Non-extractive participatory design: feminist, anti-colonial, and disability-centred approaches – April 20th, 2023, 12pm

Thursday, April 20, 2023, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

 Event took place virtually

 Dr. Paula Gardner, Dr. Alpha Abebe, Dr. Kim Sawchuk

Event Information

Dr. Paula Gardner, with co-presenters, Dr. Alpha Abebe and Dr. Kim Sawchuk, will discuss ways to conduct collaborative research with diverse community populations using critical feminist, anti-colonial, and disability-centred approaches. Key principles and values unite these approaches, which enable teams to be agile, reflexive, and responsive to community need.  

During this conversation, we will:  

• Explore how to engage art and design methods  
• Discuss techniques to centre community participants as research experts and leaders. 
• Share examples of collaborative, interdisciplinary research creating games and apps with diverse disabled older adult populations, racialized, under-resourced teens, and refugee youth in Toronto 

Following these conversations, attendees are invited to join Reflecting Together, an opportunity for trainees and community members to come together and share their thoughts on the topics discussed. These facilitated discussions are an opportunity for attendees to continue the conversation and take our combined learnings into action. 

The Collaborative is committed to the accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities. If you require any accessibility accommodations to ensure your full participation at this event, please email collabor@mcmcaster.ca and/or let us know when you register for this event. 

This event is part of the Collaborative Conversations Series, bringing together researchers and people with lived experiences to share their journeys and lessons learned in patient-oriented research. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about future events. 

Speaker Bios

Dr. Paula Gardner, PhD

Dr. Paula Gardner’s Personal Website

Asper Research Chair in Communication, McMaster University
Professor, Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts, McMaster University
Director, Pulse Lab, McMaster University 

Dr. Paula Gardner is an Associate Professor and the Asper Chair in Communications in the Faculty of Communication Studies and Media Arts, at McMaster University. She also directs the Pulse Lab, which engages in collaborative art and therapeutic technology design with communities for social change.  Gardner is a long-time feminist, human rights and anti-oppression researcher and activist; her writing and multimodal practice engage critical intersectional analyses to explore and co-create emerging digital and science technologies.  Gardner’s creative practice has been supported by Canadian funders including SSHRC, Heritage Canada, and National Centres of Excellence. Her collaborative projects employ approaches such as visual aesthetics, participatory design, critical feminist, disability, and mobile methods to create mobile, gesture-based and biometric platforms offering artful, embodied experiences.

Dr. Alpha Abebe, PhD Oxford

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities, McMaster University
Faculty Lead, Africa and Black Diaspora Studies Program, McMaster University
Member, Pulse Lab, McMaster University 

Dr. Alpha Abebe’s research interests include African diasporas, transnational identities, and Black community engagement. At McMaster, she teaches a range of interdisciplinary courses focused on equity and social justice, ethical leadership and reflexivity, and critical thinking and methods. She is also the Faculty Lead for African and African Diaspora Studies at McMaster and involved in a number of initiatives focused on achieving equity at McMaster and works to amplify student voice on campus.

Dr. Abebe also has extensive experience as a community-based practitioner and researcher, and this work has largely focused on engaging and championing youth from Black/African, immigrant, and low-income communities.

Dr. Kim Sawchuk, PhD

Professor, Communication Studies, Concordia University
Director, ACT (aging+communication+technologies) Lab, Concordia University

Dr. Kim Sawchuk is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Mobile Media Studies, and is the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies for the Faculty of Arts and Science at Concordia University.

Since the mid-1990s, much of Kim Sawchuk’s intellectual attention has focused on the intersection between age, ageing, and communication technologies (see: actproject.ca). Her research on ageing in networked societies is intersectional and challenges lingering ageist assumptions within media studies, where old age and new media are often positioned as incommensurable topics. This research is dedicated to fostering opportunities for intergenerational media-making and is foundational to a re-theorization of how we understand key concepts in the field of communications, such as mediation and mediatization. Dr. Sawchuk’s research asks what it means to age in a society where the pressure to become digital is being made into an imperative for participation in public life. She has conducted major ethnographic investigations on “seniors and cell phones” with Dr. Barbara Crow of York University. These studies have demonstrated the need for researchers to understand the connections between ageing, personal household economies, political economic forces and the policies that influence cell phone use; they also question how we understand “non-use”.  Kim’s most recent work on ageing and media is centred on community-based media practices with older adults and is asking questions about the ways in which Web 3.0 is shaping public knowledge of age and ageing.

Kim is also a co-founder of the Critical Disability Studies Working Group (CDSWG) at Concordia, which is part of the cluster Communities and Differential Mobilities, within the newly reforming Hexagram. Her research in this area explores the use of research-creation and media-making with the Montreal disability rights community.

Read more at Collaborative for Health and Aging.