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.
Published in Chapter:
Agency at Play for Collective Impact in Human Services Systems: A Case Study of Digital Games for Change as Design Justice Interventions
Prithi Yadav (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), Manuela B. Taboada (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), and Nicole Vickery (Queensland University of Technology, Australia)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 23
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8479-8.ch008
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.