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
George Aye
That Quiet Little Voice: When Design and Ethics Collide
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Kit Unger
Theme 1 Intro
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Theme 1 Intro
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Conference
Sharon Banh
Reimagining research: What does the field need to grow? [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Sarah Brooks
Fireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka
2021 • Civic Design Community
Patrick Boehler
The service shift: transforming media organizations to create real value through design
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Paul Pangaro, PhD
Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Jacqui Frey
Setting the Table for Dynamic Change
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Ali Jeffery
How DesignOps Helped Enable Wall Street to Work Remotely
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Shan Shen
Translating UX Terms into Business Contexts
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
B. Pagels-Minor
Breaking the Tension: The Power of Enabling Your Employees to Show Up Authentically
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Catt Small
Craft a Vision that Actually Gets Shipped
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Llewyn Paine
Coexisting with AI: A practical guide for researchers to navigate tools, ethics, and integration
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Catt Small
Moving from Execution to Strategy as a Designer
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Frances Yllana
DesignOps Exposed: What do our peers really think of us?
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Sara Asche Anderson
Not Your Ordinary Re-Brand: Design's Path to Driving Customer Obsession at Best Buy
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold

More Videos

Roberta Dombrowski

"Fraud detection automatically refunds you if a participant is found to be fraudulent and helps find a replacement."

Roberta Dombrowski Lianna Aduana

5 Reasons to Bring your Recruiting in House

September 30, 2021

PJ Buddhari

"Spectrum is about empowering collaboration across products, disciplines, and clouds — not just providing tools but supporting people using the system."

PJ Buddhari Nate Baldwin

Meet Spectrum, Adobe’s Design System

June 9, 2021

Amy Bucher

"Think of nudges like road signs or exits on a highway, while behavior change techniques are the road stretches in between sustaining momentum."

Amy Bucher

Harnessing behavioral science to uncover deeper truths

March 12, 2025

Erin May

"Stakeholders aren’t ready to write their own briefs or manage recruitment, so it ended up being a hybrid model initially."

Erin May Roberta Dombrowski Laura Oxenfeld Brooke Hinton

Distributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org

March 10, 2022

Carol Scott

"Trauma-informed approaches are like seat belts and airbags for tech products."

Carol Scott Melissa Eggleston

Avoid Harming Your Team and Users: Promoting Care and Brand Reputation with Trauma-Informed UX Practices

February 5, 2025

Jemma Ahmed

"I would prefer not to reduce human understanding to shallow sound bites."

Jemma Ahmed

Theme 1 Intro

March 10, 2026

Melissa Schmidt

"This program has become the gateway drug for customer research for people who didn’t know its power or value before."

Melissa Schmidt Adam Menter

How UX Research Hit It Big in Las Vegas

June 4, 2019

Clara Kliman-Silver

"AI is valuable in design when it extrapolates away mundane work."

Clara Kliman-Silver

UX Futures: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Design

June 7, 2023

Jamika Burge

"Sometimes people aren’t willing, and you get a whole lot more with honey than you do with vinegar."

Jamika Burge

Embracing change: Navigating shifting landscapes with compassion and agency

March 11, 2025