Category: Unit 3 ARP

Changes in the Process

• I recruited less refugee collaborators than I had initially envisaged
• Two guest speakers couldn’t deliver their masterclasses due to illness, but their collaborators were able to go ahead on their own
• I used only 1 questionnaire (instead of 2), and refined the questions iteratively (thanks to feedback received at the group tutorials)
• I didn’t run a focus group, as I had already collected enough data (as agreed with my tutor)

Experimentation

• Variety of speakers and engagement methods
• Enhanced my flexibility, self-efficacy, resilience

Project’s Strengths

• Rich programme with informative sessions
• Ethical approach to the research, with space for listening
• Bridging diverse cultures and opening up opportunities for collaboration

Challenges

• Some refugee collaborators withdrew from the project due to personal issues
• Inequality between students (participating in this mandatory Unit) and refugees (volunteer collaborators)
• Putting collaborators on the spot using the refugee label
• Student disclosing sensible information about a refugee collaborator
• Dealing with heavy emotions, especially considering the on-going Gaza conflict in the background
• Room bookings in the new LCF campus
• Managing guests arriving at LCF at different times during the lectures
• Heavy workload for me

Time Management

• I conducted participant observations throughout the project
• Unfortunately, I started blogging quite late

Inspiration

• Transformative experience for students (as change-makers) and collaborators (as artists)
• Meaningful and powerful project outputs

Ideas for the Future

• Collaboration with Dr Malé Escalante on the Collaborative Unit for MA students at LCC, and potentially beyond
• Feeding into new international DESIS Cluster and elective unit at LCF
• Collaboration with LCF colleagues to contribute to embedding social purpose in the curriculum
• Feature in symposium (at LCF) and exhibition (at the Barbican) as part of the ‘Decolonising Fashion and Textiles’ research project
• Sharing teaching resources on a potential digital platform
• Future journal article publication

Feedback on the Project

Findings from the analysis of the data collected through the evaluation questionnaire highlighted the success of the project. In fact, 65% of the respondents rated the quality of the project as ‘very good’ and 35% as ‘good’. 55% of the questionnaire respondents agreed that the project met their expectations, and 45% strongly agreed with this statement. More than half (53%) of the people who filled in the questionnaire strongly felt that the project made them feel they have the agency to create positive social change. The project also aided the participants in gaining new knowledge, as evidenced by the fact that 78% of the questionnaire respondents strongly agreed with this statement, and 25% agreed with it. 75% of the people who filled in the questionnaire said that the project made them feel strongly connected to their own and other people’s cultural identity and heritage. Almost everyone (88%) felt strongly that their participation in the project made them become more aware of ethical issues related to designing for social change.

Safe Space

The project participants said that the support received from me and Seher as supervisors, our attitude and tone contributed to creating a safe space when bridging students and refugee collaborators. This was also ensured by the professional, considerate and mature attitude of all those involved in the project. Crucial to creating a safe space was the support that we (as supervisors) offered in handling the ethics forms, and aiding the students in considering the ethical implications of their projects involving refugees. The workshops delivered by Adam Ramejkis on intercultural communication were also deemed very effective in supporting this safe and ethical learning process. The project allowed space and time for conversations amongst team members to get to know each other, share insights on life journeys, and open up to their own vulnerabilities, as part of a transformative experience. As one student said:

“The project did encourage me to open up about my vulnerabilities, and allowed the refugees to speak about their journeys in a safe environment as well”.

The students were constantly reminded to honestly acknowledge their feelings, practise empathy, respect each other, and understand other people’s needs. Although the brief focused on the heavy subject of displacement, one team aptly decided to focus their project on happy memories (related to food) rather than bringing up traumatic memories. In this context, making (arts and crafts) became crucial to creating an amicable space to talk about personal identities, having a common goal towards cultural sustainability.

One refugee collaborator highlighted that the project created a safe space “during the meetings had, but also having a common goal. The honesty of the project members in expressing their feelings made me feel very close”.

Ethical Connections Across Cultures

The analysis of the data collected highlighted that the project successfully connected diverse groups which wouldn’t have otherwise meet, and focused on finding cultural communalities (e.g. based on stories of food) that create a bridge between different worlds.

As stated by one student, the project contributed to “shifting mental spaces towards empathy rather than being scared of learning about other cultures”.

Another student said that the project “removed a lot of stigma I had towards refugees. I even forgot people I was interacting with were refugees”.

As a result, the participants practised empathy for other people’s struggles and respect for diverse cultural heritages. The project created a safe space for respectful and mindful conversations, based on active listening. The lectures, seminars, tutorials, teamwork and student-led workshops effectively contributed to “awakening to the sensitivities and perspectives of other people”, offering tools and approaches to challenge own prejudice and bias.

