 In this video, you'll learn how you can design for a collectible being and for the good life. By looking beyond our western ways of knowing, doing and being. Here's the guest for this episode. Let the show begin. Hola, I'm Diana. This is the Service Design Show and this is episode 180. Hi, my name is Marc Fontaine and welcome back to a brand new episode of the Service Design Show. On this show, we explore what's beneath the surface of service design, what are all those hidden and invisible things that make the difference between success and failure, all to help you design great services that have a positive impact on people, business and obviously our planet. Our guest in this episode is Diana Albarón González. Diana is a lecturer at the University of Auckland and she did a fantastic PhD thesis titled Towards a Buen Viver centric design, the colonizing artisanal design with Mayan aweavers from the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. The reason I'm excited to have Diana on the show with us today is because we're going to broaden the perspective on the common discourse around design because what you hear and read about design these days, including here on the show, is mostly driven by a Western and academic perspective. That's a perspective that's been highly influenced by industrialization and consumerism. And we all know what trouble that has got us into. Fortunately, there are other ways of approaching design, ways that are maybe less well documented and maybe considered to be less scientific but equally valuable. These ways offer a much needed alternative and enrich our common perspective on design. Diana has extensively studied these other ways of approaching design and she has discovered that they can lead to solutions that are much more aligned with the local culture and environment. And that's not all. These alternative ways of approaching design also allow qualities like our collective well-being and their good life to flourish. So if you stick around to the end of this episode, you'll know how you can overcome the current limitations of our design process. Why it's crucial that we first acknowledge the power and privilege we hold as designers. And finally, how you can use these alternative ways of knowing, doing and being to become a more well-rounded professional. I hope you're just as excited as I am for this upcoming conversation. So now it's time to sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation with Diana Albron González. Welcome to the show, Diana. Hi, thank you for the invitation. Yeah, obviously I wanted to talk to you because this is going to be a very interesting topic that we're going to discuss and it's always nice to have a guest from all the way from New Zealand, the opposite side of the world from where I am. Diana, before we jump into the topic of today, we would love to know a little bit more about you, your context, what do you do these days? So could you share a bit about that with us? Yeah, my name is Diana, Diana Albron González. I know in English speaking countries they call me Diana, but I always prefer Diana because I'm from Mexico, so it's fine speaker. And then, yeah, I've been in New Zealand, in Alterra, New Zealand for the past eight years. And I'm an lecturer in the Wai Kapa Tamataro, which is the University of Oakland in the time program. Oh, wow. And which, is there, of course, there is, like, lecturer on which subject, which topics do you teach? Yeah, I'm, I teach in the design undergrad and postgrad, and yeah, mostly I'm in charge of the year three the last year, so I teach design methodologies, design research methodologies for undergrad and postgrad, and yeah, PhD supervision as well. And you mentioned that you have been in New Zealand for the last eight years. How did you end up in New Zealand? Oh, that's a long story. Well, actually, New Zealand is my fifth country, living overseas, so I've been here and there. So I've been, I studied my master in Spain, and then I had a scholarship to spend a few months in, nine months in Japan, then I live in Singapore, and then I end up here. So yeah, between studies, family plans, and then, yeah, we end up here. And then here, I started teaching in the university, well, in another university for a while, and then I started a PhD there. So yeah, that's just go with the flow. Here is, well, where you'll end up next. Is there something on your bucket list? I would never say never, but I don't know. Canada, it's always been kind of like on my radar, because it's kind of my family in Mexico because they still there. So, but who knows, we'll check in in a few years. Diana, I'm going to try to pronounce it in the more Spanish way than the English way. I know that you've been listening to a few episodes. So, you know what's coming. We have a lightning round with five questions that you haven't prepared for just to get to know you even better as a person next to the professional. Are you ready? Yep. All right. Let's start with the geographical question. If you could work from anywhere in the world now that you've seen so many places. Which place would you like to be? Oh, I don't know if any particular country, but definitely beer being near the water and near nature is something that I really love. So anywhere near the sea will be good. All right, we'll mark that one down. Next question is if you could recommend a book for us all to read. Which book would you recommend? Oh, hard to pick only one. This is quite a few, but design related or in general? Can be in general. Oh, well, speaking about co-design and because personally being in the same network beyond sticky notes by K. My culture, but I think that's how I was your name. Yeah, beyond sticky notes. It's about co-design. So I think that's the thing that I think comes to my mind recently. Well, add that one to the reading list down below. Our third question is a classic one. What's always in your fridge? Ah, hot sauce. Mexico, so I need hot sauce. All right, all right. And what did you want to become when you were a kid? I wanted to be a zoologist. I wanted to study animals or serve them. Yeah, cool. And fifth and final question is, do you recall the moment that you learned about service design? Yeah, I was thinking about it when my listening to the other podcast and I think it was at the end of my master and it was around 2007. I did my master in Spain and I was exploring at that time experience design. So yeah, I was reading Nathan Shedroff and the notion of having thinking about experience and design relationship with time before, during, after all of that. And that led me to, to, yeah, service design later on. So quite a long time ago, if that's around the period. