Tiny Stories about Freedom
Project background:
The path to conceiving a new futuring methodology was born within the space and guidance of the IIT Institute of Design’s course on “Designing Futures”, taught by Dr. Laura Forlano. A 16-week foray into the field of speculative design, the latter 12 weeks of the semester brought self-organized teams together around topics of interest. Our team chose the subject of prison abolition, and our prompt was to envision an abolitionist future that could provoke meaningful discussion among our peers.
Course:
Professor:
Duration:
Role:
Design Futures
Dr. Laura Forlano
16-Weeks
Design Researcher
Design Futurist
Research Method + Team Insights:
Research Method
Our process began with in-depth secondary research, exploring both relevant theories related to prison abolition and inspiring futuring practices. Soon our digital-white boards seemed to endlessly expand with quotes, diagrams, literature, and other case studies, and our 4-person design team started to feel unique challenges emerging. We realized that prison abolition is a wickedly complex issue, with no fixed center to engage with. Jackie Wang, in her book Carceral Capitalism, writes:
Team Insights
A challenge was futuring together, as a team, while upholding an abolitionist lens. Each of us had different visions and perspectives of the future, influenced by our relationships with our past and present. Furthermore, we learned that abolitionist teaching upholds that each of these unique experiences matter. In particular, Bettina L. Love, who writes extensively about Abolitionist teaching, coined the concept “Mattering” to describe the internal desire we all have for
However, as we attempted to follow the traditional HCD techniques for ideation and development, we found that our process was not truly feeding our internal sense of “Mattering”. We were racing to come up with and converge on something “good”, rather than something collectively grounded in why each of us were passionate about abolition, to begin with. As a result, we felt a lack of depth and connection in our initial ideas and team dynamic.
"Imagining and working towards a world without prisons--which is the project of prison abolition--would not only require us to fundamentally rethink the role of the state in the society, but it would also require us to work toward the total transformation of all social relations."
Three screenshots of the team’s Mural boards showing relevant research. Topics covered are Magical realism, Freedom dreaming, Oral Storytelling, Indigenous practices of justice, Radical care, Docile Bodies, and Design Precedents.
“freedom, joy, restorative justice (restoring humanity, not just rules), and to matter to ourselves, our community, our family, and our country”.
Where did this lead us?:
We realized that if we wanted to envision an abolitionist future, we needed a design process that was informed by the values of abolitionist teaching, prioritizing care and inclusion of each one of our visions and realities. Inspired by the theory of radical care, we wanted to ensure that our personal experiences and voices would not only survive, but thrive. Our research on the practices of auto-ethnography and auto-theory gave us the pivotal clue on how to move forward. Inspired by the way designers like Dr. Laura Forlano and social theorists such as Jackie Wang were using their personal backgrounds and stories to shape their analysis and design practice around issues like disability and incarceration, we set out to make room for and amplify our own lived experiences. This became the foundation of designing the Freedom Futuring method.
Freedom Futuring Method:
Solution:
Over the course of the project, we developed a 5 step method to collective futuring, utilizing autotheory, autoethnography, and design futuring practices. This method enabled us to collectively bring theory and our embodied experiences together as a way to imagine new futures.
This still-evolving method includes:
1. Researching grounding theory
2. Autoethnographic research and writing
3. Building bridges
4. Creating collective fragments
5. Futuring through storytelling
1. Researching Grounding Theory
Our process began by collectively researching practices and approaches to abolition. This led us to explore related theories, practices, and approaches such as indigenous, African, and communal approaches to justice, radical care, and docile bodies. We also began to research storytelling methods such as freedom dreaming and magical realism. We took a collective approach to form what we researched and analyzed common themes that emerged. Then, we developed a statement that would frame our project. The statement is as follows:
We are a speculative future project that explores the manifestations of carceral cages in society and imagines new alternatives. We are centering our imaginations on values of radical care and re-humanized empathy.