As said by one student, the project offered “tools and new ways to think without prejudice. Listening became so important, so I definitely feel like this is my approach to work and life”.

Shifting Perceptions and Narratives

The project was deemed as a transformative experience as it exposed students to the realities and hardships of refugees, and contributed to their understanding of the long and challenging process they have to go through in order to get the refugee status and rebuild their lives. The project participants were exposed to a wide range of cultural backgrounds, and understood that people flee their countries for very different reasons (e.g. war, violence, poverty, and so on). As a result, the students showed much more respect for refugees, in light of the challenges they face. One student stated:

“A lot of things have changed since this Collaborative Challenge has started. The main lesson I learned was that we should always be thankful for whatever we have in our life, and we should work towards a better future”.

Understanding the hostile environment for refugees in the UK contributed to inspiring an activist mindset in students, who became more committed to advocate for positive policy change. Through their participation in the project, the students understood the need to challenge the stigma associated to the refugee label (e.g. often used to describe people seeking jobs or lacking something). Instead, the project brought to light that refugees had successful lives in their countries, and yet face many barriers to integrate in society.

One student said to have “learned that refugees are delicate yet more resilient than the average human, and that their strength is something to learn from, and embody as individuals”.

The project also highlighted the complex and multi-layered identities of everyone, especially refugees, whose identity shifts as they rebuild their life in the new place of resettlement. Through this project, the students played an active role in celebrating the talents and aspirations of refugees, as well as their diverse approaches to fashion, their identities and heritages, which can bring a positive contribution to a society, making it more diverse.

Privilege, Prejudice, and Power Dynamics

Throughout this project, the students challenged their own ego, considered the power dynamics at play in collaborative processes, and shifted their roles (from students to facilitators of co-creation). In this regard, one student said:

“As a student at LCF and in life one must put aside the sense of self and ego, and open-mindedly behave like a sponge and be welcoming to new perspectives that may not be something one is familiar with”.

Findings from the data collected through this project also highlighted that nobody is equal, and there are imbalances even between home and international students. Nevertheless, the students approached the project with an open mind, engaged in critical reflection, practised empathy towards others and respect for diverse and new perspectives. In particular, the sessions on ethical storytelling and campaigning contributed to making the students aware of their own bias, constantly reminded them of their privilege, and highlighted the importance of acknowledging our own positionality when listening and speaking to others. Findings from the data collected through the questionnaire highlighted that active listening was crucial for this collaborative project in order not to impose own beliefs and design ideas, and to not elicit triggering memories. As stated by one student, this entailed:

“Listening with mind, not just with ears”.

As a result of this collaborative project, all the participants learned about other people’s views and journeys, and designed artefacts and campaigns that represent diverse perspectives. In this regard, one refugee collaborators said:

“I found the existing differences of opinion very natural and the way the team dealt with them very mature”.

Decolonising Design

Based on feedback received, the project contributed to decolonising dominant design practices. Such an approach was based on a listening-first perspective, as well as unlearning inherent knowledges and relearning new viewpoints. The students looked up non-Eurocentric artists to inspire their designs, got consent from their refugee collaborators, and drew from UNHCR, the Good Trade Model of Opportunity Employment, and the 6 pillars of social innovation as models of empowerment of their refugee collaborators. They worked towards decentring language, going beyond English, and allowing their refugee collaborators to speak in their mother tongues and customise the artefacts using a plurality of languages and techniques. With the view of developing projects which are not merely led by students representing a Western institution but embracing a plurality of knowledges and approaches, this decentred process entailed “working in solidarity ‘with’ refugees rather than assuming an ‘helper’ attitude”, as stated by one student. The students critically reflected on the meaning behind the artefacts they designed, in order to produce authentic outputs, and were mindful of how best to represent and credit the refugee collaborators.

Transformative Learning

The data analysis revealed that one of the outcomes of the project was the development of a wide range of skills (such as critical reflection, ethical thinking, listening and communicating, teamwork, systems thinking, project planning, time management, problem solving, creativity, design and making, workshop facilitation, negotiation, film making, advocacy), and the learning of new methods and techniques (e.g. interviewing, sewing, embroidery, etc.). The project participants also developed new personal qualities, such as empathy, patience, flexibility, professionalism, and punctuality. One refugee collaborators stated:

“I improved a lot of skills in myself, like communication, teamwork, and finding mutual goals while we stay creative”.

