5. Lab Challenge Briefs

LAB TEAM #1 CHALLENGE BRIEF

Problem Statement How might we re-imagine what it means to be a treaty person?

Challenge Overview

Truth and Reconciliation has become a big part of our national conversation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has 96 calls to action. In 2016, Canada adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Across the country, momentum is building on how we can shift the conversation on respecting and learning about Indigenous ways of knowing. Governments are slowly responding: the Province of Alberta has committed to implementing UNDRIP in every Ministry across the government. Edmonton’s mayor Don Iveson repeatedly tells audiences that “we are all treaty people.” But what does it mean to be a treaty person in practice, particularly for nonIndigenous people?

What does it mean to be an active person/relative in relation with Indigenous peoples and their territories? What does it mean to authentically show up and fulfil your obligations and responsibilities as a treaty person? At their heart, treaties are about relationships. Part of the work of being a treaty person has to begin by building relationships. This also means exposing the trauma, racism and the impacts of colonialism without getting stuck in guilt but rather, in the words of Harold Cardinal, reimagining possible futures that are sustainable and where the quality of life is uplifted for all peoples/citizens.

The Challenge: How can we begin to redefine and engage with what it means to be a treaty person/relative? Our intention is to explore strategies, concepts and practices that support conversations in meaningful ways on how we practice in our everyday lives being treaty people living in Treaty 6 territory. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 45th Call to Action asks the Government of Canada to “renew or establish Treaty relationships based on principles of mutual recognition, mutual respect, and shared responsibility for maintaining those relationships into the future.” How might everyday citizens embody these same principles?

Vision

Edmontonians engage meaningfully and help people/ relatives understand and connect with their treaty relations, obligations, and responsibilities.

Framing Questions

Below are several questions developed to help the lab team frame their inquiry into the challenge area. It is the aim of the lab to further develop and then answer these questions through the design lab process. Other questions may emerge during the process; these are a merely starting place:

• How can we use nudge and drip interventions to spark behaviour change around racism towards Indigenous peoples? • In what ways can experience transform our biases and re-inform our knowledge on what it means to be a treaty person? • How can the utilization of art, stories, songs, and ceremonies play a role in the identity of a treaty person? • Will the intervention have interpersonal, internal, institutional, or systemic impact? • Will the same intervention work for settlers that have been here for generations vs. settlers who are recently arrived?

Criteria to Consider When Prototyping

• Protocol and practice of the Treaty 6 Signatories (Nakota

Sioux, Iroquois, Dene, Cree, Saulteaux/Anishinaabe and others) • Target audience is the “Sleepy Middle” • Be aware of the unintended consequences of the prototype -- these may surprise you. Who is carrying the burden of reconciliation? What kind of trauma is being resurfaced? • Are there other projects that we can learn from or be inspired by? (e.g. Elder in the Making, First Contact) • Drip campaigns, digital experiences, stories • Primary source data, population stats

LAB TEAM #2 CHALLENGE BRIEF

Problem Statement How might we create an interactive empathy experience that strives to reduce racist behaviour over time?

Challenge Overview

Empathy built through stories and experiences can be a powerful motivator and change agent. Interventions frequently use empathy as a starting place to elicit change. Two well-known examples are the KAIROS Blanket Exercise and the United Way’s Poverty Simulation. Both of these exercises ground participants in experiences, perspectives, and histories that they may not have been familiar with. Often, the reaction to these exercises is very emotional.

However, empathy experiences -- even the most powerful -- don’t necessarily mean that people shift their behaviour. Likewise, single-point interventions, whether they use empathy or not, are also shown to be an ineffective means to solicit behaviour change. Finally, interventions that sound like, “If only people would just... [insert hoped for behaviour]” almost never work. What would it take to get people to take the next step, to transform empathy and insight into tangible change?

