Design Research Get Lost: An asset-based approach to support young people to self-organise

学者、设计师和社区之间的参与是研究和社会设计项目的共同特征。参与式研究和设计有很多理由，例如，它可以减少学者和公民之间的权力失衡，并有助于产生与现实世界相关的项目。然而，有人担心，参与研究，特别是年轻人的参与，并不像声称的那样真实或实质性，而是存在一种人为的参与或遵守。造成这种情况的原因有很多，但我们主要关注两个原因：1.学者们面临着压力，要求他们制定明确的计划，说明他们打算做什么来获得资金和伦理许可，还有一种压力是，这项研究的成功实施创造了高影响力和强有力的学术成果。因此，当研究开始并参与时，他们被要求做的事情往往是预先定义的，他们有希望履行自己的角色，以确保事情按计划进行(Fox 2007,2013；Dentith等人)。2009)2.当年轻人参与研究时，研究人员倾向于从他们的缺陷而不是他们的能力和资产来感知和参与他们。因此，一个参与性项目可能会与一群年轻人合作，教他们如何成为一名艺术家或设计师。一些人认为，这是对年轻人的一种控制，试图让他们适应这个项目，进而让他们成为他们研究人员希望的项目(福柯1997，弗罗曼和科林2010)。该研究项目的目的是与年轻人合作，并从他们已经拥有的技能、知识和资产方面对待他们，并寻求创造出帮助他们自我组织起来做他们想做的事情的工作方式。我们将与两组年轻人合作，他们在DIY数字制作(曼彻斯特Coder Dojo)和自我组织(Woodcraft Folk)方面拥有令人印象深刻的技能和能力。这项研究的重点是，作为成人研究人员，我们如何学习前沿的设计实践，创造一个支持年轻人自我组织的空间。重要的是要认识到，这项研究的目的不是关于年轻人是否可以自我组织的实验--这个问题已经得到了回答，年轻人可以出色地做到这一点。取而代之的是，我们将提出一系列条件(即，你的父母必须允许你参加活动)并要求他们自组织起来做他们想做的事情，并给他们3000 GB的预算。这项研究将包括两个部分，从成人研究人员和年轻人的角度来看。1.作为研究人员，我们将对年轻人如何应对自我组织的挑战进行参与者观察，以及这是否将年轻人聚集在一起并避免人为参与的有效方式。然后，在研究结束后，我们将写出自我人种学的描述，讲述我们作为成年研究人员是如何参与到向年轻人释放研究环境中的权力的挑战中的。2.作为挑战的一部分，我们将要求年轻人记录和记录他们做了什么以及他们是如何做到的。我们不想强加任何特定的方式对它们进行研究。我们希望他们将使用一系列的印刷和数字媒体来分享他们做了什么以及为什么，我们将适当地策划，以庆祝他们的成就。根据这项研究，我们将撰写一篇学术论文和一份两页的调查结果报告，与从业者分享。

Participation is a common feature of research and social design projects, between academics and designers and communities. There are many reasons for participatory research and design in that it, for example, reduces power imbalances between academics and citizens and helps produce projects that are relevant to the real world. There are however concerns that participation in research, especially young people are involved, is not as real or as substantive as is claimed and instead there is a form of contrived participation or compliance. There are many reasons why this is the case but we focus on two: 1. Academics are under pressure to develop clear plans of what they intend to do to get funding and ethical clearance, and there is pressure that the research is successfully implemented creating high-impact and robust academic findings. Thus when the research begins and the participants participate what they are asked to do tends to be predefined and there is a hope that they will fulfil their roles to make sure things run to plan (Fox 2007, 2013; Dentith et al. 2009).2. When young people participate in research, there is a tendency for researchers to perceive and engage with them in terms of their deficits rather than their abilities and assets. So a participatory project might work with a group of young people to teach them how to be an artist or a designer. Some argue that this is a form of control of young people, trying to make them fit into the project and by extension what they researcher wants the project to be (Foucault 1997, Vromen and Collin 2010). The aim of the research project is to work with and treat young people in terms of the skills, knowledge and assets they already posses and seek to create ways of working that help them self-organise to do things they would like to do. We will work with two groups of young people with impressive skills and abilities in DIY digital making (Manchester Coder Dojo) and self-organisation (Woodcraft Folk). The research focuses on how we as adult researchers learn from cutting-edge design practice to create a space that supports the young people to self-organise. It is important to recognise that the intention of the research is not a 'let the pieces fall where they may' experiment of whether young people can self-organise - this question has been answered and young people can do this admirably. Instead, we will pose a 'challenge' involving a series of conditions (i.e., your parents must let you do the activity) and ask them to self-organise to do something they want to do and give them a budget of £3,000. The research will have two components, from the adult researcher and young person perspective. 1. As researchers we will carry out participant observations of how the young people respond to the challenge of self-organising and whether this is an effective way of bringing young people together and avoiding contrived participation. Then, after the research, we will write autoethnographic accounts of how we as adult researchers engaged with the challenges of letting go of the power in research situations to young people. 2. As part of the challenge we will ask the young people to record and document what they did and how they did it. We do not want to impose any particular way of researching on them. We hope they will use a range of print and digital media to share what they did and why, which we will curate appropriately to celebrate their achievements. From the research we will produce an academic paper and a two-page findings report to share with practitioners.