Designing Psychological Co-research of Emancipatory-Technical Relevance Across Age Thresholds

The requirement that theoretical and empirical research is to sustainably benefit not only the nominal researcher, but also the other research participants, is deeply embedded in the conceptual-analytical framework of Psychology from the Standpoint of the Subject (PSS) and its co-researcher principle. PSS research is thus to be of emancipatory relevance to those others the researcher comes to collaborate with. Meanwhile, the question of how this requirement can be prospectively integrated into the design of a research project remains subject to debate. This question emerges as particularly difficult to tackle in research projects that engage in co-research with young children: How can a researcher ensure that the young children s-he works togethe with benefit from the research project? Based on the critical analysis of an earlier research project implemented by the author, the contribution at hand suggests that PSS’ foundational notion of emancipatory relevance needs to be revisited. It argues that if a research project is to sustainably benefit young co-researchers, the technical relevance of the expected mutual emancipation should as well be explicitly considered in the project design. A discussion of recent methodological developments in child-targeted Participatory Design (PD) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) serve as inspiration for this conceptual specification. The contribution thereby invites co-research to further investigate how emancipatory relevance cannot only to be methodologically attained via dissemination of research results and conceptual developments, but also via the actual research process it attempts to engage the co-researchers in irrespective of their age

Designing psychological co-research of emancipatory-technical relevance across age thresholds

The requirement that theoretical and empirical research is to sustainably benefit not only the nominal researcher, but also the other research participants, is deeply embedded in the conceptual-analytical framework of Psychology from the Standpoint of the Subject (PSS) and its co-researcher principle. PSS research is thus to be of emancipatory relevance to those others the researcher comes to collaborate with. Meanwhile, the question of how this requirement can be prospectively integrated into the design of a research project remains subject to debate. This question emerges as particularly difficult to tackle in research projects that engage in co-research with young children: How can a researcher ensure that the young children s-he works togethe with benefit from the research project? Based on the critical analysis of an earlier research project implemented by the author, the contribution at hand suggests that PSS’ foundational notion of emancipatory relevance needs to be revisited. It argues that if a research project is to sustainably benefit young co-researchers, the technical relevance of the expected mutual emancipation should as well be explicitly considered in the project design. A discussion of recent methodological developments in child-targeted Participatory Design (PD) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) serve as inspiration for this conceptual specification. The contribution thereby invites co-research to further investigate how emancipatory relevance cannot only to be methodologically attained via dissemination of research results and conceptual developments, but also via the actual research process it attempts to engage the co-researchers in irrespective of their age

Teaching ethical participatory codesign

How to incorporate critical and societally relevant thinking and acting into Higher Education teaching formats? The article proposes social design workshops, which teach ethics through design by explicitly addressing and building on the functional diversity of participating stakeholders, and by fostering ongoing mutual reflection. These workshops are inspired by participatory design, political theory, disability studies and psychological practice research. By drawing on empirical material from a design workshop with Bachelor students and external collaborators including psychologically vulnerable stakeholders, we argue for an adaptive framework of analytical-pedagogical inquiry that can be continuously co-designed. In particular, ethical design requires a broad and emergent definition of participation. Ethical design is participatory-democratic co-design, which acknowledges and bridges across the various stakeholders’ functional diversity

In dialogue with related fields of inquiry: The interdisciplinarity, normativity and contextuality of audience research

This paper explores the borders of audience research with help of interviews of nine scholars who operate in related fields of inquiry. Inspired by the method of interactive interview, our dialogue with these scholars was encouraged by and serve to document the reflexivity involved in audience research in a manner unachievable by a traditional review of literature, offering a complement to CEDAR’s objective to review the field. We identify and illustrate three major constituents by which audience research organizes its borders: interdisciplinarity, normativity and contextuality. We contend that audience research needs to engage more explicitly in a discussion of its repertoire in relation to these three constituents