Rute Crespo Fiadeiro
A Design Approach: Women and Disasters
Summary
When a disaster occurs, although all or most of the population will feel the disaster’s impact, it is felt differently depending on intersecting dimensions of inequality - one of them being gender. In a disaster like no other, COVID-19 exposed at a global scale how structural issues, such as gender that we haven’t yet been able to address, can be exacerbated in light of a crisis. Women are not only susceptible to the short-term consequences of increased gender-based violence and unpaid domestic work but will also soon be paying the price for the long-term fall-outs that are yet to unfold. Various approaches are needed to address gendered structures in disaster, and a design-led approach could have the potential to be one of them.
Additional info
The research began as part of the MRes (2019/2020) independent thesis - where it questioned how we may design a system that gathers the diversity of women’s collective voices towards influencing disaster recovery. Through a feminist perspective, the research argued that women’s voices are systems with interconnected influencing components of power that lead to how women’s voices are articulated, listened and silenced. In addressing this, the research drew on two participation-driven concepts - ‘new power’ and ‘design for conversation’ towards product development for a particular case study. Since then, the research has progressed into a PhD at the RCA questioning how a design-led approach may integrate women’s progress into humanitarian assistance.
How may we design a system that gathers the diversity of women’s collective voices towards influencing disaster recovery?
MRes
Listening to women's voices is vital to ensure the identification of needs and inform the governments and leaders in their disaster recovery efforts (UNWomenUK, 2020). Yet the statement ‘women’s voices must be heard’ is multi-layered and its intention can often be perceived to address all women. Due to intersectional systems of oppression (between gender, class, race, disability and so on), power dynamics are intrinsic in women’s voices. Creating a hierarchy of voices where the loudest, most visible and majority voice is heard (Sharma, 2019). So, how may a collective voice reflect the diversity of the many?
To address this the research suggested that conversations might be a methodological tool to uncover women's collective voice. As humans, we are ‘learning systems’ who are shaped by the conversation’s process as we cyclicly observe how our feelings, opinions, boundaries and differences internally change (Dubberly and Pangaro, 2009). As such, conversations may be a space of equal encounter where women may learn and align their similarities, beliefs and values. The individual voice becomes the collective. How can we design these conversation spaces? How can these conversations in return inform recovery efforts?
Achieving this requires us to design a system. A system that views collecting the diversity of women's voices as an interconnected set of elements (Meadows, 2008) that influence how voices are articulated, listened and silenced. A product design approach was applied in order to contextualise how a system to collect women's voices may be designed. This took shape through a case study developed for UN Women UK.
UN Women UK x #andthen
#andthen is a digital action project which encourages women and girls to start conversations about their experiences as part of their response to COVID-19. #andthen aims to connect to as many women across intersectionalities and generations by enabling women to take ownership of the conversations and design their own through a set of guidelines, rules and resources.
References
Dubberly, H. and Pangaro, P., 2009. What is conversation? Can we design for effective conversation?. ACM Interactions, [online] XVI.4. Available at: <; [Accessed 14 July 2020].
Meadows, D. H., & In Wright, D. (2008).Thinking in systems: A primer. p.11
Sharma, S., 2019. Moving Out Of Identity Silos And Into Intersectionality: The Example Of Gender Identity. [online] Debating Development Research. Available at: <; [Accessed 9 August 2020].
UNWomen, 2020a. Webinar: Mobilizing Gender Data For Better Decision-Making During COVID-19 | UN Women Data Hub. [online] UNWomen - Women Count. Available at: <; [Accessed 24 July 2020].
How may a design-led approach integrate women's progress into humanitarian assistance in disaster recovery?
PhD
Drawing on the insights developed during the MRes, the PhD is looking to explore how we may use a design-led approach to integrate women's progress into humanitarian assistance in disaster recovery.
During COVID, with many countries struggling to withstand the impact of the pandemic, there has been an overwhelming global level of humanitarian need. COVID has not only exposed the weak global and local infrastructures we live in, but also the challenges that we are faced with when there is a global threat such as a pandemic and growing climate crisis, where the simultaneous needs exceed humanitarians capacities (Aly, 2020). What new model's of humanitarian assistance will need to arise to respond to the growing global threat of climate crisis? What will be the women lens on this? What could be designs role?
Share your thought's on these questions and more through this miro board (no prior knowledge in these areas needed!)
References:
Aly, H., 2020. 13 Ways Coronavirus Could Transform Humanitarian Aid. [online] The New Humanitarian. Available at: <; [Accessed 8 October 2020].
