Databases for healing and justice: Co-design with a grassroots, Indigenous organization

Abstract

This inquiry presents a grounded case study of a partnership between the Data + Feminism Lab at MIT and Waking Women Healing Institute, a grassroots, Indigenous organization. The partners co-design a case documentation and story gathering database that enables healing and justice for Indigenous women and people. The project reveals: 1) the vital role of trust-building, openness, and constant iteration in co-design practice, 2) the importance of designing for security in aligning the database with a need for Indigenous Data Sovereignty, 3) the practical trade-offs that come with choosing to use and configure commercial off-the-shelf software as opposed to using free and open source software or building custom software, and 4) how other institutional actors, like urban planners, can learn from this collaboration by centering trust-building, by welcoming ongoing revision and feedback rather than just ‘going through the motions’ of community engagement, and by taking tangible steps to enable institutional accountability to grassroots groups. Throughout, this thesis underscores the ways that a collaborative decision making process between institutional and grassroots partners allows the team to prioritize and operationalize grassroots needs and desires in a way that enables a useful technology solution for healing, harm reduction, and justice.