Thread by @Bristol_BathRD

Thank you so much Paul @UGuests it's been amazing to follow your thinking, insights, research and history on placemaking today.

This is @Grace_Quantock and I'm delighted to take up the baton for the final relay on the #DigitalPlacemaking fellows Twitter takeover

#GoodAfternoonDearOnes
Today, I wish us courage tempered with compassion. We can get drunk on courage when bravery tips into bravado. May our strength be consort with softness, as needed. Onwards, together.

(I start each day @Grace_Quantock w/ a blessing, so I'm offering this)

Hi, I'm @Grace_Quantock I'm a psychotherapeutic counsellor & writer, working across social care, health & human rights.

I’m an #Inclusion Fellow in #DigitalPlacemaking

My work is embedded in the collection, processing, understanding & sharing of context, story & understanding of self & place.

P.S You can follow my research journey at postcardsfromthemargins.com and read more of my work at gracequantock.com

For those who don't know me, if I was describing my personality in 3 images (found on my phone), it would be these. Equal parts sweetness, art & knife.

(I'm an analytically trained researcher, who loves vintage style, stationary and liberation. How do you do? 👋)

Today, I want to talk about inclusion in digital placemaking. Which is, of course, talking about inclusion in placemaking & digital spaces.

When we talk about this, it's important who is talking & ownership over the language used.

We are looking beyond conventional narratives to create change.

I believe we are well-placed for significant uptake of digital placemaking, not only in culture, within our cities, but in health, housing and social care.

I want to investigate what we bring with us, when we create something new.

The invisible privileges, default norms, oppressions and perpetrations of structurally inequitable systems come with us when we build new spaces.

They impact what we create.

Historically, dominant cultures have approached exploration & development from a violent place; robbing, destroying, enslaving & silencing the places & peoples they purported to be helping.

As creatives & culture makers, we can work in ways that are responsive & reflective.

How do we approach digital placemaking in a way that's #intersectional, #inclusive & #SocialJustice informed?

Firstly, through investigating what we bring to the process, visibly & invisibly.

In knowing this, we are supporting social & climate justice informed inclusive futures, because we know who is building, what they are bringing and our very ingredients and actions are being examined.

Which was the starting point for my #Inclusion research.

I first came into contact with placemaking, digital inclusion & tech through non-disabled people's attempts to fix structural inequity with technology.

Top hint: Don't do this.

https://twitter.com/SFdirewolf/status/1168099480568156160

As a disabled woman, playful cities were tough. I didn't struggle to access cities because they lacked playfulness or I needed more encouragement

I didn't access places that were inaccessible or unsafe for me.

Check out @BlondeHistorian #JustAskDontGrab caneadventures.blog/just-ask-dont-…

So I came to #DigitalPlacemaking with lived experience of non-disabled people designing around me, supposedly with my benefit in mind (but really working from the medical model of disability).

Exoskeleton or ramp - fixing the human or the environment?

Image Credit: Rossatkin

Which do you think of first?

(More about the social and medical model here: scope.org.uk/about-us/socia…)

Also #FF @BlondeHistorian @Mikscarlet @Imani_Barbarin @esmewang @Wheelsofsteer @Ginnyandt @realcaunsia @Nicole_Lee_Sch

Because which you think of matters. I've been occupying space not built with me in mind for years.

Each event was an obstacle course in overcoming physical & attitudinal barriers. All these are built in & perpetuated every time someone says it's too hard otherwise.

CW: Disablism Assault

Lockdown is the longest time in my adult working life that I haven’t experienced an attack, assault, non-consensual touch or multiple micro-aggressions.

I’m still unpicking the simultaneous relief & grief of that; because it never needed to be this way.

I wonder who I’d be without these traumas, without this struggle taking so much of my attention, thinking & energy.

Imagine what I’d be able to accomplish if I could just get non-disabled people to stop trying to touch me?

More here: iwa.wales/agenda/2020/06…

Maybe I wouldn't put a poem of roses that are really knives in my personality description.

Maybe I wouldn't smile at the men who hurt me and "pretend I'm holding a knife with my teeth" as @rokwon wrote in this amazing piece: lithub.com/finding-solace…

Also recommended reading: Please also read & reflect on theparisreview.org/blog/2019/01/0…

What does this have to do with my inclusion research? This is the often invisible context I'm living, researching & envisioning placemaking within.

We are all bringing the cast of thousands that have shaped us to the table when we begin such work.

That's what I want us to be aware of when we make knew worlds. No experience is universal.

I adore @rose_kala_dias co-creative work & @fkas_prince work on cultural capital.

In terms of inclusion, we can support people with marginalised or oppressed identities to access digital or technological capital, spaces, institutions & development spaces.

I am looking at how we bring inclusive digital place making to policy and organisations.