Limitations

The main issue raised by most of the questionnaire respondents was related to the “tight timeframe” of the Unit and its “fast pace”, which didn’t allow enough space for the project development. While the length of the Unit is a larger issue which I have limited influence over, the students argued that they could have been reminded about it more explicitly at the outset of the Unit, in order to be better supported in shaping more feasible projects given the time available. Some students also raised issues with timetabling, as some of the planned workshops clashed with other lectures they had to attend for other Units. The students also deemed challenging to find suitable times in which all team members could meet and work on their collaborative projects, given that they came from different courses and had very different schedules. While the students really liked the masterclasses and found them “very inspiring and educative”, they suggested planning all the sessions earlier on, in order to better inform their choice of the sub-brief (artefact, storytelling or legacy) and inspire their project development.

A key issue which was raised through the evaluation questionnaire was that the relationship between students and refugee collaborators was not very clear. In fact, while the students were undertaking this project as a mandatory Unit as part of their Masters, the collaborators were volunteering and perhaps some of them didn’t commit to the projects as much as the students were expecting. While this is a valid point, I would not feel comfortable pushing the refugee collaborators to attend all the sessions, especially considering the significant challenges they face in their lives, I could in the future involve more people so that each team has more than one collaborator. This (i.e. having two refugees per team) is something I had planned initially, but unfortunately the participant recruitment process was not as successful as I wanted. Although the students appreciated the connections I made with refugees and my invitations to participate in the student-led workshops, some teams didn’t get many participants, and they suggested more time was needed for recruiting more people. Another valuable suggestion made by one student was to enable collaboration with students from other disciplines (e.g. studying public policy) in order to better inform the designs and make the projects more realistic. I would like to implement this idea in the future, although I acknowledge the difficulty of collaborating with other institutions due to tight timetables and differences in curricula and learning outcomes. To some extent, I am already doing this, by collaborating with Dr Malé Escalante who is setting up a related project brief for the Collaborative Unit to be undertaken by MA Service Design students at LCC in the Spring term. Finally, the students raised issues related to collaboration; they suggested more support from the supervisors was needed to ensure all team members equally engage in teamwork, and that communication amongst team members goes smoothly.

Recommendations for the Future

The analysis of the questionnaire responses revealed some valuable recommendations for the next steps of the project. An interesting suggestion was to invite people with lived experience to provide students with feedback on their projects, but also to encourage community members to lead on the implementation of the concepts designed by the teams. In fact, one student said:

“This project is very cool, but it is in a way a safe bubble. Most of us share similar views, so it could be interesting to invite people from outside the bubble for sharing some real life feedback”.

As recommended by one student, it would be valuable also to show the project outputs to policy makers in order to influence policy change. This is something that Citizens UK is willing to do, and they are already in contact with the students – e.g. to support their existing free bus campaign for asylum seekers, or advocate for better safety for LGBTIQ asylum seekers in contingency hotels. The students are also aware of the need to refine their artefacts (making them more aligned to people’s cultures and less generic, and develop physical and digital outputs for greater dissemination), improve the outlined enterprise model, collect more stories of refugees and produce further campaign videos, and develop social media campaigns and exhibitions for promoting the projects. In this regard, I am already planning an exhibition to be delivered at the Barbican in July, to showcase the students’ projects alongside the outputs of my larger research project.

The Collaborative Challenge unit ended with a presentation of each of the 6 students’ teams about the process and outputs of their projects. The team responded to questions and received feedback from the supervisors, guest speakers and a group of MA Service Design students from LCC who will work on a similar brief in the upcoming Spring term.

Team A presented their ‘Craft Your Story’ project which responded to the ‘legacy’ brief, with a focus on entrepreneurship. The project aimed at celebrating craftsmanship and cultural heritage, decolonising education by creating more inclusive spaces, and empowering refugees through access to employment opportunities. The team created a textile book which serves as an engagement tool to foster connections and cultural exchange amongst people from diverse background.

Team B presented their ‘Shifting Identities’ project, responding to the ‘artefact’ brief of this Collaborative Challenge. The aim of their project was to express the shifting identities of refugees, showcase the beauty of cultural diversity, and inspire dialogue, understanding and appreciation of human experiences. The team delivered a co-creation workshop to customise a pair of jeans through photography, cyanotyping, painting, and embroidery on fabric patches representing the participants’ diverse layers of identity and cultures. The focus of the project on multi-layered identities and their ever-evolving nature was fascinating, and it evidenced the influence of the refugee collaborator in developing this outcome. The choice of jeans as a durable item that everyone has was interesting, but this appeared as a controversial object for a project on decolonising design and the team didn’t provide enough evidence of critical reflection on the inversion of power in this collaborative project.