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this. Always interesting to hear the things that you do not read on a CV on a link or a LinkedIn profile. So let's dive into today's topic. I would say by the term that you've introduced to me, we haven't addressed it yet, but we've sort of scratched on the services of this in some other episodes. You, I'm going to summarize it and help me to correct if it's not right. Designing with when VVR, designing for collective well-being, right? And plural ways of knowing, doing and thinking. Yeah. Plural ways of, yeah, knowing, doing and being. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot to unpack here. First of all, maybe the term, and I'm going to go back to when VVR, what's that all about? And how did that get on your radar? Yeah. When VVR, when means good, VVR is like living, a good living. It's a term in that you can find in Latin America. Originally, it came, it's more linked to sumacosai, sumacosai, sumacosai, sumacosai, sumacosai. Which are Andean, Quechua, and Aymara ways of, it's a good life, a quality of life, simple life. And it's being used in the constitutions in Ecuador and Bolivia, so it's known, it's kind of a philosophy from indigenous communities. However, like when VVR is a term in Spanish, but it's being used, let's say it's kind of an umbrella term that unites because different indigenous communities in different parts of the world, at least in Abia Yala, that's the name of the American continent. Different communities have different ways of different philosophies of when VVR, like for example, I work alongside Mayan weavers, Tzil and Celtal weavers from Chiapas and the state that I'm from in South of Mexico. And for example, for them, their Buen Bibi could be, it's Lequil Cuslechal. Lequil is good, Cuslechal is life. So yeah, different indigenous communities have these ways of Buen Bibi. So that's how I end up. This isn't a topic that's on everybody's radar. How did you develop an interest in exploring this and connecting this to design? It's being used, like Buen Bibi in a way, it's an alternative to development, but development from a Western perspective. So yeah, like in Latin America, it's a concept that has been growing in popularity or knowledge. It's being more widespread. And so when I was doing my PhD, I was starting my PhD focusing on artisanal design. That's a field in Latin America, in different Latin American countries as a space where designers and artisans collaborate. So I was exploring that alongside yeah, this collective of weavers. And while working together, we started after, I think it was after the first field research that, because he said that sometimes it was sustainability and all the practices. And then, but in a way, they come from a kind of a Western global North view of development and sustainability and all of that. So yeah, in our conversations and in our work together, we were, I was wondering how, what is the one Bibi from them? What is the good quality of life that is attached to the work that they do? So yeah, like just by talking and working together, then I realized that part of the, that's when I knew about the Kipus Lechal, which was similar to the one Bibi and other alternative of one Bibi for them. So that's how we started exploring that. And that led to the, even the title of the thesis, like towards a Boen Bibi-centric design. So we started to explore how designing or Boen Bibi would look like as a harmonious coexistence of diverse beings with nature, culture and Mother Earth and all of that. So having a different logic of design. This concept, you're, in my perspective, you're putting this next to or opposite to what you define as Western design philosophies or global North design philosophies. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? Like what are the differences and yeah. World views or we exist within the way we operate or the way that we see even design and at least design education has been attached more even regardless where you are, it's attached a lot with Western knowledge or European or from the US. So even though I study in Mexico industrial design as my degree, I still learn about the Bauhaus and all of these design approaches that reflect a very particular way of doing design. So yeah, in the last maybe decade or a few years there's this questioning of if that's the only type of design that exists because sometimes even for me, it was a cognitive dissonance because when you learn about like polar theory and all of these other ways of what good design is when you see a reality is like someone from the global South or Latin America, like Mexico, but I also saw that like living in other places like Singapore and so the things that you learn as what good design is, it kind of clashes with what we see every day in our context in the different parts. So in a way that kind of, I'm not the only one questioning this of course and there's other people and other scholars like saying design do exist in our context with indigenous communities, for example, as an ancestral knowledge, but it's just not called that way. So