11 minute read
TIMELINE
Drawing with kids ( visual interview )
The researchers determined early on that children were a sizable stakeholder in Roshanpura. In an attempt to gain a better understanding of how the children experience their community and to build trust, the researchers scheduled a drawing activity at two of schools within Roshanpura. One of the schools was a public school set up by the government providing education from the first standard to the fifth standard, in which approximately a hundred children are enrolled . The second school was a private school with an enrolment of 150 children from the kindergarden to the fifth standard and above. The majority of the children in both schools came from Roshanpura, but the private school did have some students from outside the area.
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The time and day of the activity was arranged ahead of time with the teachers of the school. The researchers provided the students with paper, pencils, and crayons. In one school, they asked them, through the use of translators, to draw their family and home, and in another school they asked the children to draw their favorite places in Roshanpura (i.e. where they play, where their family celebrates), each school saw the participation of an average of 30 and 20 kids respectively. While the children drew and colored, the researchers asked them questions or participated with them, answering the children’s questions about the subject of the researchers’ drawings. When the children finished drawing, the researchers collected the pictures for further analysis and thanked the children with sweets. While the children ended up drawing whatever they wanted rather than what the researchers asked them to (i.e Indian flags, cricket fields, and copying pictures from their textbooks), the activity did build a rapport between the researchers and the community. The researchers also learned more about the schools’ role in the community, the students and teachers, and their influence in the area.
Activities involving kids are always a gamble when it comes to obtaining usable results, and, as the researchers discovered, it is difficult to get children to follow instructions. If the researchers attempted to work with children a second time, they would organize the children into smaller groups and plan multiple structured activities with more understandable instructions and hands-on elements. ( add box in all methods pro / con / success see sticky note)
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+ Bonded with the kids + More known in the community
- Kids did not follow instructions - Translation issues
Ethnography
In an attempt to delve deeper into the community and bridge the cultural divide, the researchers employed ethnographic methods by participating in the daily activities of some of the women in the community. Ethnography describes the empirical work of using observation as a tool to produce a narrative that is more nuanced and distances itself from the single story model. Traditionally, ethnography has a broad, discipline-dependent definition and can be as involved as the researcher moving to the community under study and integrating themselves into the social fabric to less involved, more discreet forms of data collection. In all instances though, the researcher seeks to better understand a community by participating in the daily lives of the community under study (O’Reilly 2011, 2). The researchers in Roshanpura applied ethnographic methods by participating in strategically chosen daily activities to gain a better perspective of the community and to gain their trust.
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+ Creates a link that transcends the language barrier + The opportunity to conduct Group interviews + Builds Trust
Knitting activity :
During an earlier interview, one of the researcher bonded with a lady in the site over their mutual knowledge of knitting, as it served as a conversation starter which facilitated their interaction. On discovering the women in the street often sit outside their houses in the evening knitting together, the researcher asked to join them one evening. The researchers’ goal for the activity was to attract other women through the activity and promote discussion among them on the topics of interest to the researchers. The researcher prepared questions ahead of time to guide the discussion, but the purpose of the activity was to allow the women’s conversations with each other to drive the discussion.
The shared knowledge and application of what the women considered markers of a good wife and mother, instantly engendered respect from the women towards the researchers participating in their evening knitting circle. This helped open up the discussion to topics of interest to the researchers. It also served to put the researchers on the same level as the women, breaking preconceived images and making the women more comfortable with the researchers. The activity generated a lively, friendly conversation whereby the researchers and women exchanged information about their families and communities and the problems they see in each. Despite the activity’s success in building trust and gathering information, it was limited in scope due to the attendance of only three women. These women came from different age groups, providing a range of perspectives and knowledge of Roshanpura. In the future, the researchers would invite other women to the event a few days prior and provide the materials for the event to be a learning and
4.1.12 Knitting Activity
4.1.14 Cooking class 4.1.13 Roshanpura Hospitality networking opportunity for the women. Additionally, the researchers would make the knitting circle a weekly event as it would have served as a good opportunity to implement different activities and other participatory methods.