Team C presented ‘The Flavour Exchange Project’ responding to the ‘storytelling’ brief of this Collaborative Challenge. The project brought together textiles and food into a storytelling campaign aimed at shifting narratives, honouring diverse cultures of refugees, and fostering social integration. As an output of a co-creation workshop involving students and refugees, the team produced a large tablecloth and a recipe book which showcase stories and traditional recipes from around the world. This was a very rich outcome; however, the team could have more critically engaged with the concept of decolonising food, and made a clearer link between food and fashion in the project.

Team D presented ‘The Creative Legacy Collective’, which responded to the ‘legacy’ brief of the Collaborative Challenge, with a focus on advocacy for policy change. The team focused on the specific needs of LGBTQI refugees and asylum seekers, who feel extremely isolated, are particularly exposed to abuse and violence, especially in the contingency hotels where they live. As an output of their project, the team created a short documentary film as part of a legacy campaign, which is intended to further develop into a network of creatives wanting to share their professional skills and work. The team has fully embraced the activist ethos of this project and produced a very beautiful and powerful output. However, they didn’t come up with policy recommendations and therefore have not fully responded to the sub-brief posed by this Collaborative Challenge.

Team E presented their project response to the ‘artefact’ brief of this Collaborative Challenge. The aim of their project was to honour and celebrate the identity and cultural heritage of the students and refugee collaborator. As an output of their project, they created a textile artefact as a patchwork that represents a sense of displacement and belonging. The project focused on the feeling of home, but this had the potential to be triggering for some people who have fled their countries or don’t feel comfortable at home. Nevertheless, the refugee collaborator gave very good feedback to the students who – according to her – collaborated in a very ethical and mature way.

Team F presented their project in response to the ‘storytelling’ brief of this Collaborative Challenge. The aim of this project was to challenge stereotypes about refugees, foster a compassionate understanding of their resilience, individuality, and highlight the importance of community support. The team created a conceptual textile artefact with a poem handwritten by the refugee collaborator, aimed at dissecting the personal and political implications the hijab holds in resisting colonial legacies. They also created a powerful short film to showcase the tumultuous past of a refugee and serving as a call to shaping a more compassionate future.

I am a member of the UAL DESIS Lab, as part of the international DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) network. Together with Cecilia Casas Romero, Alberto Franco Gomis, and José Manuel Chavez Muñoz (from Zaragoza), I am contributing to launching a new DESIS thematic cluster on Practice and Education in Design for Social Change. I believe this opportunity, parallel to my ARP, is a valuable opportunity to share my experience in delivering student project briefs involving vulnerable people, and gather various perspectives from other educators around the word, and receive advice to inform future developments of this important area of work.

Given the current world’s environmental, social and economic crises, it is increasingly recognised that designers can play an important role in working with vulnerable people and persons at risk of exclusion, contribute to improving their living conditions and foster social justice (Costanza-Chock, 2020). This is aligned with DESIS’s goals and this proposal for a new cluster is intended to give it an explicit space within the network. Being part of DESIS as an international network of Universities that undertake research, knowledge exchange and teaching in design for social innovation, we invited Lab members to share experiences and insights on education as a way to shape a fair transition to a better (i.e. more socially, environmentally, economically, and culturally sustainable) future. The aim of this thematic cluster is to share experiences with the purpose of framing social design practice as a set of approaches or mindsets which we can develop when designing and teaching social design, and which can complement the regular performance of the design discipline in its different facets (product design, graphic design, fashion, service design, etc). Similar to my ARP, this proposal for a DESIS cluster could focus on exploring what it means to work with students in challenging contexts that include vulnerable people (e.g. Prof. Lorraine Gamman’s work with Product Design students from UAL and inmates) and to reflect on the implications of this work for social design teaching and practice. We therefore invited DESIS Lab members to share experiences in this area and identify commonalities, differences, and potential strategic pathways for future work (e.g. workshops, talks, publications, collaborative projects, etc.). This proposal also aims to fulfil the so called ‘third mission’ (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020) of Universities and engage in knowledge exchange with communities and other organisations contributing to positive social impact. This proposal for a new cluster also builds on the success of the ESDA Social Design Days from the past two years, creating a platform for discussing, collaborating, experimenting, developing, delivering, and amplifying this area of work. I look forward to participating in the III ESDA DESIS Days in March 2024 which will be the “kick off” of this new DESIS Cluster.

We gathered interested DESIS Lab members in an online meeting on 14th November to explore interest in participation and generate ideas. This was the first step to inform the plans for the III ESDA DESIS Days, in which we will then exchange experiences in teaching and practising social design, with the involvement of students, staff and wider communities. 