I developed a methodology to assess appetite for inclusive digital placemaking in individuals & organisations & how best to develop appetite to enable producers to work effectively going forwards.

How to develop appetite & to meet it in a way that it can be received.

Ok, let's take a break after that intensity, shall we?

https://twitter.com/Grace_Quantock/status/1309176446724833289

I'm also taking a dance break, you are welcome to join me:

If you've just tuned in, hi 👋 I'm @Grace_Quantock a #DigitalPlacemaking #Inclusion fellow on a twitter takeover to talk about my inclusion research in assessing appetite and aptitude in inclusive digital placemaking.

Also included:
- Discussions on disablism
- In-depth into my research process
- Gratuitous rescue dog pics (coming up)
- Hot tips on how to not make redundant adaptive tech

Speaking of, here's Doris, my helpful research partner.

She bunts the computer if I'm working too long & is President of the Anti-Rectangle League. She is accepting membership applications.

They are against all rectangles (phones/books/TVs/notepads) that distract from DOGS.

And my research question?

How can we assess & develop appetite & aptitude for inclusive digital placemaking in those who hold power?

I explore this through my podcast Electric Inclusivity

gracequantock.com/electric-inclu…

Electric Inclusivity explores how inclusive digital placemaking is developed through a framework of assessing appetite and aptitude in people in positions of power and how conversations can develop this appetite.

Through podcast recordings drawn from interviews, curated conversations & editorial framing, Electric Inclusivity invites personal reflection, industry shaping challenge & an opportunity to engage in intersectional insights framed by a digestible, trauma-informed podcast format.

It is Intersectional - Analytic - Reflective - Innovative - Connective - Transformative - Titrated

I exploring in my essay below, how as a disabled woman and wheelchair user, I live between the digital, technological and what many non-disabled people call the ‘real world’, (by which they mean offline).

bristolbathcreative.org/article/electr…

#HybridLife

cc. @JoannaLansdowne @PMStudioUK

For me, digital spaces have allowed me to access an inaccessibly built world. Technology - my ultra light-weight Argon 3 wheelchair made with hydraformed castor-link tubes - allows me to move independently and freely.

The concepts of VR and XR are familiar because crossing boundaries, disrupting the limits of spaces, is a recognised part of disability culture.

Living through an avatar in a world you designed without barriers is a common experience for #disabled folx.

However, my concern here was who was doing the designing. As a psychotherapeutic counsellor, with a focus on complex trauma and working with clients with multiple marginalised, minoritised or oppressed identities, I was concerned about the some of the playful...

& artistic digital placemaking interventions I had seen.

They didn’t seem to be coming from a trauma-informed place.

Or to realise that having street furniture talk to you, or seeing a person step out of an artwork in front of you, albeit through the lens of a smartphone screen, could be profoundly triggering.

Because when we talk about #inclusion we are also talking about #trauma

#Marginalisation is traumatising, wounding, destructive.

So developing appetite for inclusion grows alongside supporting those producing inclusion.

While my podcast explores how conversations can develop inclusion

My essay explores how we can take care of ourselves as we produce that inclusion

My upcoming Anatomy of Conversation breaks that down into actionable steps, democratising psychotherapeutic principals.

Cheat sheet:

Electric Inclusivity Podcast: gracequantock.com/electric-inclu…

Conversations, Stories, Invitations Essay: bristolbathcreative.org/article/electr…

Anatomy of Conversation: coming soon. Sign up at postcardsfromthemargins.com for updates.

So how did I do this research while working and being a carer and running a business?

I used this fantastic indexing practice @esmewang Indexing for Creative Discovery: esmewang.com/offerings/work…

I had amazing support from all of the fellows including @rose_kala_dias @fkas_prince @StephenHilton

And the sensational producers & director @ZahraAshHarper @rachaelkburton @ProffJon

(and others I know I'm missing out now as I am tired from this tweeting marathon)

Speaking of research methods, research is good etc, but have you tried colour coding your index cards until ideas light up in your dreams in that hue? & the work finds new shapes you’d never imagined.

Until the words, the colours & the unfolding become art. Or just me?

My biggest learning thus far has been how necessary assessment of appetite is in inclusion work. How much that frames the following conversation, saves energy & protects producers.

Because our limited energy needs to be spent where it can impact & there are people who would absorb it being 'educated' without changing.

Thanks to @ZahraAshHarper for that insight.

We are just beginning this work, please check out the other fellows amazing research this week and my hugest thanks to all.

That's me wrapping up.

Come and follow me @Grace_Quantock for more insights about #trauma #Digital & #inclusion fuel.

I'm writing about living in a marginalised body at postcardsfromthemargins.com

And thank you for coming on this journey. I believe in us & our possibilities.

I'm signing off now & handing back to the @Bristol_BathRD team. 💕❤️👋💓