2. Autoethnographic Research and Writing
Moving away from research, each of us wrote autoethnographic vignettes around our own life experiences that were in some way related to the research we conducted on abolition and alternative approaches to justice, docile bodies, radical care, etc. Here, using both an autoethnographic and an auto-theoritical approach, was pivotal in our anchoring of the futures we would create in our experiences as well as the theories we grounded this project in.
3. Building Bridges
From there, we built bridges across each of our vignettes in an effort to find the theories, concepts, experiential outcomes, and feelings that tied our stories together and were interesting enough to explore further. Each of us read our own vignette to the team. We then individually extracted ideas, phrases, and concepts from each of the vignettes that were interesting and/or tied back to the aforementioned research in some way. This step required some degree of vulnerability and trust as we collectively read and analyzed the vignettes that were personal to each of us. Building bridges was an essential part of our process as it is a point at which community can be created and collective care can be practiced through the thoughtful sharing and analysis of embodied experiences.
4. Creating Collective Fragments
Once the bridges were identified, we created short scenarios related to each vignette from which to future. We termed these scenarios collective fragments. Our approach was inspired by Stuart Candy’s The Thing from the Future game. We used the framing of the arc, terrain, object, and mood in the game to drive the build of the collective fragments. As a group, we collectively decided on the object, terrain, and mood we would bring forward foreach of the vignettes. These were drawn from the bridges we created in the previous step. We then determined which of the arcs we would use from Candy’s Thing from the Future. From there, each member of the team created a fragment for each of the creative prompts we developed together.
5. Futuring Through Storytelling
At this stage in our process, we had created four fragments related to each of the autoethnographic vignettes. We decided that each team member would write a short story where new futures would be imagined and concepts from the scenarios that we had brought in would be weaved into the stories. The ‘futures stories’ would also need to connect with the theories around abolition, indigenous practices, communal justice, radical care, or docile bodies we researched. Once each ‘futures story’ was written, we critiqued each story and pushed one another to build on what we had created. We intentionally chose oral storytelling as a medium to share and communicate the futures we collectively created. As an intimate and social form of communication, oral storytelling centers and amplifies the stories told and the voice of the storytellers. Oral traditions such as this have been used by indigenous and African societies to pass on and preserve their history, customs, values, and cultural practices. Similarly, this modality provides a means of communicating the values, customs, and cultural practices of the futures we’ve imagined. As oral traditions have been used by 5indigenous and African societies as a bridge between the past and the present, we aim to use oral storytelling as a bridge to the future.
Putting the method into practice:
As we entered stage 2 of prototyping the Freedom Futuringmethod, we each were tasked with writing our own autoethnographic vignettes. The content of these stories was a personal choice for each one of us. We weighed concerns like not wanting to tell someone else’s story or merely retelling events from our perspective. We gave one another time to reflect on why we chose to be a part of this project, to begin with, and to craft the stories that would give greater insight into our personal lives and why we were passionate about envisioning just futures. I, for example, pulled a moment from my childhood that felt unfair and guided my desire to shift the way incarcerated folks are perceived--specifically leading me to write about how it felt to receive letters from my uncle while he was in jail. I called this auto-ethnographic vignette “Mattering” and connected it to abolitionist theory, Freedom as a practice, and Bettina L. Love’s views on Mattering.
While our stories varied in length and topic, the common thread was the vulnerability and passion we presented to each other. After writing our stories, we each took turns reading them aloud and 6hearing them narrated assisted in truly viewing each writing from the author's perspective. The finalized stories were then collectively analyzed for themes, notable objects, overarching feelings, and more. Peeling back these layers within our writings called for extraordinary moments of exposure. Moments that ultimately drove us to significant insights, not only about each other but also about the overall path our project was taking. For example, when we engaged with the "Mattering" vignette, I remarked on how comforting I found the process to be. Specifically, the act of reflecting back on the elements of the story that highlighted the relationship I has with my uncle, and noting the elements of his personality that were resonating with others. This helped in solidifying my intent and desire in even revisiting these memories. We ended up referring to this analysis process as “fragmentation”, as we collectively picked out the elements and links that tied our stories back to the theory we had been researching.
