Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion

Gold
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Share the love for this talk
Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion
Speakers: Victor Udoewa
Link:

Summary

Most efforts at advancing research to be more inclusive focus on methods or methodologies or participation. Though helpful, those efforts have unfortunately not been sufficient for inclusion and we continue to be constrained by stronger forces which go to the root of what research means and the definition of inclusion. To be fully unconstrained and reach true inclusion we must learn to let go. Do we have the ability to do that? Let's talk about that. Join us for a half-hour of becoming undone, joyfully.

Key Insights

  • Diversity in research teams does not inherently guarantee inclusivity or counter systemic oppression.

  • Awareness of power and identity positionality often leads to feeling stuck without clear action steps.

  • Our ways of being deeply shape our epistemologies and methodologies in research.

  • Colonial Western ways of being emphasize objectification and individualism, limiting emancipatory knowledge production.

  • Indigenous knowledge systems, like those of the iBio people, view knowledge as relational and emergent from relationships.

  • Songs and oral traditions can serve as valid research methodologies tied to indigenous ways of knowing.

  • Systems of value influence which knowledge is considered legitimate or beneficial, often marginalizing community knowledge.

  • Immigrant communities bring preserved ways of being that produce measurable health and social benefits.

  • Positive deviance in communities reveals untapped local wisdom that can guide effective interventions.

  • Radical participatory research requires researchers to relinquish control and let communities define methods based on their own ways of being.

Notable Quotes

"If diversity alone made research inclusive, then police could never be anti-black because they include black officers."

"Whiteness isn’t about color; people of all colors can reinforce white supremacy."

"Awareness leads to feeling stuck because we don’t know what to do or don’t feel empowered to act."

"Our ways of being are roots that grow into ways of knowing, doing, and methods, all nourished by systems of value."

"In Western modernity, if something is not an object, it is not real research or real knowledge."

"For the iBio people, knowledge is relational, not objectified, emerging from relationships like songs."

"Songs become methodologies—the way you identify who is at the door is through the song they sing."

"Colonial ways of being, knowing, and valuing will never produce emancipatory methodologies."

"Community-rooted wisdom like the Mexican 'guana' practice reduces postpartum depression without traditional research."

"Will you learn to let go? Better yet, will you let go?"

Ask the Rosenbot
Victor M. Gonzalez
Practicing Learners and Learning Practitioners
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Steve Krug
Don’t Make Me Think 3.0: What Endures and What Evolves in UX
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Liam Thurston
Why Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Kelly Dern
AI as a Design Partner: How to Get the Most Out of AI Tools to Scale Your Process
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Leisa Reichelt
The Five Dysfunctions of Democratized Research at Scale
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Daniel Gloyd
Warming the User Experience: Lessons from America's first and most radical human-centered designers
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Leah Buley
Ask Me Anything with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli, co-authors of The User Experience Team of One (2nd edition)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Jennifer Kanyamibwa
Creating the Blueprint: Growing and Building Design Teams
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Ben Reason
Making the system visible: The fastest path to better decisions
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Cassini Nazir
The Dangers of Empathy: Toward More Responsible Design Research
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Jon Fukuda
Design Planning and Management Support
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Emily Williams
When UX Research and Institutional Racism Collide: A Case Study
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Bria Alexander
Welcome
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Jim Kalbach
Peace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Sheri Byrne-Haber
The Importance of Accessible Design Systems
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
John Calhoun
Bring your DesignOps Story to Life! The Definitive DesignOps Book Jam
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold

More Videos

Kritika Yadav

"It's not just about fixing the chatbot, it's about bridging the gap between user expectations and actual experiences."

Kritika Yadav

Optimizing AI Conversations: A Case Study on Personalized Shopping Assistance Frameworks

June 10, 2025

Scott Stephens

"Excel is a little bit outdated; more advanced cloud tools help us co-create and collaborate in real time."

Scott Stephens

The Next Generation in DesignOps Toolsets

July 28, 2022

Chris Geison

"The pyramid has gotten so much larger; the number of people feeling special at the bottom is growing."

Chris Geison Dr. Jamika D. Burge Jemma Ahmed

What's Next for Research?

June 17, 2021

Rima Campbell

"Why do we struggle to have impact even when we know we should?"

Rima Campbell Amrit S Bhachu

Increase Productivity and Drive Business Impact

September 24, 2024

Reginé Gilbert

"Identity is not monolithic; policies should address layered experiences."

Reginé Gilbert

Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic

June 10, 2022

Ben Davies

"The hyperbolic discounting bias means researchers prefer immediate gratification over deferred rewards from reusable knowledge."

Ben Davies Matt Duignan Andrew Michael Dr. Emily DiLeo

Expert Panel: The Principles of Research Repository Design

March 11, 2022

Alla Weinberg

"Stress is our nervous system going into a state of mobilization, preparing us to fight or flee a perceived threat."

Alla Weinberg

Healing Toxic Stress

September 23, 2024

Sarah Fathallah

"Just because you do more sessions or add review moments doesn’t mean the quality of engagement improves."

Sarah Fathallah

A Typology of Participation in Participatory Research

March 28, 2023

Kurt McCulloch

"We’re not just translators between different ways of thinking, but architects of shared reasoning processes."

Kurt McCulloch

Faster alone, further together: Rebuilding collaboration in the age of AI research

March 10, 2026