Rosenverse
Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion

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
Jorge Arango
Design as an Antidote to VUCA
2019 • Enterprise Community
Kavana Ramesh
Meaningful inclusion: Practicing accessibility research with confidence
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Vanessa Varin
Tools are moments. Capabilities compound.
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Peter Van Dijck
Hands-on AI #2: Understanding evals: LLM as a Judge
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
James Chudley
Decarbonising User Journeys: How minimising enables us to do more with less
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Dan Saffer
Why AI projects fail (and what we can do about it)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Shahrzad Samadzadeh
What Is My Value? Two Takes and Some Mistakes
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Sam Proulx
To Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Magdalena Zadara
Zero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Erika Flowers
The Handoff is Dead: Design-Led Engineering with AI Agents
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Nick Lewis
Designing and building low-carbon websites independently
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Edward Cupps
The Principal Path: Journeying from Management to Individual Contributor
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Frances Yllana
Theme 2 Intro
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Adrian Howard
Sturgeon’s Biases
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Meghan Hellstern
The Next 100 Years of Civic Design: How Might We Better Rise to Meet the Challenges of Today and Tomorrow?
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold

More Videos

Alexandra Schmidt

"I’m totally freaked out by facial recognition and wonder why we don’t get together as consumers to push back on bad designs."

Alexandra Schmidt

Why Ethics Can't Save Tech

November 18, 2022

Bria Alexander

"MJ Broadbent’s sketchnotes are absolutely outstanding. You really do not have to take notes yourself."

Bria Alexander Louis Rosenfeld

Welcome

September 8, 2022

Robert Fabricant

"Research doesn’t start and end with the researcher; it’s about continual learning and supporting communities to keep learning."

Robert Fabricant Sahibzada Mayed Nidhi Singh Rathore

Industry junctures: Paths forwards for UXR and the critical decisions that get us there [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

October 2, 2024

Mitchell Bernstein

"Every decision in a design system is like a puzzle piece; together they form a bigger picture that evolves over time."

Mitchell Bernstein

Organizing Chaos: How IBM is Defining Design Systems with Sketch for an Ever-Changing AI Landscape

September 29, 2021

Louis Rosenfeld

"We do about a hundred free community sessions a year where anyone with membership can attend."

Louis Rosenfeld

The Rosenbot and the Rosenverse: An AMA with Lou Rosenfeld

June 5, 2024

Rima Campbell

"Numbers drive conversations, numbers drive decisions. That is the executive language."

Rima Campbell Amrit S Bhachu

Increase Productivity and Drive Business Impact

September 24, 2024

Louis Rosenfeld

"Most science founders don’t think about user-centered design, and that’s where UXers add huge value."

Louis Rosenfeld Matt Jones Olga Khroustaleva Michael Leggett Karol Munoz

Do you want to work on climate? (Climate UX Discussion Series)

November 15, 2023

Ruzanna Rozman

"To get into flow, I need a strong belief in the purpose and the work we’re doing."

Ruzanna Rozman

Getting in Flow with Your Team

January 8, 2024

Liza Pemstein

"We have the quantity of research work; now we’re focused on building up the quality."

Liza Pemstein Jane Davis

Scaling Research Via an Ops First Model at Clever

March 27, 2023