An Exploration of Interests

My relationship with HCI and digital civics so far has been more exploratory than that of pursuing a defined interest. As for digital civics, my work experience as a developer in Jordan, working mostly with governmental organizations, was an eye-opener to the lack of citizen involvement in this attempt at digitizing services and platforms. For while technology and turning to the digital are some of the fastest growing aspects of the country; concepts of participation, participatory design, and even user-centered design are almost completely missing. All of this makes the attempt to introduce such concepts to the community in this time of digital growth and to explore what might come of it a very interesting pursuit to me.

Another slightly related area I find interesting is exploring what value technology can offer in the context of the refugee camps, and if it can be used to empower the refugees in these camps. For my MRes project, I’m considering joining an ongoing project in the Zaatari camp (Syrian refugee camp in Jordan) for my MRes, related to creating a digital cookbook from recipes collected from around the camp, reflecting the culture as well as the stories of the people in the camp, as food holds a big cultural significance in Syrian life. Zaatari camp is a digitally restricted landscape with a myriad of limitations on resources, which makes it challenging to work with, but equally interesting to explore. The cookbook, as an example, deals with people’s lack of materials and tools, and its contents map the way people’s lives have changed, in an indirect, but perhaps more powerful way than simple descriptions.

On top of my reading list is a paper that was already suggested to me by someone in Open Lab, Blasts from the past: Policy legacies and memories in the making of the Jordanian response to the Syrian refugee crisis, that explores further the situation of Syrian refugees in Jordan and what limitations they face in the camps.

 

Sean’s Research Interests:

Sean’s research interest lie around the concept of participation and engagement (or lack thereof) in the democratic civic processes, and how certain groups are systematically excluded in these processes. Coming from a Planning background, he seeks to explore if and how technology can be used to change the engagement-lacking approach often found in some of the Planning  and decision-making practices. A possible way Sean is considering to experiment with technology in this context is through the design of a game or an app aiming to spark people’s interest in certain issues, increasing their engagement and participation; and through the use of feedback in keeping a flowing dialog to eventually reach a form of deliberative democracy.

My article suggestion to Sean is Playful Civic Learning: Enabling Lateral Trust and Reflection in Game-based Public Participation, as it explores a case of linking interactive gaming with local engagement, and could be of interest since it relates to some of the ideas Sean is looking into.

 

References:

[1] Lenner, K., 2016. Blasts from the past: Policy legacies and memories in the making of the Jordanian response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

[2] Gordon, E. and Baldwin-Philippi, J., 2014. Playful civic learning: Enabling lateral trust and reflection in game-based public participation. International Journal of Communication, 8, p.28.