Across the duration of this research I worked within a core team, that shifted through three arrangements:
The notion of a collaborative core team (shortened to core team over time) was introduced by a friend and member of The Weekly Service, in the early phases of the organisation’s development. The idea of a collaborative core stems from a model of collaboration called the 3C’s model (Elliott 2007) (see Figure 10). In the 3C’s model of collaboration, a collaborative core is nested within a cooperating community and a coordinated crowd which increases in scale x10 for each grouping. The collaborative core refers to those people who collectively create processes and outcomes that reflect the input of all contributors. The 3Cs model is a way of understanding the different roles people play in any collective activity and how people move in and out of these layers over time. At the first Weekly Service members retreat in Spring 2016, we collectively identified that myself, Cam, Caro and Henry were the collaborative core team and the members were part of the cooperating community. The audiences that attended on a weekly basis were assumed to be the coordinated crowd.
Within this collaborative environment, I brought my skills of visual communication design and my interest in design approaches that were conducive to working in emergent ways within communal contexts. In the early stages of our collaboration, I helped the team to contextualise our work within the emerging discipline of Transition Design, which provided a framework for understanding the work of The Weekly Service as an attempt to discover new mindsets and ways of designing with others. On other occasions I facilitated sense-making processes and brought diagrams to discuss with the core team. In my capacity
Arrangement 1 Arrangement 2 Arrangement 3
May – Nov 2016 Dec 2016 – Dec 2017 Jan – June 2018 Cam Cam Caro
Henry Henry Kirsty
Caro Kirsty & 3 TWS members
Kirsty
Figure 10: 3Cs model of collaboration
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as a researcher, I often focused the core team’s attention on evolving our understanding of what we were doing. This approach aligns with how analysis and intervention are part of the process of constructing knowledge in DA, whereby ‘agendas for change, modes of engagement and critical reflection’ (Smith and Otto 2016, 20) are deeply entangled. As this research progressed, my stake in The Weekly Service grew. Cam, Henry and I became the three directors of The Weekly Service in early 2017 when we registered the organisation as a business. This meant that in addition to holding power as a design researcher, I also held power within the emergent member community as one of the leaders. My position as embedded design researcher and director, afforded me access to the intimate and complex workings of The Weekly Service, across all levels of finance, membership, the weekly running of the Service, as well as ongoing in depth conversations about the direction of the organisation. My position also afforded me insight into how power effects and shapes collaboration in practice. In mid- 2017, tensions emerged surrounding the organisation’s future and the core team’s control over decision-making processes. Throughout this period, I found that my position within The Weekly Service and the power I held, became part of the focus of my research. In Part 4 of this dissertation I reflect on how designing is always in some way related to one’s agency and position in the group relative to others. Or to put it another way, designing with others is only made possible from a position of situatedness (Suchman 2011). Designing in transitional contexts, also comes with added anxieties and uncertainties, which can contribute to relational dynamics that exacerbate dualities in mindset and posture. These issues are discussed further in Part 4.
At end of 2017 the arrangement of the core team shifted in large part due to personal financial pressures. Henry resigned from being a director, Cam stepped back to take a break, and Caro stepped back into the core team. Along with my help and the help of other members, we worked to support the running of the Service for the first half of 2018. At the end of 2018 the core team dissolved as Caro could no longer sustain her commitment and through conversations between Cam, myself and Caro, we felt that the timing was ripe for a shift towards a community-led model. Across the summer of 2019 a communal governance structure was established. The critical insights that are discussed in this dissertation, stem largely from the events that occurred between 2016–2017, however some insights also came from the later stages. My ongoing participation in the core team during 2018, helped to solidify my transitions in practice and the learnings presented in the final part of this dissertation.
Being situated within the Weekly Service as an embedded design researcher and director, shaped what I came to know through this research. This research is therefore generative of knowledge that is deeply situated, where I understand designing to be a way of acting and travelling with others, and also a way of expressing commitment to the evolution of the community I grew to be a part of. Throughout this dissertation, I express a deep level of commitment to The Weekly Service that extends beyond this research (I continue to be involved in the community and the running of the Service). This commitment involved working with and alongside others in respectful and
transparent ways. This was not always straightforward, nor did my understanding of ethics end, with the approval of my ethics proposal. Rather, I understood ethics as an ongoing relational activity, that
involves negotiating a complex set of relationships, within a community that was ever-evolving. Being sensitive to the relational dynamics of research, is referred to in autoethnography as ‘relational ethics’. In ‘Telling secrets, revealing lives: Relational ethics in research with intimate others’ Ellis (2007) positions relational ethics as a third kind of ethics, in addition to procedural ethics (the kind mandated by an institution) and ethics in practice or situational ethics (the unpredictable, often subtle, ethically important moments that come up in the field). Following Slattery and Rapp (2003) she describes relational ethics as ‘doing what is necessary to be ‘true to one’s character and responsible for one’s actions and their consequences on others’ (Slattery and Rapp 2003, quoted in Ellis 2007, 4). This takes maturity and a deep level of sensitivity to others concerns, while maintaining the integrity and inquiry of one’s research project. These are important considerations for anyone attempting to undertake longitudinal participatory research.