Towards a radically inclusive design – indigenous story-telling as codesign methodology

Abstract

Indigenous design methodologies provide a way to address the ‘always situated-ness’ of the designer, and so too those with whom we work. Looking at story-telling as a specific indigenous design methodology, this article helps show how these methodological approaches can help us to create a space of mutuality that can open up new ways of being in the world. This new awareness, attenuated through the use of these forms of indigenous methodologies, can then in turn open up new ways of codesigning the worlds in which we live. Focusing on an example of an indigenous story-telling codesign process with a First Nations group in Prairies Canada the article explores how a sensitivity to design methodologies is an important aspect of both preventing design from collapsing into neo-colonialism and helping bring into being worlds that are respectful and welcoming of difference and interconnectedness – a radically inclusive design.