Participatory empirical research on water and sanitation demand in central northern Namibia: a method for technology development with a user perspective

Improvements in water infrastructure in developing countries are of major importance for achieving access to clean water. CuveWaters, a research based IWRM project, currently underway in Namibia, is testing different technical options to de-centralise water supply and upgrade sanitation. The Cuvelai Basin is affected by highly variable precipitation, mostly saline groundwater and a lack of perennial rivers. Water management is characterised by strong dependency on a water pipeline. Finding ways to improve the situation calls for a good grasp of the local situation regarding water utilisation patterns. Technologically sophisticated concepts can easily clash with users’ socio-cultural needs and everyday behaviour as well as their understanding of planning and maintenance. A demand-responsive approach has therefore been developed. It combines a qualitative socio-empirical perspective with participatory planning. This paper discusses method development, empirical application and results. The approaches aim is to support mutual learning as a basis for a sustainable change process

The Practice of Neogeography in Community-Based Organizations

Neogeography and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) are two terms that have emerged recently to describe the practice of geography by those not formally trained in it as a discipline and spatial data provided by individuals through social media and other Web-based tools. Both neogeography and VGI can be directly linked to the growth of various online mapping websites and applications that allow for the creation of electronic maps that are interactive, adaptable, and easily shared via the Internet and Web. As recent phenomena, the practice of neogeography and VGI is not well understood, nor are the links these new fields have to previously established knowledge on Geographic Information Systems and its associated practices. This thesis attempts to fill this knowledge gap through a participatory study of neogeographic practice. Using a participatory workshop format, I observed and documented representatives of community-based organizations in Syracuse, NY as they encountered online mapping tools for the first time. I followed up with two of those organizations in longer case studies to better understand how organizations with no obvious geographic focus come to see geography as a way of communicating complex ideas about space. This study revealed that while the technical complexity of the online mapping software continues to prove to be a hindrance to its use, there remains space for professional geographers to interact with laypeople who make maps. Furthermore, such engagement is necessary to begin to understand the issues involved with location-based information and privacy, access to data, and ability to use and communicate geographic concepts and knowledge

Sustainable consumption: towards action and impact. : International scientific conference November 6th-8th 2011, Hamburg - European Green Capital 2011, Germany: abstract volume

This volume contains the abstracts of all oral and poster presentations of the international scientific conference „Sustainable Consumption – Towards Action and Impact“ held in Hamburg (Germany) on November 6th-8th 2011. This unique conference aims to promote a comprehensive academic discourse on issues concerning sustainable consumption and brings together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines. In modern societies, private consumption is a multifaceted and ambivalent phenomenon: it is a ubiquitous social practice and an economic driving force, yet at the same time, its consequences are in conflict with important social and environmental sustainability goals. Finding paths towards “sustainable consumption” has therefore become a major political issue. In order to properly understand the challenge of “sustainable consumption”, identify unsustainable patterns of consumption and bring forward the necessary innovations, a collaborative effort of researchers from different disciplines is needed

APPLYING LESSONS LEARNED FROM COUNSELLING: ON NURTURING RELATIONS IN E-GOVERNMENT PROJECTS

This paper elaborates on the relevance of deploying focus and effort on personal relation, in interventions for organisational innovation. Supporting the establishment of sense making and trust with Social Practice Design (SPD) approaches is found to be of primary importance in an e- Government development project. Here regional employees user-design a computer-based aid for public tender editing – a tender configurator - with the support of facilitators. The paper offers a demonstration of the mission critical relevance of the relational component in SPD, intertwined with the customary functional component, in resuming governance towards project success. We address the structural problem with infra-structural measures including open conversations to promote shared understanding, and user design laboratories to promote concept emergence and learning, while practicing relation and trust building all along. Our constructivist approach renounces from the start to solve the governance problem within a narrow managerial perspective. This experience is far from a complete experiment. But a wealth of indications and partial results have been harvested on needs, opportunities, and practices, for promoting shared understanding and trust in the project, and letting emerge idiosyncratic solutions. Our SPD approach is entrenched in the deployment of facilitator interventions in the case site, in an action research (AR) like approach employing Interactive Use Cases (IUC) as a Participative Design (PD) tool. Key is the awareness and intentionality in conceiving, proposing, co-constructing with users the appropriate path, in the context, towards desired change. A holistic, long-term commitment. Quality of the path more important, that the very goal. The SPD approach is evolved through: a) the attempts from facilitators to build up personal relations of trust with managers and personnel; b) ethnographic observations; c) the analysis and awareness creation of the main traits of the extant situation in the company, through interviews, meetings, and workshops; d) the joint identification with the company’s personnel of the crucial how question e) the conception and joint co-construction of visions of solution by personnel and facilitators. PD techniques employed as special measures include: user laboratories, learning sessions, design sessions. We judge the quality of the SPD approach by three requirements (Baskerville and Myers 2004): a contribution to practice (the action), a contribution to research (the theory), the criteria by which to judge the research, and we show explicitly how the research in the case meets these criteria

An ontology co-design method for the co-creation of a continuous care ontology

Ontology engineering methodologies tend to emphasize the role of the knowledge engineer or require a very active role of domain experts. In this paper, a participatory ontology engineering method is described that holds the middle ground between these two 'extremes'. After thorough ethnographic research, an interdisciplinary group of domain experts closely interacted with ontology engineers and social scientists in a series of workshops. Once a preliminary ontology was developed, a dynamic care request system was built using the ontology. Additional workshops were organized involving a broader group of domain experts to ensure the applicability of the ontology across continuous care settings. The proposed method successfully actively engaged domain experts in constructing the ontology, without overburdening them. Its applicability is illustrated by presenting the co-created continuous care ontology. The lessons learned during the design and execution of the approach are also presented

Together - Design concepts for improving youth participation in decision-making processes in Helsinki

Current democratic practises remain insufficient to equally involve citizens from different socio-economic backgrounds in the decision-making processes. In direct and representative democracy models, the practises may not protect minorities or give citizens enough opportunities to build a political intellect. Therefore, along with these models, conceptual framework of this thesis embraces deliberative democracy and Habermasian public sphere to improve young citizen’s participation and political intellect in decision-making processes in Helsinki. The research is based on human-centred and participatory design methods with systems thinking approach. Throughout the research, 6 stakeholders are interviewed to explore existing practices and systemic problems in the field. The interview findings show that stakeholders struggle to provide political education and incentives to participate especially to the ethnic youth. Consequently, 3 design concepts are developed, and then validated in a participatory workshop with 4 young people aged between 14-19. The results indicate that young people could be educated about politics by attracting their attention to the subjects they care such as, student discounts and age limits. Additionally, social media tools could be utilized to help them creatively express themselves. These expressions could be the source of input for decision-makers. Lastly, young people do not prefer participating in face-to-face discussions due to the fear of peer judgement. Therefore, these discussions could be moved to judgement-free cyberspaces. All in all, the research results could be developed further to provide political awareness and unconventional ways of youth participation. Moreover, interview findings could be utilized to enhance stakeholder relationships and overall efficacy of the field