Many thanks to the organizers, presenters, and participants of W3 Represents, an inspiring day of research presented by women and non-binary members of the UWaterloo community. We’re especially grateful for the generous feedback we received from participants in our panel presentation, “Learning to Practice: Intersectional Feminist Design Research in the qcollaborative”. Over the coming weeks, qlab will be following up on this list of excellent suggestions:
- Commit to amplifying the voices of other intersectional feminist scholars and activists, especially those who are marginalized.
- State in public and scholarly communications that the lab’s principles and commitments are in process and are a part of our research and practice. This may mean noting that definitions of terms (even terms themselves) are in progress, that methods are evolving, that lab outputs represent particular moments in a process, and perhaps most importantly that we invite, take seriously, and aim to respond publicly to rigorous critique.
- Acknowledge that the lab’s key terms and concepts have a range of meanings in different contexts, and engage meaningfully with those differences (“relationality” was an example that came up in discussion).
- Clearly describe, in public and scholarly communications, the nature of collaborations with community stakeholders, and ensure that the “voice” of those projects is a collaborative voice.
- Explore possibilities for collaboration with existing academic programs, administrative units, and communities with shared interests on and near each of the lab’s home campuses.
- Include university staff (in addition to faculty, instructors, and students) among the members of the lab.
- In communications other than scholarly (e.g. public presentations, web, social media, teaching materials, etc.), use language that is intelligible to non-specialist audiences.
- Offer workshops on intersectional feminist design practices.
Logo is used with permission; photo credit: Cassandra Bechard.