This process of “fragmentation” continued through our use of analytical elements such as Stuart Candy's framework "Thing From The Future”. Inspired by his framework, we identified within our stories the notable objects, arches, terrains, and moods that our stories were reflecting. As a group, we discussed and ultimately aligned on what elements would be most interesting to use as seeds for our new futures. These selections paved the way for us to be able to start to imagine futures. We set aside some time to brainstorm various collective fragments to ideate from, but the final imagined futures were in each of our hands. Crafting these futures required us to draw from an even balance of previous research, our Autoethnographic stories, and our imaginations. An example of this can be found in the writing of “Ray’s Journal” when themes such as Magical Realism are working to draw connections back to our teammates' Autoethnographic story. Specifically, using the object of letters she first wrote about and reimagining them in a completely new world and with a new purpose.
When it came to presenting our work, we looked back on our research regarding indigenous practices like oral storytelling—an intimate exchange between storyteller and audience. We valued the connection formed when listening to someone’s story, and recording them felt best for a virtual audience. The recordings led to our framework's final form: Our website —the epicenter of our stories, background, and intent. Holding images, digital collages, and posed questions associated with each writing, our website is the last piece that connects our stages of ideation, framing, and more in one place.
Future Implications for Design:
Community building through design
The combination of Autoethnography, autotheory, and futuring has the power to bring social change by bringing one’s personal histories and stories to reimagine collective and pluriversal 8futures. Design enables us to explore future possibilities and futuring is a step towards that possibility. As opposed to feeling disengaged with the problems of the world, this practice finds a way to engage deeply with people, using their own personal experiences as a foundation. The power lies in its ethos of building a community through collective storytelling and analysis. Bringing one’s own insights and realities, sharing and listening to one another’s stories is also a catharsis for those who may be experiencing grief for trauma. Sharing and telling stories becomes even more paramount when those voices are otherwise ignored. The process of freedom futuring hence serves as a gentle reminder that everyone’s story is important and equally vital in creating a pluriversal future society.
Creating space for new narratives
There is power in our approach as it can be used to challenge colonial/ Eurocentric narratives and uses stories that are often repressed. The Euro-Centered lens raises questions on reforming inequitable situations and practices to include more pluralistic futures. With the help of Freedom Futuring practice, we can make sense of our own experiences and narratives with the aim of contributing to and designing for a more just society. This practice facilitates inclusion, a collective present, and a future as it highlights untold stories thereby widening the scope of design.
Expanding the parameters of Human-Centered Design
Human-centered design is a prominent design practice that provides a platform for organizations and communities to bring a creative approach to solving problems. However, it has failed to include or benefit many who are not in or associated with the dominant culture. While human-centered design is good at telling designers what’s presently needed, it struggles with speculating possible futures. As people, we continue to evolve alongside new technologies and the rapidly changing global landscape. Understanding the transformations has become increasingly important as we look to design more collectively for the future.
Collectively futuring to incorporate more voices
Voices that have not been traditionally acknowledged may have a channel to express their thoughts through Freedom Futuring. In order for design to progress, it must become more inclusive. Through enabling collective storytelling Freedom Futures engages those stories, amplifying the voices of the unheard while creating opportunities to contribute to new futures. We see potential in the collective analysis of autoethnographic research as a way to empathically analyze individuals’ cultural experiences and create connections that can lead to inclusive and pluriversal futures. While that is an exciting possibility, a communal approach such as this also allows designers to bring lived experiences to life in a similar manner to those with lived experience in the growing practices of co-design and community-led design. Design aims to understand human nature, placing emphasis on an individual’s authentic narrative and context. In design practice, studying the lives of everyday people, their embedded social structures, and the inter-connections that exist within systems is key. This practice is beneficial for designers as it studies social and cultural life and accounts for untold voices, further upholding the values and meaning of an individual’s experience, and validating how one makes sense of social contexts.