for me, it was kind of trying to open this space or just direct the gaze that actually other designs do exist or the ways of designing do exist. It's just not acknowledged as such. And acknowledged by who in this case? Academia, even in design programs, design education, like we barely just do the exercise, I invite everyone to do the exercise, just Google good design or good designer or famous designer and you wanna see a lot of diversity in that, in that, in those results it shows kind of a view from a modern colonial world view so in a way, I think I wanna believe, I wanna think that I'm part of this movement of designers or scholars who are bringing the attention that actually there are other ways of designing that are more aligned to different contexts, different places, for example, because I live in Alteroa, New Zealand, I can see that here that Maori design, it's a thing, like it's acknowledged and it's recognized and it's aligned to tell Maori, Maori worldview. So that's something that I've learned a lot by being here too. And I think it was a big point of difference of doing the PhD here in Alteroa rather than doing it somewhere else. So this limited and maybe narrow perspective on design or how it's documented, how it's communicated right now. What's the consequence of that? As in, what are we missing or what's not happening through the fact that we're just having a very, well, yeah, maybe narrow lens? Well, first enough, let's see, from a social justice perspective or environmental justice as well or like from a justice lens, design as it is now, or hegemonic design, let's call it, it leaves a lot of people out. So sometimes it designs for just for the 10%, 5% of the population. So at the end, there's a lot of people that are actually left out in design or the environment. The environment is used as a resource to be exploited. And we know the consequences of those behaviors. So at the end, I think it's important that we integrate all of these other worldviews that are a little bit more aligned to, yeah, more responsible, more, not only human, but for example, I talk also a lot about values and in Latin America, there's a concept called sentipensar, senti is feel, pensari is think, from well, recognized by, for Colombian scholar, sociologist Orlando Pals-Borda, that for us, we need to feel, think at the same time to make sense, that it contrasts from, you know, like this thinking approach or like, I think therefore I am, from other worldviews, like from our context, it starts different and also corazonar, that's also aligned to indigenous worldviews from Nabiayala, from the Americas, and also aligned with the thought and my knowledge. So corazonar, to heart and the thought or to core reason, some scholars, they said to think with the heart and think with the head and feel with the heart. So at the end, there's other approaches doing design that are not disconnected to the, you know, like with scientific approaches of objectivity that you disconnect from people and you disconnect from the object or subject of study, while other ways of working alongside people that are more, yeah, aligned with our humanity. And more integrated, maybe, with our situational, more, even more context-aware. Yeah, place-based, they are situated in a context, they acknowledge our own biases, like it's a concept that I use, that I created in the thesis that is called a 3PA, Power, Politics, Privilege and Access. So our position as designers in different contexts, depending how we are perceived or where we are located, it varies our power, it varies our privilege, the access that we can have to think, to think. So I could experience that, that came out of my own experience as a migrant woman of color in New Zealand, doing a PhD on a scholarship, you know, like that grant me access, different access and less power related to, but when I was going to my country to do fieldwork in a way doing a PhD in an English-speaking country in a so-called first world, and I thought of obviously that word. So it really opens and gave me access to spaces just by doing that, even though I'm from there, you know, like, so this changing of situation of places and positionality really make that more evident to me. So that's why I think it's important as designers that we are aware of this, the power that we have, the access that we have, the privilege that we have to be more responsible of our approaches rather than abuse of power. It's more like, how can we balance that? And actually, especially when we work alongside communities, how can we work alongside communities in a way that is responsible and ethical and that we balance those things rather than just benefit from them? Do you feel, because that's a loaded question, do you feel currently design is positioned and educated as a way to benefit and maybe extract and exploit our communities? The reason I'm asking this is that's not the general notion that I'm hearing when I'm talking to the design community, right? Most people who get into this space are really passionate, want to do good for the world. So there's a lot of positive motivation going on there. So I'm curious, like, where do you see, how is this playing out? Yeah, there's, for example, where context I'm from and Chiapas, like, there's so many NGOs and people with good intentions, which is great. You know, like, I think that's a lot of the starting point. Like, for example, I started my PhD thinking about social design and wanted to approach through a social design lens. But then while doing the field work and being there, I realized, like, many say that they do social design and actually they do. However, using a decolonial lens, that would really help to shift and bring into awareness matters of, for example, intellectual property, ownership of knowledge. So while, yes, there are good intentions of collaboration, for example, with indigenous communities. But