Below you can look up the introductory presentation we delivered, as well as the slides by other DESIS Lab members (DESIS Lab @ Nova SBE in Portugal, KNUST DESIS Lab in Ghana, and DESIS CENTRO in Mexico) who shared their projects involving vulnerable people, the challenges and opportunities experienced and their ideal next steps for the cluster. The meeting included also verbal presentations by the DESIS Lab at Design School Kolding in Denmark, Northumbria University DESIS Lab in the UK, Designmatters ArtCentre in the USA, and the Art + Design elearning lab in Cyprus.

30 people expressed interest in the DESIS cluster and 21 people attended the online meeting, which brought to the fore several issues relevant to this forum on practice and education in design for social change, particularly relevant also to my ARP engaging students and vulnerable people:

• How we define “vulnerable people” in different cultural and educational contexts?
• How do we go about if the students are “vulnerable” themselves too?
• How do we encourage students to participate in this kind of experiences (e.g. what incentives can we offer?)
• What does it mean for students to participate in these initiatives?
• How can we avoid the risk of “pedagogic tourism” and “parachuting” students into vulnerable communities?
• How can we tackle this emotionally, how can we build trust and boost empathy?
• Which are the ethical, political, educational considerations to bear in mind when we bring students together with vulnerable people?
• How can we manage the power dynamics at play when involving multiple stakeholders in such projects?
• How to deliver authenticity when there is inherent imbalance in power in these collaborative projects?
• How to manage project partners’ expectations from such student projects?
• How can we sustain these student projects, beyond the timeline of a Unit?
• How can we support students / graduates to create spin off from such projects?
• How can we evaluate the social impacts of such projects, especially beyond the timeline of a Unit?

A video recording of the full meeting is also accessible on the DESIS Network YouTube Channel: A Call for all DESIS labs, hosted by ESDA DESIS Lab

To complement the general schedule of the Collaborative Challenge with its consultancies with the project supervisors (myself and Dr Seher Mirza), I curated a programme of masterclasses to inspire the students with talks and seminars delivered by diverse guest speakers and project partners sharing their expertise in co-creation, sustainable fashion, storytelling, social entrepreneurship, and campaigning, as well as experience of working with refugees and vulnerable communities. I designed the sessions with the aim of aiding the students’ development of mindsets and skills in systems and future thinking, critical reflection, collaboration, resourcefulness, activism, creativity and collaboration.

I delivered the first session together with my colleague Prof. Helen Storey from Centre for Sustainable Fashion, UAL on 18/10/2023 at LCF East. The session was titled “Decolonising Fashion, for Emergency and Emergent Times” and was aimed at aiding the students in reflecting on their positionality, and exploring the potential to play the role of change-makers, challenging the status quo and collaborating with London-based refugees and asylum seekers in order to explore cultural, social, economic and environmental issues. Given that at the time of this session, the new LCF building hosted the ‘Designed for Life’ exhibition, which showcases my work as well as that of Helen Storey using fashion as a force for positive social change, we decided to deliver this session as an interactive guided tour of the exhibition spaces. In fact, instead of showing slides about our work, we wanted to offer the students an immersive experience and engagement with our physical work, while discussing the role of fashion to shape better lives, explore the reality of refugees, how to create reciprocal processes of learning and making, and what we can learn from refugees in terms of cultural sustainability and community resilience. It was quite an experience delivering a talk about people’s displacement while we were also transitioning to the new LCF building, and we moved around the exhibition spaces.

After the tour, we went to a classroom, where I delivered the unit briefing (see slides below) and Helen and I facilitated an interactive activity, helping the students to form teams, and reflect on the type of change (economic, social, cultural, environmental) change they wanted to create in the world and fashion system, and unpack the values, roles and skills they could contribute to the project, as well as discuss potential challenges and opportunities they could experience in this Unit.

As Helen Storey said: “We cannot ‘save’ other people, and we should never imagine we can; instead, we can fine-tune into reality as it presents itself and let it determine what needs expression, making, changing, inventing, or letting be, together”.

The second session – titled “Art / Design / Fashion as Social Practices for Social for Cultural Sustainability” – was delivered by Prof. Lucy Orta and Dr Seher Mirza from Centre for Sustainable Fashion, UAL on 01/11/2023 at LCF East.

Lucy shared her 30-years of experience as a socially engaged artist, and unpacked some of her past and current projects to exemplify participatory practice in relation to issues of identity, refuge, migration, women’s empowerment, social connections, etc. In discussing her practice focused on tackling social issues and weaving social relationships, she highlighted the value of processes as metaphors, the role of art to create social change, the importance of ethics and the challenges of evaluating social impacts of projects.

