Abstract
Responses to urban human services issues such as housing and unemployment often overlook lived experiences through these systems and are formulated from a top-down (systems, services, or policy-level) perspective. This study integrates systems thinking and design justice principles for centering the voices of those experiencing these issues towards exploring ‘agency'—the capacity to act—from the bottom-up and top-down in responding to these issues. An agency typology encompassing various bottom-up and top-down agencies is developed through an analysis of Digital Games for Change (DG4C) for the various agencies they can initiate. The agency typology's contributions are threefold—in research (as a method and analytical tool), in practice (as design principles) and in education (for teaching collective action, impact). The agency typology can drive ‘concerted agency' or collective action, where top-down and bottom-up agencies work together, enabling multipronged targeted approaches to complex social issues and maximizing social justice efforts through collective impact.
TopIntroduction
Alex’s first experience with homelessness was when she was sixteen, when she had issues with her family and moved out. Since then, she has gone through multiple cycles of homelessness, sleeping in cars and parks, encountering emergency crisis accommodation and medical services. She has often experienced violence, physical and verbal abuse through these experiences. Now approaching her forties, she has multiple chronic health issues such as diabetes, epilepsy, and liver disease, causing her to be unable to keep up with rental payments.
Human Services is an interdisciplinary field that serves the needs of those who are oppressed in some form, through prevention and remediation of problems such as housing, unemployment, and healthcare to improve their overall quality of life (NHOS, n.d.). Human Services Systems often deal with chronic, complex, social issues related to issues of marginalization like homelessness, immigration, racism, etc. require intervention from the top-down (decision-makers) as well as the bottom-up (individuals experiencing the issue as well as the general public). Systems Thinking’s analyses of systems as elements, interconnections and purposes can provide effective ways of examining and addressing these complex issues with diverse stakeholders situated at various points and functioning in various ways within these systems (Meadows & Wright, 2008; Stroh, 2016; Schirmer & Michailakis, 2019). While those in the system with the top-down perspective of social issues have the power and the responsibility to act, they often lack the experiential understanding, or the lived experience of the system’s inefficiencies. At the same time, those who experience systemic inefficiencies often lack the authority to make change. This study seeks to narrow the gap between those with the power to make change and those who possess the lived experience of systemic inefficiencies. The term Design Justice which “rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face” emerged from the Design Justice Network (n.d.). This study builds on Systems Thinking and Design Justice principles to explore how the voices of those experiencing marginalization can drive concerted agency – i.e., both top-down agency and bottom-up agency to work together, in addressing the complexities of social injustices more effectively. In this study, agency is defined as “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.) towards making social change. Taking into consideration both – top-down agency and bottom-up agency allows for the application of a holistic lens to examine complex, systemic social issues that manifest at the individual level.
To traverse the disconnect between the top-down (policy-level, systemic) influences and the bottom-up (individual’s) lived experiences and to assert the experiences and voices of those going through the systems and services, this study draws on Design Justice principles and Systems Thinking approaches. This study advocates for the application of interpretive approaches (Becker 1967a; Geertz, 1977; Mills, 1959) as Design Justice Interventions and depicts the application of Digital G4C as one kind of Design Justice Intervention. Through DG4C, we illustrate how a medium of the interpretive approach can depict lived experiences through the game narrative and narrow the gap between those with the power to make change and those with the lived experience.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Games for Change (G4C): Games which often aim to convey “what life is like for people who are part of a specific social group” (Steinemann et al., 2016).
Collective Impact: The impact that can be created by the concerted efforts of nonprofits, governments, businesses, and the public towards a common agenda for improving “many of our most serious and complex social problems” (Kania et al., 2011). This study highlights the role that can be played by those experiencing these issues in creating collective impact.
Systems Change: Systems change is a transdiscipline (Brown, Harris, & Russell, 2010) that manifests as “a fundamental change in policies, processes, relationships, and power structures, as well as deeply held values and norms” (Gopal & Kania, 2015).
Design: A solution-focused strategy to problem-solving (Cross 1982). Given that complex social issues which this study focuses on, cannot be ‘solved’, this study considers the term ‘design’ to mean ‘responding to’ these issues.
Agency: The capacity to make tangible change that creates differences and transformations.
Design Justice Interventions: Design processes that intervene in and interrupt existing status quos towards more ‘just’ states. Examples of Design Justice Interventions could include facilitated design workshops that center the marginalized towards a more just state through these design processes. This study considers Digital Games for Change (DG4C) as one kind of Design Justice Intervention.
Design Justice: A term coined by the Design Justice Network that “rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face” (Design Justice Network, n.d.)
Collective Action: Concerted efforts or working together of nonprofits, governments, businesses, and the public towards a common agenda for making collective impact. This study highlights the role that can be played by those experiencing these issues in the concerted effort.
Design Interventions: Design processes that intervene in and interrupt existing status quos towards altered (desired) states. Examples of Urban Design Interventions include Tactical Urbanism techniques, such as repurposing underutilized vacant lots or parking spaces into green public spaces that activate the space.
Digital Games for Change (DG4C): Digital games that create awareness and potentially trigger change towards complex, societal issues such as immigrant rights, racism, mental health issues, climate change, etc.