many times, depending who's the funder, the IP becomes part of the funders or part of, like, for example, indigenous artists and designers' collaboration. Sometimes those knowledges are actually registered and to be appropriated by external or NGOs or academia or other ways that, but if we think about the Nesbo and the declaration of indigenous people's rights, the designs, patterns, and all of that are part of indigenous rights of, the rights of indigenous peoples. So, you know, so there's good intentions, but there's also a lot of systems that are designed to benefit more certain groups than others. So I think it's very important that we not only come, yet straight, that we have good intentions, but we need to also be aware of these power relationships and all of the complexities of systems that benefit some people more than others. And especially when we work with marginalized communities, like historically marginalized communities, we have a big, I think our sense of responsibility should be greater than. And how does that, how does that greatest sense of responsibility manifest itself? Like, how do we need to change our approach, our attitude, our thinking? I think that's also kind of between a personal journey, because depending on our position, our positionality and our situation, again, we will have more or less power access, privilege and all that stuff. So at the end, I think that will be a good first approach that I've seen in from, well, from feminist approaches, feminist theories, the colonial theories, indigenous, it's to start by positioning yourself and break the positionality, recognizing all of these, yeah, powers that are coming to play, because so we can try to balance them, you know, like also related to bias, you know, like unconscious bias is something that is wired already, but being aware of those biases can help you to try to balance them. So exploring these things on a personal level, I think it's important as designers, especially if we really want to do good. Like exploring your biases and understanding the power that you have, like which position you take in the system, I dose examples of things that are missing in sort of the Western design philosophy that people, I don't know, maybe look more at the process oriented perspectives of the design craft and not so much on the things that we just mentioned. Is that an example of things that are missing in the Western design philosophy? If we think about the design history, design history, because I teach that part of those parts in here, if we think about designer, like for example, the origin of all design methods and tools, they're attached or they emerged from on a particular time, like 60s, 70s and it's related to designer science. So they have this notion of objectivity and you can predict and all of that stuff. So they emerged from that part until like, well, later on they were like, you know, like Sean, not Sean or Sean, talking about the reflexive practitioner, you know, like there was another wave of designers and creatives who were questioning that approach as a science, designed as science, that it was more attached to engineering, but also like talking about intuition, experience, all of those stuff. So it's not necessarily that it's like, all Western approaches don't have that. However, we need to recognize and acknowledge the origin of all this and why they maybe they are not there at the beginning, but fortunately there's many, many researchers that you have a few in your show already who are approaching things differently. And that gives me always a lot of hope. And that's, as a design educator, I try to, when I give examples of what's being done around the world, I try purposefully, I try to bring this examples from places that are not necessarily from the, actually minority world. We call it the global majority or the global South. So to make visible these initiatives that they already exist. And I collaborate with researchers from different parts of the world and also, well, especially now Australia that we're trying to bring all of this and share resources for other design scholars because sometimes it takes a lot of time when you look for examples or cases around the world, normally what you find are mainly from Europe or the US and it takes time and it requires an effort to really try to diversify the curriculum as well. But again, there's many, many emerging resources you can find online, even from the US, from Canada that are bringing these other ways of doing design. So it gives me hope. I'm really curious. I don't know if you sort of know by heart, but what are some of these examples that you see resonate with people where when you share this, people go like, ah, now I get it. Or, ah, yeah, now I see the gap that exists. Are there any sort of iconic or stereotypical examples that you revert to? Don't say typical, but just being in Alteroa, being in New Zealand, like Maori design and tell Maori and the influences, it's here. So I show and bring those things. I'm in the Netherlands, so I have no clue. What is it that you show and what is it that you see around you? Yeah, I will talk about people that I know and that are amazing designers, Maori designers or this, for example, organization called Nahu Maori Design that is a network of Maori practitioners, creatives, designers, architects and they're doing amazing work on indigenous design. So because they design based on their worldviews. So that network, then, well, from Alteroa, that will be Ngahu, then Iria, indigenous design, like with Johnson, with Tahira, and yeah, there's Nafanga showroom. There's many in Alteroa. And then there's also through them and through indigenous design, I've met, yeah, architectures and designers and creatives from, for example, from Turtle Island in Canada and in the US, architects, that they are, the way that they approach design or architecture or whatever