Interventions to solicit behaviour change exist in many different domains. There are interventions to get people to stop smoking, to eat better, to be more tidy. Some of the most effective behaviour change campaigns now seem utterly mundane because the impact has been so far-reaching: most of us wear seatbelts. Most of us don’t drink and drive. In the digital space, new theories like gamification are becoming a more popular tool to inspire behaviour change. What lessons can we learn from these campaigns that can apply to racism?

Building on the success and popularity of interventions like the Blanket Exercise or the Poverty Simulation, how might we leverage empathy-immersive experiences with insights from behaviour change science? How can an intervention result in effective follow-up and calls-to-action? What would a “drip campaign” of slow-and-steady intervention points look like?

Empathy and Behaviour Nudging: Research shows that for more lasting behaviour change, people need a variety of experiences over time.

Experiential empathy immersions augmented with consistent behaviour nudging are showing promise for shifting behaviour

Vision

A tool, toolkit or interaction with digital and in-person components that helps people to empathize and develop behaviour-based habits that reduce racist behaviours over time.

Framing Questions

Below are several questions developed to help the lab team frame their inquiry into the challenge area. It is the aim of the lab to further develop and then answer these questions through the lab process. Other questions may emerge during the process; these are merely a starting place:

• What empathy experiences trigger shifts in people? • What elements of behaviour change science can be built into interactions and follow-up campaigns? • What would convince folks (especially the “Sleepy

Middle”) to engage with the interaction? What is the behaviour change of the Sleepy Middle we want to see? • What can be drawn from gamification theory and design? • People will also need to come up with their own behaviour changes i.e “here’s what I would expect to see of myself; here’s what I would like to see in myself; here’s what I would love to see in myself.”

Criteria to Consider When Prototyping

• A specific racialized context for empathy building may be more powerful than a general one • Digital and in-person interventions can dovetail and reinforce each other • Should strive for an intervention that targets the “Sleepy

Middle” • Can’t be a one-off experience. There needs to be follow up and specific calls to action • Design with geographical considerations in mind:

Edmonton and beyond etc.

LAB TEAM #3 CHALLENGE BRIEF

Problem Statement How might we create encouraging pathways that help potential allies for racial justice overcome White fragility?

Challenge Overview

“I’m not a racist-I’m a good person!” “I was taught to respect everyone, regardless of skin colour: White, black, brown, or polka-dotted!” “I went to a multicultural school; lots of my friends are people of colour.” More likely than not, you have heard someone express sentiments similar to these; perhaps you have even said them yourself. These expressions invariably reflect the perspective of a well-meaning White person.

These sentiments are the products of what sociologist Robin DiAngelo calls “white fragility:” the defensiveness that “good” White folks display when their ideas about race and racism are challenged and, more importantly, when they feel they are being implicated in White supremacy. DiAngelo, a white woman herself, notes that these reactions -- which can manifest as anger, tears, or dismissal -- are what makes it so hard for white people to have difficult conversations about race and ultimately serve to reinforce racism.

Finding a way to move past white fragility is an important step in the efforts to reduce racism. But even mentioning the term “white fragility” can activate defensiveness and dismissiveness, which means talking about the issue requires tact and patience. Shelly Tochluk uses a metaphor of different lanes on the “racial justice freeway” to describe this work and refers to needing many “on-ramps to racial justice” for white folks. There are fast lanes, slow lanes, and merging lanes: all have value and are important in the the path towards racial justice. However, getting on the freeway first requires understanding and confronting white fragility. “First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the white Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 2010, Racism Free Edmonton sparked a backlash by using the term “white privilege” in a campaign. The outcry, which said the term itself was racist, led to the organization deleting all references to white privilege from their website and replacing it with systemic and institutional racism. Almost a decade later, is the term “white privilege” still a triggering one?

The Challenge: There are many people who consider themselves non-racist but whose participation in conversations about racism are limited by white fragility. How can we design interventions for the “Sleepy Middle” that reduce white fragility and facilitate difficult conversations about race? How do we do this in a way that doesn’t trigger white fragility and attracts people who might not already be on the “racial justice freeway”?