Seher’s talk focused on power and perception in design with communities, building on her own doctoral research (Mirza, 2020). She discussed the process of decolonising design, which entails critical reflection, unlearning, relearning, rethinking, and addressing colonial legacies of oppression and exploitation. She also unpacked different forms of power, as set out in Miller and VeneKlasen’s (2006) social sciences framework – power ‘over’ (outsiders controlling decision making processes), power ‘with’ people (design as collective strength), power ‘within’ (using design to build one’s sense of self-worth) and power ‘to’ (design capability to shape own life and make a difference). Seher ended the talk discussing factors influencing power dynamics in collaborative processes, such as community’s perception of the designer, positionality, body language, practice, and modes of collaborating.

The session ended with an interactive discussion about ethics in design processes, community-centred design, and storytelling. Each of the six teams also pitched their initial design concepts, and received feedback and advice from myself, Lucy and Seher to support their project developments. One highlight of the session was when one of the refugee collaborators openly shared her experience in this project:

“As a refugee, I felt like a stone. You need to find a way to share your pain, and this project is giving me an opportunity to get closer to my feelings, and turn my pain into something beautiful”.

The third session – titled “Shifting Identities and Perceptions through Ethical Storytelling” was delivered at The Lab E20 on 08/11/2023. The session was delivered by Tim Stephens, although it was initially conceived also by Kate Keara Pelen who unfortunately couldn’t join on the day due to illness. Tim facilitated a very interactive session inviting us to be present, welcoming every feelings. He challenged the concepts of power and knowledge, how they are created and shared with others, and talked about cultural difference, cultural appreciation and appropriation, intraculturality and multiculturality. In talking about ethics, he highlighted the responsibilities we – as designers and researchers – have towards others and ourselves. Tim facilitated several hands-on activities, such as knotting thoughts, feelings and sensations, writing poems about being human, turning micro-aggressions into micro-affirmations, talking and showing objects meaningful to us, and even played the drum to perform the Rumi poem “The Guest House”, which was such a memorable experience!

Tim also shared a wealth of references and resources, such as the “PALO! Al Monte” song to reference that when we are tired of being human, we need the elemental (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hITdznu9aw), the film “My Stolen Revolution” on Iranian women activists after prison (https://www.netflix.com/title/70285606), the book “Songlines” by Chatwin (1988) on the historic conflict between the settled and the nomadic, and “The Figure of the Migrant” by Nail (2015) on the universality of the migrant and the contemporary importance of movement and migration.

In response to the Rumi poem shared by Tim, Janhvi Chopra, one student participating in this project, wrote “Being Human is a Glass House” which you can read in the image below.

The fourth masterclass – titled “Entrepreneurship with a Social Purpose” – was delivered by Sol Escobar and Sidorela Lleshi from Give Your Best at The Lab E20 on 15/11/2023. Sol shared her experience at Give Your Best, a social enterprise she founded to tackle the issue of clothing poverty faced by refugees, and with the aim of giving people choice, dignity, and a sense of agency. She shared the challenges of a non-for-profit organisation, the importance of partnerships, the role of storytelling, the power of fashion for good and catwalk shows to shift the prevailing negative narratives about refugees. In discussing the impact made on other people, Sol also reflected on the impact refugees have on herself as a person and entrepreneur. Sidorela shared her lived experience as a refugee, the issue of clothes poverty, the lack of choice, and agency, as well as the human need for kindness and love, which she found in the Give Your Best community where she volunteers. In the words of Sidorela:

“I feared being homeless after receiving the refugee status. It was a long process, but you will make it!”

The talk was followed up by an engaging Q&A with the students and refugee collaborators, and we talked about logistical aspects of the business (e.g. clothes deliveries, costs, safeguarding measures, quality control, partnerships and sponsorships, revenue generation, monitoring and communicating impacts) as well as other challenges faced by refugees (e.g. application for the refugee status, financial struggles, mobility, homelessness, nutrition, etc.).

One of the refugee collaborators openly shared his own experience of migration from Nigeria to Ukraine to the UK via Poland and Germany, and highlighted that the journey doesn’t end when you get to the UK. Another refugee collaborator attending the session was in tears listening to Sidorela, and she told me:

“It was fantastic and just what I needed. Also, hearing the speaker was very impactful and inspiring!”

