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First session

When? 22th January 2024

Who? Roger Guilemany and Jana Tothill

What? Alternative presents, Autoethnography & Ways of Drifting

Contents

Autoethnography: a qualitative research method, describr and analyze personal experiences to understand socio-technocal systems. Fundamental principles: responsibility, accountability, transparency, empathy and positionality.

  • Ethnography: social sciences research method: analyse how a group behaves in a context

  • It’s so personal, that is important to be consistent with your analysis and documentation

The main qualities are the following:

Defined study boundaries: being able to describe the limits if the study

  • Can I understand the object of my study? Can I define tge boundaries of my study?

Authenticity: Being personally involved, thoroughness for validity

  • Was my FPP authentic? Was it meaningful?

Plausibility or Scholarship: How is it relevant to ongoing research?

  • Is this useful? Can it be written and explained?

Criticality: Imagining ways of thinking and acting differently

  • So what? Did my actions make me learn about other things?

Self-revelaing communication: be honest with your findings. Communicate in an open transparent way

  • Did I show my work transparently? Was there something I didn’t show? Why?

Ability to Generalize: how does your FPP research relate to others? How do I scale-up from the “self”?

  • Does it relate to others, can it be meaningful for others? What kind of profile is the one which I am looking at?



Alternative Presents: “Alternative presents give designers the key to opening escape routes to the present continuities, offering space to radically imagine and probe discontinuities that would offer different outcomes in favor of more optimistic future scenarios than the ones we are being presented as the most plausible results of our current business-as usual practices.“

-Tomico, Oscar

Exercise 1. From present continuities to alternative present



Ways of drifting: there’s two ways of using them, either helping us to climb ahead and define the process we want to follow, or either look back into the things we’ve done and see where this lead us to.

Different ways:

  • Accumulative: Focusing on a specific aspects, Allows for deep understanding of a topic
  • Comparative: Different perspectives on the same topic, Allows for exploring different contexts
  • Serial: DI are informed by previous ones, DI follow a particular order
  • Probing: Exploit opportunities as they emerge, Personal motivations in specific environments clear area of interest pre-defined
  • Expansive: DI to explore new areas of interest, Not an specific order

Exercise 2. Map, visualize and analyze the evolution of your design space based on ways of drifting and reflect on the trajectories you might want to project. Create a narrative in relation to your alternative present

Deliverable

Plan your first design intervention of the term and map the actors and infrastructure you want to involve. Carry out your 1st design intervention from a 1PP with your community of practice (involve yourself in the context you want to work on). Document the design intervention, analyze it and reflect on the findings.

For my intervention, these weeks I have designed a paper envelope to start a community chain to gather information about what people think about the ruralization of their neighborhoods.

The packet consisted of:

  • A neighborhood map

  • A sheet with an explanation of the project and instructions

  • A piece of paper with questions for reflection

  • Stickers with the corporate illustration

The intervention started when I printed these packages (from 3 different neighborhoods of Barcelona) and gave them to people from these neighborhoods. The people who received the package had to open it and follow the instructions:

  1. Locate the map that you will find inside the package.

  2. Mark the areas of the neighborhood that remind you the most of rural life.

  3. Answer the questions that you will find on the small piece of paper.

    • What values from rural communities could we incorporate in the city?
    • What sustainable habits do you practice?
    • Do you think the Putxet neighborhood takes care of itself?

Once you have completed the activity you should send a message to my phone number (this way I can track the device) and pass the package to another person in the neighborhood that you know but is NOT your friend or family member.

Reflection & results

At the beginning of the experiment, I planned to send only 3 packages; one in each neighborhood I thought. I started the exercise by giving the packages to the people in each neighborhood. After a couple of days I saw that my expectations were too high, in 2 days I had not received any messages.

After the review with Jana I decided to do a month iterations of the same exercise. In this second part, I had a hard time finding people I could trust in the 3 neighborhoods, since I wanted to send 3 more packages in each neighborhood. Since it is important that the first person has the willingness to participate and listen to me, I changed the second iteration and only applied it to my neighborhood, Putxet neighborhood.

I made 2 packages of each of 3 variations of the exercise, changing the following parameters:

  • Temporality: the instruction sheet mentioned the temporality of the exercise and, therefore, asked the participant to do it in 24 hours, or not.

  • Friends and family: participants could pass the package to people in their close circles, or not.

From each combination I printed 2 packets and used my neighborhood contacts to try to send them all. One of them never went out due to logistical circumstances, and another one was started by me.

At the time of this writing, I have not yet begun the process of retrieving the packages.

As far as the results are concerned, I am happy to have increased the number of packages sent, because none of them have reached more than 3 people, most of them have not advanced. As I said before, my expectations were higher, but with this iteration I will have enough information.

I can conclude that the people closest to me are super open to participate in my experiments, but the farther the package moves, the less motivation and predisposition I find.

This makes me think that I should take advantage of the motivation of my family and friends, instead of trying to reach a wider audience, at least for the moment.

On the other hand, I am sure that a similar activity but in a digital way would have given more fruits, and that also makes me reflect. We try, as designers, to act always from a 1PP, not to fall into classic methodologies of surveys and interviews. But when talking to citizens who do not understand the language of design, are the classic methodologies better? Can it be that innovation is not inclusive, or does not reach everyone? How can classical methodologies be adapted to frame them in the 1PP?



Suggestions I have received from participants:

  • With the question “Do you think the neighborhood is taken care of?”, it is not clear whether it refers to the social level or the administrative level.

  • Little space to write the answers.

  • Specify if more than one zone can be marked.

  • People are not receptive to participate.

  • There is discomfort with giving the phone number to a stranger.

  • It would be easier to pass it on to family and friends.

  • Do I need a specific age range?

  • People find it hard to write, audio or face to face would be better.

Last update: June 21, 2024