This is an interview with Susana Beltrán-Grimm conducted by Lydia Hooper.

Would you like to share a little bit about who you are and what brings you to the field of design justice?

I usually like to tell people about my positionality in theory and praxis when talking about my research and practice. It helps people get to know me and understand why I do the work I do.

One of the biggest reasons for me to talk about positionality is because my work is very specific to the community that I identify with, which is Latinx Spanish-speaking families. I like to mention those two things: First: I was born in Mexico and moved to CA when I was fourteen years old. My first language is Spanish, and I am also a first-generation college student. I was raised by my immigrant and working-class sister. I have experienced firsthand the challenges of navigating the education system, and second: I am also keenly aware that my higher education background has afforded me some privileges that make me an outsider to the Latinx Spanish-speaking families I research.

Thinking about my positionality is always important for two purposes: I mention this because as a researcher who identifies as a Mexican woman I acknowledge that inner subjectivities are part of the research process. This doesn’t necessarily mean biases, but noting these subjectivities is a way for me to be radically honest and center my positionality as an ethical stance rather than a research method in what I do, and in this way, I honor the Latine mothers’ ways of knowing. It is important for me to think about it this way: if nobody's going to do this work, who else is going to do it but me, and who else is going to understand this community but me.

Thank you for explaining that. So tell me a little bit about what design justice means to you and what draws you to this network.

I found out about the network back in 2019. I started to know more about design thinking, human-centered design, and co-design processes from IDEO. So when I started hearing about it, I started to think more deeply about the Latinx community I serve – Well, this is good work, and how do you do this with communities of color? How do you integrate those principles with communities that don't look like the normal demographics that a big company like IDEO serves or communities that speak other languages besides English?

I wanted to understand more about those principles and those practices. And I found out about Constanza-Chock’s book, Design Justice, and we connected over Twitter. And they said - You should join this network. I ended up joining the network. I found out about the principles, and I thought that it aligned with what I wanted to do with Latinx families, families that don't speak English, families that don't have an education beyond the third grade or maybe didn't get to go to school, but knowing that they have a lot of assets and knowledge that they can bring to design, but don’t have the resources or understand how they can be part of a design process.

A photo of a kit of educational supplies designed for use by Latinx families.

To me, it was critical to find the network before I even started my dissertation process research process. To understand the design justice principles because, to me, there was no guideline as to how to do this work with Latinx Spanish-speaking families. You can google and find a lot of things from IDEO or from other agencies that are doing design thinking or design methodologies, but nobody really mentioned decolonizing methodologies until I found this network.

And then I started to understand more about service design and thought more deeply about co-design methods for the Latinx families I was going to research - How do you move from using your participants as users to more like how do we help them understand this process and equip them with skills they can continue to use after I am gone as a researcher? When I was planning my dissertation research project, one of the struggles and questions I always had was- how do we move co-desing participants from passive to active learners, especially in Latinx families. As researchers, we always say Hey, we want to use you as participants, or We want to have you be part of our projects. And then they don't know what happens next. We just kind of get information, we do our research, and then we leave and participants don’t know what to do. And that was a big challenge and question for me to have How do I really equip Latinx mothers so that they can feel empowered and have resources to continue to utilize them with their children after I am gone?

Codesign methods made me think about this opportunity. I can use codesign methods as service design to make it a process between the mothers and the researcher. To make the process playful, holistic, and systemic to create value and meaningful interaction with them. And this question and opportunity for ideas also integrate decolonizing methods. For my project, the Latinx mothers were centered as experts of their ways of knowing. The mothers had all these important behavior changes and social cognitive changes throughout the co-design sessions. Mothers moved from telling me You tell us, Susie, you're the expert to stating Oh, I can do this. I have the knowledge. I can make a math activity, but I can also make an activity, and I am an expert. Through the use of co-design approaches in a facilitated and supportive space, Latinx mothers moved away from feelings of inadequacy to a sense of self-efficacy and confidence.

A photo of an educational worksheet designed for use by Latinx families.

What I really like in codesign approaches is that you can take a step back and say I'm just a facilitator. You have the knowledge, you can codesign with each other, you can co-create with each other. To me, that was powerful because I hadn't seen other methods for qualitative research. For me that was important Okay, I'm gonna be there, and yes, I’m the researcher, but I'm more of a facilitator, and I'm just gonna facilitate this process for all of you, but you all have the knowledge, have assets, have the skills and I'm just going to walk you through that process. And then you're going to be equipped to do this and continue to do it at home with your kids, with your little ones.

That’s awesome. I’m curious to hear from you if there's anything that you’ve found particularly challenging with applying the principles?

