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
Jayne Engle
Civic Design for the Next Seven Generations—A Discussion on Sacred Civics
2022 • Civic Design Community
Brennan Hartich
Communicating and Establishing DesignOps as a New Function
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Sharon Bautista
Time to Make the Donuts: How User Research Helped Bridge Disparate Teams
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Candace Myers
Standardizing Design at Scale
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Past, Present, and Future of DesignOps: a 2-part DesignOps Community Call (Part 1)
2022 • DesignOps Community
Edward Cupps
The Principal Path: Journeying from Management to Individual Contributor
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Dave Hoffer
UX Job Search AMA #2 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Lin Nie
When Thought-worlds Collide: Collaborating Between Research and Practice
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Sean Baker
Weaving Knowledge Management into the Fabric of Our Design Practice
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Integrating Systems Thinking Into Your Practice as a Designer
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Michelle Bejian Lotia
Rolling Out a Repository: How Zapier Centralizes Insights from Across their Organization
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Christian Bason
Innovating With People: Unleashing the Potential of Civic Design
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Samuel Proulx
From Standards to Innovation: Why Inclusive Design Wins
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Conference
Ash Brown
Silver Linings: What DesignOps Learned in the Shift to WFH
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Megan Nipe
Human-Centered Design for Engagement: Maturing from Newsletterville to Personalized, One-to-One Messaging
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Aras Bilgen
Research Democratization: A Debate
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold

More Videos

Mark Interrante

"Making issues visible, sharing models, and iterating versions of workflows helps uncover blockages and solutions."

Mark Interrante

Collaboration Flows in Product Development

June 9, 2017

Alan Williams

"It takes a village to maintain the Benefits Hub with clear roles and responsibilities among a part-time team."

Alan Williams Rose Deeb

Designing essential financial services for those in need

February 10, 2022

Kit Unger

"Her energy and enthusiasm is contagious and she inspires everyone on the team to expand our horizons and go further."

Kit Unger Lada Gorlenko

Theme 3 Intro

June 10, 2022

Frances Yllana

"The word intelligence in artificial intelligence leads many to read more into the technology than is actually there."

Frances Yllana Jorge Arango Maria Taylor Briana Thomas

The Big Question about Impact: A Panel Discussion

September 24, 2024

Megan Blocker

"I want you to push yourselves to try one new approach, to challenge one of your assumptions, and to walk away ready to take an action."

Megan Blocker

Theme 2 Intro

March 12, 2025

Theresa Neil

"Preventative care UX challenges, like why men won’t come in, are deeply rooted and not solved by prettier buttons."

Theresa Neil

Designing for Wellness: Specializing in Healthcare

May 22, 2024

John Maeda

"I really don’t like when we design our systems so well, because it makes the consumer think they might want it, and so they take too long to decide they actually didn’t want it."

John Maeda

Making Sense of Enterprise UX

June 9, 2016

Louis Rosenfeld

"You will not be missing out on much if you don’t snag the digital swag bag."

Louis Rosenfeld Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

March 27, 2023

Helen Armstrong

"Humans tend to give too much authority to autonomous systems, which can lead to overtrust."

Helen Armstrong

Augment the Human. Interrogate the System.

June 7, 2023