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
Dave Malouf
Panel: Design Systems and Documentation
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Tom Armitage
Day 2 Panel: Looking ahead: Designing with AI in 2026
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Katie Hansen
Experimental research: techniques for deep, psychology-driven insights
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Daniel Gloyd
Warming the User Experience: Lessons from America's first and most radical human-centered designers
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Landon Barnes
Are My Research Findings Actually Meaningful?
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Courtney Kaplan
Taking it to the next level: Career paths in DesignOps
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Dan Donald
Design Systems as a Vehicle for Systemic Change
2023 • DesignOps Community
Bryce Benton
[Demo] AI-powered UX enhancement: Aligning GitHub documentation with USWDS at Austin Public Library
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Shipra Kayan
How Tess Dixon Facilitates Team Engagement and Collaboration at Condé Nast Using Miro 
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
World Usability Day Panel Discussion
2022 • DesignOps Community
Robin Beers
Panel: Excellence in Communicating Insights
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Carl Turner
You Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Kate Towsey
Participant Recruitment and Management Tools
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Conference
Peter Van Dijck
Designing AI-first products on top of a rapidly evolving technology
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Lavrans Løvlie
Ask me anything – Authors of Service Design: From Insight to Implementation
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Jon Fukuda
Theme One Intro
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold

More Videos

Dan Willis

"We got to get everybody to tell stories in the whole room."

Dan Willis

Enterprise Storytelling Sessions

June 8, 2017

Sam Proulx

"Reddit recently fixed their upvote button so it announces toggle states, something many sites neglect."

Sam Proulx

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Screen Readers

June 11, 2021

Christian Madsbjerg

"Less than 10% of big decisions are based on research, which is rare given how much we spend on it."

Christian Madsbjerg

Influencing Strategy

March 31, 2020

John Cutler

"Priorities aren’t priorities until they’ve been prioritized with attributes and values; otherwise they’re just items."

John Cutler Harry Max

Prioritization for designers and product managers (1st of 3 seminars)

June 13, 2024

Dave Hoffer

"Synthetic personas created with AI are a horrible substitute for real user research."

Dave Hoffer Joanne Weaver

UX Job Search AMA #3 with Joanne Weaver and Dave Hoffer

July 16, 2025

Peter Merholz

"You build trust by showing you understand what it takes to get something shipped and by knowing the subject matter."

Peter Merholz

The Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX

July 13, 2023

Alla Weinberg

"Trust is created between two people. Safety is created in a group of people."

Alla Weinberg

How to Build and Scale Team Safety

January 8, 2024

Theresa Marwah

"Touching data locally — like landing on hot lava — poses risks; we want strict data movement protocols."

Theresa Marwah

How Atlassian is Operationalizing Respect in Research

February 27, 2020

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"I want you to pay close attention to these talks to get the frameworks and language to include these topics."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

Theme Three Intro

October 4, 2023