field they are, it's based on indigenous worldviews that resonate and work alongside and they collaborate differently. Then from, yeah, from Latin America as well, there's a lot of push as well, bringing, for example, design from a, feminist design from a gender lens, the programs in Argentina and in Mexico too, like push to bring gender, a gender lens into design. Yeah, just to mention something. Yeah, so in essence, the outcome of this design process could be, I don't know, a building, a place, a service. And I'm just trying to make it tangible for myself. This could be, I don't know, a healthcare service for the elderly, but designed in a way which is more aligned with the context of situation, indigenous ways of knowing, rather than following a more, again, let's generalize a Western academia-based design process. And the outcome could be, again, in both cases you might have a healthcare service for the elderly, one is going to be more aligned with the community, the other one less, I don't know. Is there a simplified summary here? Yeah, like for example, here in the New Zealand context, again, out to Ottawa, we talk about well-being, like related to well-being, right? Health and well-being. Like the Ministry of Health acknowledges, and you can find it on the official websites, acknowledge Hauora, Hauora is like the Maori well-being. And they have different models. For example, one is called Te Fare Ta Pa Fa. Fare is house, Ta Pa is the size, Pa is four. So they make an analogy of a Fare of a house, of a well-being of a person, come from Maori worldview. So for example, you have Taha Tinana, which is the body, Taha Wairua, the spirit, Taha Pana, family and community, and Taha Hinena, our mind and emotions. So they, from based on Teau Maori, Maori worldview, it's like a person's well-being. It's like a house. You can have a standing house if one of the sites are not in balance. So, and that's part of the, you can find it on the, in the Health Ministry of Health in New Zealand. So acknowledging ways that for Maori, Sangata Fenua, the well-being of a person is not only the physical, it's all of these other dimensions that are important to acknowledge. Another example is, for example, in housing. Sometimes when you, when you build houses, you build based on a nuclear type of family, you know, like you have even gender, like parents, kids, how many, but if you think about Pacific here, like different Pacific communities from Samoa, Tongan, because there's a big Pacific communities here in Aotearoa and not for being in Pacific too, Maori too. That structure, that family structure that is only within nuclear family, is actually not the reality for many. You have intergenerational households, which is like actually that's something that I saw in Singapore as well, like the public housing now, they're trying to do this type of living that are, you know, like intergenerational houses. So there are small departments that are kind of attached. So you have the grandparents living next to, next to the family. So you know, so it is very culturally responsive of ways of being rather than having this approach of what I think it's a family looks like. Actually it's acknowledging that there's all kinds of families, sizes and intergenerational that are part of a culture of approaching living. So having this awareness of different cultures and different worldviews is actually beneficial and it's more appropriate to the context and people. What I find interesting here and still sort of hard to grasp from what I know from the Western design practice and the things that I've been exposed to most is a good designer will do user research, will try to understand the needs and desires, will try to hopefully understand the worldviews of the people, the communities they are designing for. It's like, what's lacking there? Why do you feel that that's not enough? Sometimes it could be transactional or it could feel a bit transactional that even the perception, the language that we use as user as something that you're detached but design in other parts of the world is more, or communities are more relational. So more than project based that you finish and then you're gone and then they never see you again or you touch into different communities and then you disappear and then the communities that you work with or they never hear about the results or because that happens sometimes sadly. So it's like more like a top down approach where, okay, we just consult a lot of people and then we get the information and we make the decisions and we take this, make the decisions based on what we know. Well, if you think about reciprocity, if you think about relations, these things are more long-term. It's not only transactional for like very short period but it's something that it grows through time. So of course it requires longer, it requires decision-making together, it requires all the ways of collaboration that are rather than, yeah, like extractivist of the information that I need and then I make all the decisions. It's like you involve people in, you bring people in to dream together, to create together. So the outcomes and also people when are involved, they can take ownership of these things and it's a capability building. There's all the ways of relating to people, I think as well that is in a way becomes also personal, at least in my experience. Yeah, so the power dynamic is one thing, for instance. And the designer who has the power to make the decisions and who, I don't know, tries to approach things from, even though when they use empathy and sort of intuition, try to make it sort of scientific, they still are in the position of power, of leading the design process while what you're describing is even a more humble position of the designer and that's going to make a huge difference, obviously. Yeah, we can see approaches that it's shifting the role of the designer from