Browsing by Author "Ambole, Lorraine Amollo"

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    Designing for informal contexts : a case study of Enkanini sanitation intervention
    (Chinese Institute of Design, 2016) Ambole, Lorraine Amollo; Swilling, Mark; M’Rithaa, Mugendi K.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY : Increasing social agency in the design profession corresponds to the call for greater participation of science in solving complex social problems. We analyse the complex problem of informal urban sanitation in the Enkanini informal settlement in South Africa to articulate the facilitatory role of design in the collaborative effort to improve sanitation in the settlement. More specifically, an in-depth understanding of the multi-stakeholder collaboration in the case offers solutions for designing in complex social contexts. In the discussion, we expound on the methodological concerns of designing in an informal settlement context by analysing the role of the design ethnographer and articulating core design competencies. This leads to the conceptualisation of infrastructuring as an open-ended model for design facilitation in informal contexts, in which challenges and inconsistencies have to be dealt with. We also contrast the open-ended, multidisciplinary approach of infrastructuring with the more design-centred participatory approaches that are better suited to literate participants. In the Enkanini case, we had to adopt a narrative-style participatory approach to capture the rich tacit knowledge of participants. The paper thus answers to the need for both technological and social innovation while contributing to the methodological understanding of design as a collaborative, long-term process.
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    Understanding co-production through sanitation intervention case studies in South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Ambole, Lorraine Amollo; Swilling, Mark; M’Rithaa, Mugendi K.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
    ENGLISH SUMMARY: I argue that informal urban sanitation is a complex problem that is best understood through a transdisciplinary (TD) approach. This is because the TD approach provides a multi-dimensional methodology for tackling complex problems. A multi-dimensional methodology is however challenging and therefore requires facilitation. Design as a generative discipline offers facilitatory approaches that can be useful for TD methodology. To unpack this argument, I studied three cases of sanitation interventions in South Africa. The sanitation interventions were carried out in three informal settlements in the Western Cape province of South Africa, between 2012 and 2014. A brief snap-shot study of two of the cases and a prolonged ethnographic study of the third case provided in-depth insights of how a diverse group of actors engaged in real-world situations. I collected varied forms of data from the cases and organised them through a social constructivist lens. The arguments and findings of the dissertation are presented in three journal-type (unpublished) articles, which correspond to the research questions of the dissertation. Diverse literature sources were used to locate two intersecting themes, namely informal urban sanitation and knowledge co-production. These two themes support the findings in the three journal articles. The first journal article articulates an integrative socio-technological approach for informal urban sanitation. This is informed by the cross-case synthesis of the technical configurations of the piloted systems in the three case studies, vis-à-vis the social interactions between the stakeholders who enabled the implementation of the sanitation interventions. The emergent model of socio-technological reciprocity has three interfaces: interfaces between technology components, interfaces between people and technology, and interfaces between users and providers. The model is theoretically significant for planning informal urban sanitation exercises. The article concludes by embedding the empirical findings in the broader sanitation discourse in South Africa. The second article unveils the challenges of carrying out TD research in an informal settlement context by unpacking the inter-relationships between researchers, experts and co-researchers in the Enkanini case. A critical discourse analysis of interactions in the group brings to the fore asymmetries, which I use to systematise themes for knowledge co-production. The themes are useful guides for future field work in TD settings. The findings of the article build on the methodological base of TD research. In the third article I explore the facilitatory role of design in TD research by providing an auto-ethnographic account of my participation as a researcher-designer in the Enkanini case. In this way, I articulate design ethnography as a method that can facilitate relationships amongst social actors in the TD process of solving informal urban sanitation. The article concludes by proposing design ethnography as a method that can overcome some of the challenges of carrying out TD research in under-served contexts. The main conclusion of the dissertation relates the findings from the journal articles to broader theories of change in answer to the need for transformative knowledge in TD research. Conceptual models for knowledge co-production in the context of incremental urbanism are proposed to open up avenues for further research.