Vision

More people have tools, strategies, and/or principles to overcome white fragility, which in turn facilitates more difficult conversations about race and white allies on the “racial justice freeway.”

Framing Questions

Below are several questions developed to help the lab team frame their inquiry into the challenge area. It is the aim of the lab to further develop and then answer these questions through the design lab process. Other questions may emerge during the process; these are merely a starting place:

• What other effective “on-ramps” currently exist (i.e.

AWARE-LA, Calgary Anti-Racism Education (CARED),

Stop Racism and Hate Collective)? Can these models work in Edmonton? • What would convince someone to work on their white fragility? • What is the behaviour change we’d like to see? • How do we deal with the paradox that talking about white fragility often activates it?

Criteria to Consider When Prototyping

• One-time interventions are not effective to reduce behaviour change • Is the scale of the idea feasible? • Is the intervention a personal one (“this is how I overcome my own white fragility”) or a social one (“this is how I intervene when I see white fragility happening”)?

LAB TEAM #4 CHALLENGE BRIEF

Problem Statement How might we design intervention(s) that de-escalate public displays of overt racist behaviour?

Challenge Overview

A racist incident can happen anytime, anywhere. When it does, what should you do? Often, when we see something wrong happening in a public setting, we choose to do nothing, hoping that someone else will step in and make things right (commonly known as the “bystander effect.”) Waiting for others to act can allow the situation to continue unabated. In fact, the more people that are around, the less likely they will step in to help. So what should you do if you want to take action and intervene in a safe manner?

This question can be harder than it seems. Would intervening be potentially dangerous...or would it prevent further danger? What’s really at stake in this moment?

Knowing when and how to intervene in a public situation between strangers can be tricky. This also requires understanding of the situation, and what makes it a “racist” situation. Certainly, it can be uncomfortable, especially if you don’t want to appear intrusive. When emotions are running high, a situation can escalate quickly and even become dangerous (at this point, calling 911 is the right answer). Yet not every situation escalates into violence, and everyday moments of racist acts are part of the background fabric of our community: hateful obscenities are muttered at a man of colour on a crowded bus; someone calls a Muslim woman wearing a hijab a terrorist on the LRT; a store employee is suspicious of an Indigenous teenager with a backpack out shopping.

Here are some questions an intervener would need to consider: How do you assess the situation? Is the person targeted for harassment some kind of threat, physically or otherwise? Is the person or people being harrassed able to leave of their own accord? Is the aggressor calm or agitated? Can you record audio or video of the situation on your cell phone? Are other people in the space taking notice? Have the authorities been notified? The Challenge: How can we create a series of positive behaviours, actions, responses, verbal cues and other techniques to confront racist rants/behaviours in public settings?

Vision

A mental toolbox of actions and responses a person can take to defuse a potentially volatile display of racism or racist behaviour in a public setting.

Framing Questions

Below are several questions developed to help the lab team frame their inquiry into the challenge area. It is the aim of the lab to further develop and then answer these questions through the design lab process. Other questions may emerge during the process; these are a starting place:

• What does racist behaviour look like? Does it take a different form than other kinds of harassment? • How do you balance the desire to intervene without denying the agency of the person being targeted? • How can we build on or upgrade existing interventions? • How might an aggressor respond to your anti-racist challenge in a public setting? • What is the point of the intervention: to assist the person being targeted? To change the mind of the aggressor? • How will this intervention overcome the bystander effect,on behalf of the person wanting to intervene and others in the immediate vicinity?

Criteria to Consider When Prototyping

• Existing anti-racist bystander interventions such as this cartoon, Hollaback and Edmonton’s own Do Not Be A

Bystander and Make It Awkward movements • Unsatisfactory interventions considered “virtue signalling” such as the safety pin movement • Legal definitions and understandings of what is considered “harassing” or unwanted behaviour