and medicines.
The HNs were asked to annotate the recorded videos on sticky notes. Groups of three to four members sat in circles to discuss. I observed how the formed groups are based on the language they spoke. As the activity was carried out, I tried capturing the moment through videos and photographs.
They looked through the videos on their phone, played them within their group. As they discussed one or two members within the group annotated onto the sticky note.
Observation and Reflection
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HNs are constantly seeking novel ways to reflect on and share their daily experiences with their peers.
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The annotation activity will assist them in future tagging of videos. I observed how the current annotation were short sentences and phrases. These annotations are expected to shorten overtime, and the same could be used to tag videos on digital platform
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Keeping a handbook to store client data, using Whatsapp as a medium to share content, using Maya's App to store data, phone calls to clients , they have come a long way of creating systems to make their work easier to have a repository of the work they do, and to have a holistic communal sharing of their experiences.
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A lot of invisible work has gone into building these systems within a community. Relationships are built and cultivated with their clients over time, hence there are years of data stored mostly in physical mediums.
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Having a digital tool as a repository to store data can assist HNs to navigate and access information easily. But introducing a new medium for data storage requires understanding their relationships with the mediums they find comfort and familiarity in.
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How can we translate and adapt familiar modes of data storage, digitally keeping in mind to not restrict or claim restriction that this infrastructure is only used for health and there is a scope for expansion? Through this study, I hope to better understand and study how we can translate the experiences of familiar community knowledge-sharing practices into a digital environment for MAYA health navigators in Channapatna.
Questions
So the initial question I had was "Do we design for or with?" Creating solutions to challenges in collaboration with communities and organizations that are best understood by those communities is the goal of co-designing. Designing with a collective and participatory approach is rooted in social justice, and a commitment to equity and freedom- a core to what good design should achieve.
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How did each communication system start within their community?
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How are systems created as methods to store and communicate knowledge?
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How does a community decide what data to capture?
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Do they follow a structure, a format?
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How can we replicate their familiar methods to a digital archive in making?
Understanding data, information, and knowledge:
All data is shaped by humans. We decide what to collect, how to capture it, and how to use it. The results are often incomplete, and the process of analyzing them can be messy. The information collected can be biased through what is included or excluded, how it is interpreted, and how it is presented. Unpacking the human influence on data is essential to understanding how it can best serve our needs.
"Information has been defined as data that is “information” – that is, data that has been stored, analyzed, and displayed, and is communicated through spoken language, graphic displays, or numeric tables "
-Nancy M. Dixon, "Common Knowledge – How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know", (Harvard Business School Press, 2000)
"Knowledge… encompasses the beliefs of groups or individuals, and it is intimately tied to action"
-Georg Von Krogh, Ichijo, and Nonaka, "Enabling Knowledge Creation – How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation", (Oxford University Press, 2000)
Having a precise knowledge of any data's journey, its origin, path, and how it may have been transformed can reveal opportunities for design. Consider the design, governance of data used for new purposes, and communication of how people’s data will be used.
To understand further, I will be studying projects involving co-design with communities.
An Interview with Leher
An interview was conducted with Tasha Koshi, NGO, and co-founder at Leher. This was carried out to understand their journey, their involvement with the community, and the development of their pilot data collection tool. Two interviews via zoom call were held with a semi-structured approach with a checklist of questions and key points to steer the discussion. These questions were developed by reading a brief of their work from their official website. Understanding how other community networks work, learning the methodologies they use can guide us to enhance our work in the project space. Through the conversation, I was able to understand the importance of inclusivity when working with a community. I was able to learn their take on community design, how they facilitated and involved the Madhubani community to take initiative and be their own representatives, making them more resilient, how they involved women to lead and begin their journey within community planning for child protection.
Participatory design as a design methodology
A conversation with Naveen Bagalkot on his experiences with Participatory design
When we were at the MAYA centre, I observed how you are a facilitator when you carry out design activities. You "probe" discussions. Are there any past projects you worked with that introduced you to the design process where you as a designer take the role of a facilitator, co-creating with the community rather than managing or creating systems from the center?
Dr. Naveen Bagalkot: "I encountered participatory design when I was in Scandinavia, Copenhagen during my PhD. There is a Danish design school, Thomas Binder, Eva Brandt. Thomas Binder is a good friend of my supervisor. Then I joined them as they were finishing up their project called "Design Anthropological Innovation model (DAIM)", where they talk about designing the future working with the people. They also talk about "Design lab", which is about facilitating and speculating futures but with the people whose futures will be impacted by the design of technology. I also worked on other projects with them and with my supervisor on participatory design for senior citizens and took on that approach of facilitation. Even though my PhD was not only facilitation, there were also suggestions of design that I came up with as probes and provocations too. When I came back to India, I was not entirely confident that participatory design is possible for India though I was interested to try. So I had done my first research project with Anirudha Joshi and published the paper. I then wrote a position paper looking at reflecting back on that work. That followed up as a very human-centered approach- do contextual interviews, study people's practices and see where they would need an intervention, come up with intervention and test it, prototype it, and iteratively test it. So I then talked about the idea of a "living lab", what would happen if all aspects of a project is participatory. I had the theoretical grounding there. When the MAYA project happened, we came to the conclusion that- one really good way to start a project is to equip health navigators with entrepreneurial design creative thinking. I had PGDP students back then in their final project of 4 months, so I thought, Let me facilitate a design thinking project where the focus is learning becomes a way to document and produce a toolkit so that the health workers can use it to think designerly in their work. But the toolkit idea failed as they don't use it and I have co-written this in the paper "Design Beku: Toward Decolonizing Design and Technology through Collaborative and Situated Care-in-Practices". This is where my idea of facilitation came in."
Reflection
Both Leher and HNs at MAYA are weaving stories with many heroes. There is no one hero. The community itself wants betterment for it’s children so they are proactively working with the NGO. The HNs collectively are starting to recognize the importance of storing community health knowledge. Instead of complex relationships taking into consideration such as gender, race, sexuality, etc, they are working towards a goal.
The initial stages of COwHki and Lehers pilot project start with co-design and participatory design that revolve around immersion, observation, and contextual framing where designers take the role of facilitators. This allows decentralization of work and co-creation with the community.
The majority of us want to make the world a better place. As human beings, we are hardwired to want to make a contribution. As science fiction author William Gibson has been explaining for decades, “The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” How can we always make sure we’re putting people first when designing large-scale systems? Especially when those systems will change over time, even evolving without direct human supervision? With design moving forward to embrace and be more intertwined with socially interconnected practices, I want to engage seriously, responsibly, and respectfully with issues affecting people and nature.
