Skip to main content

Enabling Rural Women in India to Speculate Futures Through Games and Theatre: A Participatory Approach

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Interactivity, Game Creation, Design, Learning, and Innovation (ArtsIT 2019, DLI 2019)

Abstract

The paper aims at reporting early findings from engaging in participatory and speculative design methods with rural women in Bihar, India. The research outlines a contextualized workshop that includes participants as equal contributors to the design of their futures. Many cultures like India are not naturally democratic and are comprised of politics and power structures within their setting. The paper highlights that in such contexts, participatory and speculative design methods can help give voices to the marginalized and uncover these complexities to gain a nuanced understanding. The findings of this paper are important for researchers, designers, and technologists who aim to uncover key factors that affect the functioning of complex systems to design sustainable interventions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition - GSDRC (2009). https://gsdrc.org/document-library/the-capacity-to-aspire-culture-and-the-terms-of-recognition/

  2. Census of India 2011 (2011). http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/bihar/Provisional%20Population%20Totals%202011-Bihar.pdf

  3. Dunne, A., Raby, F.: Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. The MIT Press, Cambridge (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Brandt, E.: Designing exploratory design games: A framework for participation in participatory design? In: Proceedings Participatory Design Conference (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Tofteng, D., Husted, M.: Theatre and action research: How drama can empower action research processes in the field of unemployment. Action Res. 9(1), 27–41 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Kaptani, E., Yuval-Davis, N.: Participatory theatre as a research methodology: Identity, performance and social action among refugees. Sociol. Res. Online (2008). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.1789

  7. Kapuire, G.K., Winschiers-Theophilus, H., Blake, E.: An insider perspective on community gains: A subjective account of a Namibian rural communities’ perception of a long-term participatory design project. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 74, 124–143 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Kate Ferguson, S.C.: Participatory Design Handbook. http://kateferguson.org/documents/Participatory-Design-Handbook.pdf

  9. Harter, L., Sharma, D., Pant, S., Singhal, A., Sharma, Y.: Catalyzing social reform through participatory folk performances in rural India*. In: Communication Activism: Media and Performance Activism (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Coulton, P., Burnett, D., Gradinar, A.: Games as speculative design: Allowing players to consider alternate presents and plausible futures. In: Proceedings of Design Research Society Conference (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Spinuzzi, C.: The methodology of participatory design. Tech. Commun. 52(2), 163–174 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Sultana, S., Guimbretière, F., Sengers, P., Dell, N.: Design within a patriarchal society. In: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI 2018 (2018). https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3174110

  13. Rao, V., Walton, M.: Culture and Public Action. Stanford Social Sciences. Stanford University Press, Stanford (2004)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Dr. Naveen Bagalkot, Kshama Nagaraja, Dr. Padmini Ray Murray and members of Project Potential for providing us with valuable support throughout the course of the project.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arjun Harish Rao .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Rao, A.H., Chandak, M., Gupta, S.M. (2020). Enabling Rural Women in India to Speculate Futures Through Games and Theatre: A Participatory Approach. In: Brooks, A., Brooks, E. (eds) Interactivity, Game Creation, Design, Learning, and Innovation. ArtsIT DLI 2019 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 328. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53294-9_47

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53294-9_47

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-53293-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-53294-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics