Conducting multidisciplinary research to connect Inuit greenhouse networks
Client: MAKIVIK CORPORATION + ONE DROP FOUNDATION
Challenge: Understand how Inuit culture mediates interactive technology, in order to build a knowledge-sharing and community-building application by and for the Inuit.
The design challenge: Inuit culture, technology, and greenhouses networks.
In partnership with the One Drop Foundation, the Makivik Corporation is implementing the Pirursiivik Greenhouse and Social Art Project to develop a greenhouse and health improvement project in Inukjuak, a remote northern Inuit community located in Nunavik.
Through the use of arts-based and experiential learning community engagement methods and activities, the main goal is to cultivate locally-grown produce for the specific needs of Inukjuammiut (people of Inukjuak) and in so doing, contribute to the development of a stronger, healthier and sustainable community—positively impacting economic development, water, and food security in Inukjuak.
The Pirursiivik Digital Tool is a complementary project which aims to identify a digital solution where information, tips, and training materials on these new skills can be centralized and easily made accessible (desktop and mobile) to various community members in Inukjuak, across Inuit Nunangat (Inuit communities in Canada), and other circumpolar countries.
As greenhouses and composting become more prominent in the North, challenges emerge around building a local Northern-based network to share information that is accessible, pertinent, and context/culture-specific.
Mutual Design assisted with the design of Pirursiivik, an application to share knowledge and build community among diverse stakeholders from Inuit communities in Northern Quebec. This tool bridges Western Science and Indigenous Knowledge (language, culture, and politics) and revolves around food production and sharing practices.
We were mandated by the Makivik Corporation (the legal representative of Quebec’s Inuit) to undertake a thorough market and user research to better understand how technology is mediated by Inuit indigenous language, culture, identity, and territory.
We conducted a multidisciplinary market and user research to identify the needs, limitations, and opportunities of diverse stakeholders (users)—as well as co-design activities—which led us to design a Low-Fidelity prototype. This prototype was then finalized by the firm Design Shopp.
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“As settlers, this project required us to implement decolonial approaches to design. We made sure our research and co-design activities respected and honoured Indigenous ways of knowing and being; and that the process was Inuit-led.”
—christian scott, Mutual Design.
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“As settlers, this project required us to implement decolonial approaches to design. We made sure our research and co-design activities respected and honoured Indigenous ways of knowing and being; and that the process was Inuit-led.”
“As settlers, this project required us to implement decolonial approaches to design. We made sure our research and co-design activities respected and honoured Indigenous ways of knowing and being; and that the process was Inuit-led.”—christian scott, Mutual Design.
Indigenous Led Co-design
Co-design—also known as participatory design or co-creation—is an approach to design in which the end-users and stakeholders are actively involved throughout the different design phases of a project. Co-design utilizes techniques and activities that allow for discovery of situations/states, as well as subsequent ideation of solutions, by and for the end-users. In some cases, particularly for traditionally disenfranchised groups, participation is not enough. [1] An active leadership role is required from the users and stakeholders involved, in other words we must honour the Pirursiivik mandate of the project being Inuit-led, by and for the community—an approach that will generate more ownership and pride of the final Digital Tool and Greenhouse.
We believe it is important that the digital tool successfully understands and transmits an Indigenous way of understanding the world (knowing) and the social relationships of a community (being). As Jason Edward Lewis argues, “one of the challenges for Indigenous epistemology in the age of the virtual is to understand how the archipelago of websites, social media platforms, shared virtual environments, corporate data stores, multiplayer video games, smart devices, and intelligent machines that compose cyberspace is situated within, throughout and/or alongside the terrestrial spaces Indigenous peoples claim as their territory.” [2]
In order to achieve this, our co-design practice is based on the active leadership of community members facilitating the brain/body-storming sessions, as well as any other digital tool design activity (prototyping, user feedback forum, etc).
Attention to language, cultural cues, and the needs of the community were paramount to the success of our co-design sessions. As our mandate was concluded, our clients and us felt gratitude and pride for the process and end product.
