Designing Diverse and Inclusive Futures – A Framework for a Co-creation Process
Kuuluvainen, Salla (2022)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060917207
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2022060917207
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of the thesis was to understand barriers and supporting elements to inclusion in a foresight co-creation process and develop tools that would support the design of diverse and inclusive foresight co-creation processes. The commissioning organization was a UN entity, and the project was one of the pilot phase explorations of their new workstream on foresight. The main concepts of the theoretical framework include diversity and inclusion, designing futures scenarios, and co-creation as an approach. A norm-critical, intersectional, and decolonial lens is used in exploring the concepts. The research-oriented development process used a Design Thinking process, with a qualitative research approach to data collection and analysis. The research and development process included research interviews, a benchmarking of foresight methods, and a validation workshop.
The results show that diversity is elemental to a foresight process, and diversity can be leveraged in the process through inclusion. Inclusion emerges from the facilitator’s understanding of the context, using co-creation methods that support inclusion and designing the process with inclusion in mind from the beginning. The process facilitator needs to take into account societal power structures and norms that may affect the participants and reflect on their own bias and privilege. An inclusive process does not automatically produce future scenarios that have an inclusive mindset, so when designing the process different worldviews and understandings of time and the future should be considered. The participants should feel inspired, have a sense of ownership and take action towards the preferred future. As a development result, a Framework for a Diverse and Inclusive Foresight Co-creation Process and a Canvas for Diverse and Inclusive Foresight Process were developed. The Framework highlights the inclusion aspects of the co-creation process and the Canvas can be used to operationalize the inclusion aspects when planning a foresight process, providing the facilitator with questions for reflection. The Framework and Canvas can be used globally in a variety of organizations that are interested in leveraging inclusion in a foresight processes.
The results show that diversity is elemental to a foresight process, and diversity can be leveraged in the process through inclusion. Inclusion emerges from the facilitator’s understanding of the context, using co-creation methods that support inclusion and designing the process with inclusion in mind from the beginning. The process facilitator needs to take into account societal power structures and norms that may affect the participants and reflect on their own bias and privilege. An inclusive process does not automatically produce future scenarios that have an inclusive mindset, so when designing the process different worldviews and understandings of time and the future should be considered. The participants should feel inspired, have a sense of ownership and take action towards the preferred future. As a development result, a Framework for a Diverse and Inclusive Foresight Co-creation Process and a Canvas for Diverse and Inclusive Foresight Process were developed. The Framework highlights the inclusion aspects of the co-creation process and the Canvas can be used to operationalize the inclusion aspects when planning a foresight process, providing the facilitator with questions for reflection. The Framework and Canvas can be used globally in a variety of organizations that are interested in leveraging inclusion in a foresight processes.