The fifth and last masterclass – titled “Building Community Power and Campaigning for Policy Change” – was delivered by Froi Legaspi from Citizens UK at LCF East on 22/11/2023. Froi shared his experience as Senior Organiser at Citizens UK, discussed some examples of successful campaigns, unpacked the cycle of action, and highlighted the importance of listening and sharing stories to evidence issues and drive policy change. After framing the concept of power as ‘the ability to act’, Froi facilitated an interactive activity to highlight the need to receive support from others in order to collective change the system. When Froi asked to define the most pressing issues we would like to change in the UK system, the students and refugee collaborators focused on mental health support, right to work policy for refugees, and University fees. Froi also facilitated a ‘house meeting’, in which groups of students and refugees shared stories about the immigration system.

Some of the refugee collaborators highlighted that officers tend to abuse their power over refugees, and that campaigning can put people (especially refugees) at risk, especially in malfunctioning systems. The ‘house meeting’ brought to light a great variety of experiences from students and refugees from around the word, highlighting the timescale of the asylum seeking process, the lack of dignity, the sense of guilt that Ukrainian refugees feel for receiving the status quicker than people from other nationalities, the trauma faced by people fleeing their countries due to sexual violence, poverty and exploitation. As one of the students said:

“In the end, we are all in the same situation. I am really glad I am in this project. It gives me knowledge about living in this country”.

Since the brief involved cross-cultural collaboration with vulnerable people, I invited Adam Ramejkis (Intercultural Communication Trainer at UAL) to deliver two workshops (at The Lab E20, on 8th and 15th November 2023) on unconscious bias, positionality and ethical responsibility. Adam facilitated a session to talk about values (using Iniva‘s emotional learning cards), and a discussion on the ‘value of difference’, aimed at questioning dominant Western patriarchal values, and highlighting the importance to negotiate values within a group.

As captured in this Padlet, the workshops supported the students in challenging unconscious bias and stereotypes which are generally involved in intercultural communication, and highlighted the importance of being aware of the risk of cultural appropriation when designing with people from cultural minorities. The group discussions contributed to highlight how values can be individual but also shaped by surrounding groups (e.g. family, communities) and even national institutions. Finally, in creating slogan t-shirts, the project teams reflected on their individual and shared values, and conceptualised statement pieces as wearable manifestos, an artefact that tells a story (see Figure below).

See also:

‘Shifting the Centre: Anticolonial Ways of Seeing’ exhibition at Iniva.

The Values Project by the University of Western Australia.

My Action Research Project (ARP) is part of a larger project I am conducting with the overall aim to develop a framework for decolonising fashion design practice and advance a cultural sustainability agenda. Within this broader context, my ARP intends to answer the following research question:

In what ways can design lecturers create safe spaces that enable ethical cross-cultural connections between students and vulnerable people (such as refugees)?

Since my Action Research Project involves collecting data from human participants, I had to be mindful of the ethical implications of my research in order to protect the participants and their interests throughout the process (Flick, 2006). I had to ensure that a safe space was created, and safeguarding measures were in place at all times. I made the students aware that, if engaging with the traumatic stories of displacement of their refugee collaborators triggered unpleasant emotions, they could access counselling services and support available to them via UAL.

I followed the UAL Code of Practice for Educational Ethics, based on the guiding principles of care, respect for persons, social justice, and beneficence. I also referenced the UAL Ethics for Making website which provided me with an effective framework for embedding the values of consent, collaboration, freedom, representation and responsibility within my practice as a design educator. In drafting the Ethics forms for my project involving vulnerable people such as refugees, I also felt the need to adopt a framework of ethics of care (Gilligan, 1982), which challenges traditional moral theories as male-centric and problematic to the extent that they omit or downplay certain virtues and values (e.g. care and compassion) usually associated with women. Moreover, drawing on Lenette (2022), I was aware of the need for my ethical research to be culturally safe, by letting participants determine whether the research process values and privileges their uniques perspectives, as an essential effort towards decolonising the academy.

In the process of drafting the ethics forms, I considered the principle of consent, giving participants the option to opt in or out of the process, without feeling obliged to engage in my research project. I considered the settings of the data collection activities, and in the end I decided to collect data in the classroom to ensure the safety of the participants and also not to burden students and refugee collaborators having to travel elsewhere to engage in my Action Research Project.