an expert to more like a facilitator of processes. That's a shift that we've seen in design practice. But also, I think, as you said, it's a matter of power sharing and it's a matter of knowing and recognizing people that they are the expert of their live experiences, count a lot and they are the expert of their own lives. So our roles are starting to shift. So compared to where it's starting to study, like industrial design, like many, many years ago, there's a big shift, but also, that's why it comes from a sense of responsibility. Ethics is something that it needs to be up in the front more. For example, my critique about thinking and empathy as a stage on a design process, it's rather than it has to be all along. It's not something that you perform in a certain stage. It's an approach, it's a way of being. That's why I'm talking like career ways of being, because at the end, the way that we relate to people, it's not only when we are gathering information, but it's a long way where we make decisions as well that it might not be, let's say, aligned to the funder fully, but could be the more responsible thing to do. So sometimes it's hard, because sometimes what I've experienced, sometimes it's just saying no. When I get approached to certain things and I think that it's not the right thing to do, I just have to say no, I'm not the right person for this. What do you say to service design or design professionals who are in a reality where they work and live and operate in a pretty industrialized civilization, very driven by creating stuff or creating services? Like that's how design is mostly being used to put out things that people wanna buy or improve public services, but there is a very industrialized way of using design. And when you share this story, does it resonate? Are they able to translate that in their context, in their situation? I think we all can contribute to change systems, whatever we are. Because even for me, it kind of put me on hold for a while while starting the PhD and I was using decolonization theory or decolonization and then it's like, well, academia is one of the most colonizing institutions or fields. So I felt these paradox and it's like, whatever I do, I will be, you know, like, but I used the principles of leading biobain, the Mandaro Vedeciendo from the Zapatista movement. And one of the, they have seven principles and one it says, construir, no destruir, like to build and to construct, not to destroy. So that really helped me a lot to say, there's always ways to create alternatives. So this, it takes time and effort, of course, and it's not easy, but that's why, for example, was sustainability something that when I was studying, it was kind of a post-grad or a view that it was not even, it was very marginalized still. And now everyone knows what sustainability is and want to change things and systems and products and ways of doing because of the need of doing this. You know, like we're in a world that, in a stage in the world that we need to take action. And I think there's always ways that we can do and take action. And even with small changes that we do in the place that we are, just, for example, saying, no, if we are offered projects or we're offered things that doesn't feel right, they don't feel right or we see that they are not, they will oppress people, they will marginalize more. We can always say, no, if, and that's a good start, even passing that project, I'm not the right person because this is working alongside these communities but I have, I know someone who's great and it's part of that community that maybe, or bring them in, bring them into the project. Like if you, but something that I learned here that I like is whole space. It's not for us to, if we're in a position of power a little bit and access for a project that it will be alongside communities. So hold the space but bring people in so they can act and they can do rather than us telling what to do. It's more like, okay, if I'm in this position, I will just hold space for communities to do what is more appropriate for them. So there's always little ways that we can do that. What I find really fascinating and interesting from our conversation, and this is, and this is already going to be my takeaway. Like when I, again, look at how design is practiced, educated thought, there's very much a God syndrome. Like we can create, we can shape the world. We are, and especially when you're dealing with design crafts that do work with tangible aspects, graphic design, visual design, product design, you really do have that makers instinct. You wanna shape the world. What I'm getting from your reflection is that that's great but at the same time, it's also very important to understand your limitations and know when you should, like you said, say no or call in somebody else or recognize that it's not your, position, it's not your moment, it's not your skill to shape this. And because you might be doing more harm unconsciously by getting involved in a specific challenge that's not aligned with that community. Does that make sense? Yep, new summer is great. So what have you found is the most difficult thing to, I don't know if explain is the right word, but to get across about this topic? I normally start, for example, when I talk, lecture or give talks or workshops or whatever it is, I start a little bit with a disclaimer. And I started a disclaimer in a sense that I invite people to reflect and think. And I have, like for example, if it's a workshop, just I have a section somewhere there so they can write what they're going through, their emotions, and because sometimes when we realize, especially when you talk about power and privilege, when we realize that we have more power than or we are privileged than, it can come as a sense of guilt or shame or like, oh, or even you put an emotional reaction of put people in defense and block. So kind of