Building a Socio-technical Perspective of Community Resilience with a Semiotic Approach

Situated in the diversity and adversity of real-life contexts facing crisis situations, this research aims at boosting the resilience process within communities supported by digital and social technology. In this paper, eight community leaders in different parts of the world are invited to express their issues and wishes regarding the support of technology to face social challenges. Methods and artefacts based on the Organisational Semiotics (OS) and the Socially-Aware computing have been applied to analyse and consolidate this data. By providing both a systemic view of the problem and also leading to the identification of requirements, the analysis evidences some benefits of the OS-based approach to consolidate perspectives from different real-life scenarios towards building a socio-technical solution

Co-designing for Community Resilience Beyond the Local

In this position paper we highlight our strategy for co-creating a platform to support community resilience that goes beyond a situated research. We first engage with a diverse set of stakeholders to conceive the design problem, and then we address the implementation aspects with local communities. We briefly illustrate a number of methods and strategies used to identify and extract the general socio-technical requirements from communities in different contexts

Prospecting Socially-Aware Concepts and Artefacts for Designing for Community Resilience

Defining flexible and consistent methods and artefacts to design for social impact is a current challenge for HCI. The ephemeral and vulnerable conditions of people living as refugees add even more questions about the suitability of design methods to the complexity of real — and many times tough — life . In this position paper we briefly introduce two concepts embraced by the Socially-aware Design Approach, the Semiotic Onion and the Basic Block of Culture. We then reflect about the potential contributions of applying these concepts and artefacts to inform design for boosting community resilience of people living as refugees

Language learning as psycho-social support: translanguaging space as safe space in superdiverse refugee settings

This paper explores language learning for displaced people in the countries bordering Syria and attempts to establish a link between the concept of translanguaging and the concept of safe spaces used by NGOs. The paper uses the term ‘displaced people’ as it is this feature of being dis-placed that the paper seeks to explore through the lens of superdiversity and its connections to spaces for translanguaging. The concept of superdiversity helps us understand the stratification and multiplication of the processes and effects of migration which lead to heightened complexity, while the concept of translanguaging has been incorporated into this heuristic to help understand how people communicate in these superdiverse settings. The main finding is that monolingual ideologies of language learning pervade the safe spaces which one NGO provides, though the aim is not to single out this one NGO for criticism when the majority of NGOs visited orient to similar monolingual outlooks which disregard home languages at a time when vulnerable adults, adolescents and children need to draw on all of the language resources in their repertoires to make sense of their new surroundings

Limits of inclusion: multimodal action-nets and the challenge of communication technologies for disability

This paper investigates the effects that the extensive use of communication technologies, fostered by the pandemic, has on organizational inclusion. It is an explorative study that offers theoretical reflections supported by analysis of interviews and journalistic reports of disabled people’s experience with communication technologies and assistive devices. We argue that such technology, although able to foster unexpected changes in work activities, is not inclusive in itself, as it can also produce errors, malfunctions, frustrations, misnarration. Therefore, we propose a relational approach that sees inclusion not in terms of the adoption of single accessibility devices, nor of specific policies in HR management, but rather as a dynamic process characterized by multimodal action-nets, composed of multiple socio-material agents and nodes, both human and non-human, and complex interdependencies between individuals, public and private organizations, technological artifacts, design, IT services and data processing, hiring policies, knowledge and narratives. Such an approach highlights the fruitful connection between inclusion and resilience

The role of the “Inter-Life” virtual world as a creative technology to support student transition into higher education

The shape of Higher Education (HE) in the UK and internationally is changing, with wider access policies leading to greater diversity and heterogeneity in contemporary student populations world-wide. Students in the 21st Century are often described as “fragmented”; meaning they are frequently working whilst participating in a full time Degree programme. Consequently, those in the HE setting are required to become “future ready” which increasingly involves the seamless integration of new digital technologies into undergraduate programmes of teaching and learning. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of the “Inter-Life” three-dimensional virtual world as a suitable Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) tool to support the initial stages of transition from school into university. Our results demonstrate that Inter-Life is “fit for purpose” in terms of the robustness of both the educational and technical design features. We have shown that Inter-Life provides a safe space that supports induction mediated by active learning tasks using learner-generated, multi-modal transition tools. In addition, through the provision of private spaces, Inter-Life also supports and fosters the development of critical reflective thinking skills. However, in keeping with the current literature in the field, some of the students expressed a wish for more training in the functional and social skills required to navigate and experience the Inter-Life virtual world more effectively. Such findings resonate with the current debate in the field which challenges the notion of “digital natives”, but the present study has also provided some new evidence to support the role of virtual worlds for the development of a suitable community to support students undergoing transition to university

Social Sustainability: A design research approach to sustainable development

While issues such as clean production and energy efficiency are still central in sustainable development discourse, attention is increasingly on patterns of consumption at multiple levels in society. This opens new opportunities and responsibilities for design research, as we shift from a focus on product lifecycles to people’s lifestyles. It also requires further understanding the ‘social sustainability’ aspects of the environment and development, including the complexity of problematics characterized by uncertainties, contradictions and controversies. In response, we propose a programmatic approach, in which a tentative assemblage of theoretical and experimental strategies frame a common ground for a collaborative and practice-led inquiry. We present a design research program based on two propositions: socio-cultural practices are the basic unit for design, and; transitions, and transition management, are the basic points of design intervention. Rather than affirming the status quo or the prevailing discourse, we argue for design research as a ‘critical practice’, in which cultural diversity, non-humans and multiple futures are considered

In Search of Fairness: Critical Design Alternatives for Sustainability

Does fairness as an ideal fit within the broader quest for sustainability? In this paper we consider alternative ways of framing the wicked problem of sustainability. One that moves away from the established preference within HCI, towards technological quick-fixes. We adopt a critical lens to challenge the belief that by merely changing practices at an individual level one can do away with unsustainability. This thinking, we argue, is flawed for many reasons, but mostly because of the wickedness of the sustainability problem. By analyzing the case of Fairphone, we illustrate how it is possible to imagine and design change at a broader level of community engagement, when it comes to concerns of fairness and sustainability. We contribute to a deeper understanding of how social value laden enterprises along with open technological design can shape sustainable relationships between our environment and us.