Cooking activity
The researchers second use of ethnographic methods was an unplanned participation in a local cooking class offered by a local NGO. The NGO was holding a cooking workshop in Roshanpura to provide low income women within the area with the technical and business skills to open their own food processing businesses. The workshop is a part of a larger initiative by the NGO to empower women in the area through teaching them different skills that could turn into income generating activities. The representative of the NGO invited the researchers to observe the class make samosas. Eight to ten women participated in the class, and the researchers were able to observe how the class functioned and the types of women who take part in these workshops. Initial observation in the form of videos and pictures alongside occasional questions to the teacher quickly morphed into taste testing what the women had made and actively participating in rolling out the samosa dough. The women in the cooking class showed the researchers how to evenly roll out the dough into a circle for the filling to be enclosed in. Similar to the knitting circle, if the researchers had found out about the cooking classes sooner, they would have participated in them on a regular basis. Despite the limited interaction, the researchers were still able to form a bond with the community and gain a better insight into the nuanced personalities living in Roshanpura.
Co-design workshop
The final method employed by the researchers was a codesign workshop where the researchers gathered information and feedback from the residents to confirm their findings and support their possible proposals. The goal was to reinforce the dialogue between the community and the researchers and to keep the communication channels that put the residents at the center open. The researchers divided the workshop into smaller activities and stations to involve different stakeholders in the community. The workshop consisted of three stations: a prototype of a proposed community information board, a sticky note game to determine the spread of the skills of the women in the community, and a community map.
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+ Getting Community Input + Access to a larger Audience + Feed Back
- Not enough Participation of Main Community Stakeholders - Absence of Public Institutions
Information board mock up
The researchers made a mock-up of a community information board with examples flyers representing the different types of information the community could post on the board. The researchers presented the board to the community and explained their idea. They then asked the residents what they thought of the proposal and whether they would use it and find it helpful. They also asked for suggestions in regards to the board’s location in the area, possible other uses, and design ideas. (add picture of us showing the board/ explaining ) At first, the community expressed confusion and reluctance towards the researchers’ idea. However, when asked for their input, residents expressed a positive inclination towards the board. It is unclear whether they were only telling the researchers what they thought the researchers wanted to know, or even if they understood the concept of a community information board. While the researchers gathered no solid information in regards to design possibilities, location, or community perception, they did learn that the board should not be in the reach of small children, as the local children were more interested in taking the example flyers. While the board was successful in getting residents involved in the co-design workshop, if the researchers had had more time and help with translation they would have brought more detailed drawings or models of a proposed information board. The mock-up used by the researchers was too basic, making it difficult for residents to understand the researchers’ idea. Alternatively, the researchers could have organized an activity around the board, such as a ranking of what information
4.1.15 Info Board Mock Up
4.1.16 Tell us your skills Board was most important to them or what sources of information were the most accessible. Finally, the researchers could have made the activity more hands-on by having residents actively design an information board.
In order to find out more about the skill set of the women living in Roshanpura, the researchers devised a game where the women could place sticky note tabs of different colors next to the skills they possessed. The researchers created a board with nine columns. Each column represented a different skill the researchers had observed, the women had told them about, or the researchers were interested in learning more about. They included cooking, embroidery, stitching, knitting, weaving, jewelry making, mehendi, pottery, and managerial skills. There was also a place at the bottom for suggestions of skills not listed. Two different colors of sticky note tabs were used: pink indicated skills the women had, and green indicated they made money with that skill. As women passed, the researcher asked them which of the skills listed they had and which ones they had earned money with. They also asked men and children about the skills of their wives, mothers, and sisters.
The researchers found out that the women have a wide range of skills, but the majority share skills in cooking, stitching, knitting, and mehendi. Many of these women are already making money doing these skills. Most of the women made money with these skills on the informally and occasionally on the side. However, one woman had a catering business and hired women from Roshanpura. Some mothers and wives also worked alongside their husbands or sons in a family business. The activity was successful in that it was both visual and allowed participants to engage with the researchers. It was also not time consuming or invasive, so participants were not intimidated and felt comfortable. Finally, while the focus of the activity was to find out more about women, women, men, and children could all participate, allowing the researchers to gain information from multiple stakeholders in the area of women’s employment. However, this was also a negative aspect of the activity. The information received from men could be biased, as they may not want to tell the researchers that their female relatives or wives work or the women themselves may keep it from them out of fear of having their income taken by their husbands or male relatives. Additionally, the information received from the children was biased, limited, and repetitive, with their main focus being to see more sticky notes placed on the board. Finally, due to the location of the board, participants could not place the sticky notes on the board themselves, decreasing the hand-on component of the activity. Possible modifications to the activity would be placing the board in a different location that allowed participants to place the sticky notes themselves rather than the researcher. Another possible modification would be to simplify the activity and just use one color of sticky note and then engage with the women in conversation afterwards to find out if they make money with that skill, how often, and if they collaborate with any other women. Finally, the researchers would limit future iterations of this activity to only men and women to prevent the repetitive information from children.