before starting, sometimes, well, normally, commonly I start with this disclaimer and this invitation for people to think like the topics that we're gonna talk, it might be triggering for some people. And I said, I invite you to whatever you're going through when you're feeling first stop and think about it, take notes, what are you feeling? What are the thoughts in your head? Where does it feel like sometimes like, oh, you know, like in the stomach or a heart or sweating or whatever it is, just take notes. Just don't react, don't respond because sometimes when, yeah, I have a kind of a phrase there when it's like, when some groups benefit more than others because history of marginalization. And then I would say people that, a common response is not my fault. It's not my fault that my grandparents or my ancestry did this. It's like, yes, it's not my fault, but we do benefit from systems that oppress some people and benefit us. So in a way is we are responsible. So I have this slide at the beginning. So yes, just observe when you're trigger, why you're trigger, take notes, reflect and in your own time, think about these things. Why do you think you're triggered? Why do you think this is touching you? And then once these emotions go through, what are you gonna do about it? Because yes, it is not our fault that I didn't choose to gender raise or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, country. Like we didn't choose anything when we were born, but we do benefit in certain ways or not. So what am I gonna do about it? That's a really interesting question and it's very tempting to go deeper into that, but that kind of reflection and putting away the, or not putting away, experiencing that resistance, feeling it deeply and then trying to do better and acknowledging that everybody is in this position one way or the other. Everybody has some sort of power, privilege, whatever benefit. So as long as I think as you recognize that everybody has this, it's okay. Like it's almost not personal. What is your hope for the future? I think that we are more connected to ourselves personally, but as a whole self, you know? I talk about in the research in the thesis, talk about embodiment, you know, like to really being in our bodies, being present. So that we are more aware of all of these things and that moves us to make things better from a Buen Vibir perspective, like collective well-being. Like how can we not only think on our own, Buen Vibir, or our own well-being personal, because sometimes when we think about well-being or wellness, it's very centered on a personal level, but actually we're part of a community. Humans are part of the planet of nature and I always emphasize nature culture as a unity, like aligned to indigenous worldviews because this culture comes from environment, like the nature and all that stuff. So it's like if we, yeah, that will be my hope, like that we can think and act for a collective well-being in many dimensions on wherever we are. If somebody is inspired by our conversation and wants to learn more about this, are there any good resources that you can recommend? Yeah, I think there's work from other scholars. Like, yeah, I'm starting to write more about this as well, like outside, like, but not only academic papers, but just, they can start with getting inspiration by people around them, their communities, their families. Just be more present and really listen more and be more in touch with nature as well. Like for me, that's my medicine. So in terms of I share sometimes content on my LinkedIn and there's, yeah, you have great guests already as well in the, in your show that I've been hearing for a while. And so I think it's just a matter of being curious of questioning our practices and ourselves, not only practice and not, and don't see, you know, like for me, it's also important to think that yes, our work or our practices, it's our work, it's not everything that we are, but it is personal at the same time. So it's not, it's not, I use a lot of weaving analogies. So in our whole fabric textile, a thread of our lives is our work or our design practice, but also who we are and the worldview we bring. So everything is intertwined at the same time. So we need to explore this and be aware of these things more. And I don't think that that will only benefit your work, but also your personal life, your family life. So that's maybe a general good piece of advice to explore. Deanna, if you could summarize our conversation in one center, I know it's hard, but what would you say? It was a nice dialogue. It's a dialogue at the end because we thought, sometimes we think about communication or we think that we communicate, but sometimes it's more than what we wanna say rather than we want here and really a two-way flow of talking. So I think at like summary, part of what maybe it could be this starboard by this dialogue, really dialogue with ourselves, dialogue with other people, dialogue with nature, just get the, yeah, the earth is talking all the time. That's a great line to conclude and end up on for today at least. Deanna, thank you so much for coming on, sharing this with the community, making us aware that this exists, giving us new stuff to look upon Google or chat GPT these days. I know that this is going to benefit a lot of practitioners. So thank you once again. No, thank you. Do you feel that our current Western dominated perspective on design is limiting? If so, why and how? Leave a comment down below and I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoy this conversation, make sure to click that like button. That lets me know whether or not we're on the right track by addressing topics like this. My name is Mark Fontaine and I wanna thank you for spending a small part of your day with me. It's an absolute honor and pleasure. Please keep making a positive impact. I'll catch you very soon in the next video.