At the first group tutorial, my tutor asked me how I was planning to recruit the refugee collaborators, and in the Ethical Enquiry Form I clarified that they are already participating in my on-going larger research project, and I would offer them the opportunity to also join my ARP as volunteers. I considered the option to record the sessions with the view of making them available on a digital platform afterwards, but I decided to only record the talks and not the seminars, in order not to compromise the genuine and open interactions between students and refugee collaborators in these workshops. Drawing on my previous experience with the UAL Data Protection Team, I decided to reframe the Consent Form as ‘Participation Agreement’. This is because of a problem identified in the ethics process for which data can be collected with a person’s consent but often undermining legal ‘consent’ as a basis. On the other hand, I didn’t want to ask participants (especially refugees whose first language is not English) to sign legal contracts, as this would be not sensible or viable.

Below, you can find the Ethical Enquiry Form signed by my tutor, the Participant Information Sheet, and the Participation Agreement which I used for my ARP.

Throughout my action research project, I followed a cycle of planning, action and reflection (as per Bradbury, 2015) to influence an aspect of teaching and learning which was the focus of my project. In this process, I used the following methods to collect qualitative data:

• Participant observations (throughout 5 lectures, 3 student-led workshops, and the student presentations);
• Evaluation questionnaire (to collect feedback from students and refugee collaborators at the end of the project).

In this project, I adopted an ethnographic approach, and conducted participant observations to holistically investigate several aspects of the intervention for an extended period of time. As per Mattelmäki (2006), this was an exploratory, rather than evaluative, method which took place in natural settings (i.e. the classrooms), and was open to refinements throughout the process as new learning shaped future observations. I considered whether I should hire a research assistant or collaborator to help me with the data collection, and to allow participants to be more open and honest in sharing their feedback. However, this was not possible given the limited resources available (I didn’t have budget to pay someone else, and I didn’t want to ask people to volunteer and do the work for free) but also with the view of avoiding having external people join the masterclasses as observers, as it could feel intrusive for the participants (especially for vulnerable people such as the refugee collaborators).

I had initially considered asking participants to fill in two questionnaires, one at the beginning and one at the end of the project, but finally – as discussed also in the group tutorials – I decided to use only one questionnaire at the end of the project. This choice was due to the time limitations of the project, and the complexity of handling large amounts of data, but also to avoid overwhelming participants with filling in too many forms at the start of the research (when their first impression of the project is built), considering they already had to fill in the Ethics Forms. In the design of the questionnaire, I included a mix of multiple choice questions (to be quick and easy to answer, to break the ice) and semi-structured questions to allow participants to openly share their insights on their change in skills and knowledge, their main take-away from their project, their feedback on what worked well and what could be improved. I was very keen for the questionnaire to be no longer than 2 pages, to make it easier and not overwhelming for people to complete, especially considering that refugees are often asked to fill in many forms. Moreover, I decided for the questionnaires to be anonymous to allow participants to more honestly share their feedback.

I started drafting the questionnaires during the PgCert workshops and iterated them thanks to feedback from my peers. I created one questionnaire for students and one for refugees, with slightly different wording, to gather insights on how the project contributed (or not) to fostering a safe space for interactions and changing their perspectives of their collaborators. After getting feedback from my tutor and peers at the group tutorial, I printed the final version of the questionnaires (see files below), and used them at the final session of the Collaborative Challenge on 6th December. I handed in the questionnaires in the middle of the session, to give people more time to fill them in without rushing, and to avoid the risk that they would leave the room without returning the questionnaires to me. In the end, I collected data from 26 students and 6 refugee collaborators, which I think was substantial, considering the scope of the ARP.

Drawing on Morgan (1988), I had initially considered also conducting a focus group with 3 students and 3 refugee collaborators to gain more in-depth data and compensate the limitations of a written questionnaire. I had also considered whether the focus group should be conducted online or in person; while in person would likely be more engaging, I decided that the online delivery would contribute to overcoming financial barriers for refugees to travel to the venue of the focus group; moreover, delivering the session online, I could automatically transcribe it, saving me time for the data analysis process. I had planned this session to be delivered the week after the students’ project presentations, allowing myself one week of time for reflection and planning before the next cycle of data collection. I am aware that a focus group would have opened up more interesting issues, but I had already collected enough data through the above-mentioned methods, and this extra step was not deemed needed considering also the time limitations of this ARP, and to avoid over-asking of participants, who had already shared with me lots of insights throughout the ARP and my on-going larger research project.

I then thematically analysed the data (as per Kara, 2015), following a manual, iterative process that encompassed data reduction, display and conclusion drawing. Drawing from Miles and Huberman (1994), the process of data reduction entailed selecting, synthesising, and transforming data. I produced data displays in the form of tables to represent coded data (with category names attributed to meaningful segments of the transcriptions) and facilitate the recognition and comparison of themes, identified as patterns cutting across the data. Finally, I drew conclusions from the data by identifying themes and sub-themes, and outlining relationships between them.