Creative Thursdays Webinar 3 report: 'Story-yelling, relationships and active attention'.
A post summarising the discussion which followed our third SEEYouth webinar - 'Wake up, get up' (University of Leeds, 28.01.2021).
The Creative Thursday of the 28th of January was presented by Dr. Paul Wilson, with Dr. Alessandro Medici as a guest speaker. Together, they discussed the importance of genuine participation and spending time on the field during ethnographic research, through their experiences from a past participatory research conducted with the Tsoga Environmental Resource Centre, in Cape Town, South Africa. Throughout the presentation, we came to learn not only which activities they developed and the steps they took to ensure their success, but also the key takeaways from working together with a local community using arts and design based methods.
In that sense, Paul and Alessandro pointed out the importance of storytelling and relations in design and in their work. They highlighted that the collaborative aspect of the Party project is a key part to engage a dialogue with the Tsoga Center community to work in a way of co-creation. The 3 methods that they presented (my story to this place, communities of place, our future news) in their workshop respond to those considerations by interrogating the relation with the place of the community, the community itself and the future of the community.
One aspect that marked the presentation was the consideration in making explicit their own point of view by explaining their perspective of the activities and the project and by doing so, it gave us a glimpse of the human process behind the research. Paul states that it's essential to be on the field and spend time with the individuals, to present yourself as a person first and a researcher afterwards; to put in time beyond just research and show your dedication to working together; and to actively pay attention, knowing when to just listen to the people you are with and what are their needs. In the end, it is important to think about the participants’ engagement, fun and which outcomes are there for them.
A Q&A co-moderated by Dr Rosana Vasques and Dr Maria Cecília Loschiavo followed shortly after the presentation; there, it was discussed sensitive topics such as how to deal with privilege as an outsider from a wealthier background, with the dynamics between researchers from the “north” and the community from the “south”; the act of learning, put as an active role by the researchers to engage in a trusting relation that went beyond the workshop, is one way to tackle this situation. In this sense, Paul and Alessandro showed the importance of the collaborative aspect of research in design as a way to decentralise the needs of the researchers and put at the center the needs of the Tsoga Center community. It was also discussed how they managed their research funds, risks and handled being on their own during their research.
We thank Paul and Alessandro for the insightful experiences they shared, as well as Rosana and Maria Cecília for their moderation. Our next webinar will be on February 25th, and you may subscribe to our mailing list to stay updated. Until then, stay safe!
Étienne Levac and Rafael Goldstein. January 2021