I liked the principles a lot. I think there's a challenge when the goal is to include everybody. We’re inviting people to the spaces to design, co-create, and be co-researchers with us in the co-design process. But I think that the principles are sort of for people that know how to do that already.

I shared the principles with my participants because I wanted the moms to understand what we were doing, and I shared the principles—the ones in Spanish. I'm so happy that the Design Justice Network really tries to translate those into different languages. I introduced them in Spanish to the mothers, asking them what they thought about them. And for them being new to this process, they didn't know what to say, but it made sense for them that they wanted to include everybody's voices, be ethical, and be thoughtful. But after the first co-design workshop, I thought to myself I don't think it made sense, should I bring them again in the second workshop? That was a goal: to mention them at the first, second, and third workshops that we did together.

There's got to be a way to make them even more accessible to different communities. I feel like the goal is to treat every community member as an expert, to make sure that their voices are counted for everything because it can be a powerful experience for them to feel they can be creative and create something. It was a transformational and powerful process for them. They keep sending me texts like, I wonder if I can do what we did in the workshop, I wonder if I can mention this to the parents, Can you send me what you did so I can show it to the principal? But how do you create those principles to make it even more accessible for them? So they feel comfortable sharing with other mothers, other parents?

I shared everything with them after they texted me asking me to share all the resources from the co-design workshops. I wondered how they mention the principles to their own communities because now they've sort of taken on this role of a community organizer. They really had this transformational experience with me in this co-design research process. Now they want everybody else in the community to experience that and bring this idea of co-design with them. But now I'm wondering how they are explaining the principles to other families, practitioners, educators, or even if they feel empowered to be able to explain those principles to them. The goal for me to do this research was to create tools and instruments that other people can use in qualitative research, so it’s more open, so when they reached out to me and asked me to share everything, I was like, Sure, go ahead and share with everybody that wants to go through this process. But I think the challenge is how do you make it more accessible for people who have a transformational moment and feel empowered enough to continue this process? How do we create a foundational process for people like the mothers in my research to continue to advocate for design justice in their own ways of knowing? There's going to be other people who have experiences similar to the mothers, but now these mothers are taking this as empowerment and saying I had this experience, you have to have it too. So how do we make it more accessible for them to continue?

A photo of an educational activity designed for use by Latinx families.

That’s very insightful. Along those lines, do you have a sense of the direction that you want to take the work and/or that you would like to see the field itself go in over the long term?

I think there's this idea of continuing to see the field in a way that is not just for experts. I was telling someone about it and they said, Oh but that's just like people who do design and I said No, I'm actually doing it with community members, I do it with families, and they create these beautiful prototypes, and they create amazing ideas. I think everybody's part of it.

And I think that could also come from this Eurocentric idea that only smart people, only people that are white, and only creative people can be designers. That was the other thing that I found out in my study. All the participants didn’t think creativity was for them. Families think creativity is for smart people, for people that went to school. And then you engage them in this co-design process, and they created beautiful things that are so creative, and they didn't think they had that in them.

I follow designers on Twitter, I follow people that are doing co-design, design thinking, and human-centered design, and it still feels very gated. It feels like design is still very much about gatekeeping, who can decide, and who is allowed to design. But co-design methods can be powerful for different communities to see themselves as I can problem solve this. You can see pockets here and there, but I feel like it hasn't been brought up to the masses yet.

Is there anything you didn't share about that you want to make sure that you take the time to share with the network?

I feel like it's been a really good space for me to have that I don't find anywhere. I have connected with people. It feels like a space for me as a woman of color, where I belong. I think that Design Justice Network allows for that.

But at the same time, I do wish there were more resources and tools for people doing the actual work, like the Latinx mothers in my co-design research. I can go and speak at conferences, I can go and talk about this, but the person who's going to create these changes at the ground level will be the grassroots people. How do we make the resources and tools for them that will continue to amplify their work?

I attended this conference, and Dr. June Ahn, who also researches co-design, made me think about my co-design research process with questions such as What is the structural inequity that my co-design research will try to fix? And What underlying social inequity is my co-design research amplifying? And I want to leave readers with those questions too. There is no easy answer. But it is critical to have those questions with us as we design our co-design processes and methods.

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You can learn more about Susie visit https://collabbydesign.com and/or follow her on Twitter @SBeltranGrimm

This interview was conducted and written by Lydia Hooper, who can be reached through www.lydiahooper.com.

Interested in sharing your Design Justice story? Are you inspired by another member’s practice of the Design Justice Principles? Sharing member stories is a powerful part of honoring our community’s history and building a more just and joyous future together.

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