Exploring the Margins
By Giulia Balestra, Associate Innovation Officer (Research), and Hans Park, Strategic Design and Research Manager
To the margins and back
“Exploration, n. (ɛkspləˈreɪʃən): an organized trip into unfamiliar regions, especially for scientific purposes; expedition (Collins English Dictionary, HarperCollins Publishers).”
In autumn 2019, the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) Connectivity for Research initiative invested resources in what we have come to call ‘explorative’ research. This ‘explorative’ research was commissioned to a group of independent researchers, welcoming their diverse perspectives and voices into the work of UNHCR’s Innovation Service. The objective was to better understand complex challenges surrounding connectivity for refugee communities and to gain insights into providing better assistance. Sometimes taking a step back from our own work is hard, but stepping out of our fields of comfort and expertise is even harder.
Four independent researchers guided the Innovation Service through the familiar and “unfamiliar regions” at the crossroads of displacement, connectivity, and digital inclusion. We began this journey by asking ourselves multiple guiding questions:
- What are the assumptions underpinning our thinking about connectivity and displacement and how can we leverage independent views to challenge these assumptions?
- Are there areas pertaining to digital access and participation that have not been on our horizon but might be relevant for the future of the initiative?
- How can different perspectives inform but also improve refugees’ digital access in a future that seems increasingly uncertain and increasingly digital?
Together with the team of researchers, we discussed aspects and intersections of digital access and forced displacement that we found interesting, had questions or reservations on, didn’t fully understand or thought we understood too well. At the end of our conversations and at the beginning of this project, each researcher had a rough idea of their topic, a specific angle or approach to it, and a fair amount of flexibility in the ways they could shape it.
Months down the line, four research briefs have been published. They explore important areas of digital access and forced displacement:
“Internet governance in displacement” looks at the decision-making processes and practices for internet provision in the refugee context;
“Space and imagination” provides a different analysis of digital access and information landscapes through the lenses of space and human geography;
“Access and agency” explores the idea of digital refugees and the future of protection in the context of an increasingly more connected and digital world;
“Disruption and digital revolution for whom?” considers the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology in humanitarian contexts.
This research has sparked conversations inside and outside our offices to an extent we had not anticipated. These conversations and debates have called into focus new questions that highlight the need for more research to guide our work, and greater collaboration with independent researchers, writers, artists, and others to help us question and iterate the work of the Innovation Service.
Perspective and insights
A systematic openness to the independent analyses of people with different knowledge areas and from outside the organization (academics, critics, non-humanitarians) may have a lot more potential than we think and see at the moment. Perspective is, after all, something you get with a bit of distance, when zooming out, realizing that not only is there more to this view, there are actually more views to be had. As important as it was to zoom out (because we tend to sometimes not see the overall picture when engaged in work that requires a lot of attention to detail) it was imperative that we practiced going back and forth — from big picture, to close up. The perspective a macro lens provides is a nuance in its own right, and when these nuances are well synthesized, they can provide the mesh that holds an innovative approach together.
Growth and learning happen when these different views compete and then complete each other.
As we look back at this work, we’d like to share some reflections on independent research and humanitarian innovation: how we embarked on the journey, what we learned throughout, and, ultimately, why we think bringing in research from non-traditional actors matters.
Research at the margins.
What is currently not on our horizon but might be important for the future? What are the assumptions underpinning our work? What do we not know but might want to be made aware of?
These questions helped us frame our research in terms of discovery, and they drew our attention to the margins. Margins are spaces that we sometimes fail to see, or rather miss out on, and don’t pay attention to because our focus is directed to a centre that is sometimes perceived as more relevant and important.
An example of how the researchers took this on was to weigh in on what they saw as the ‘bleeding edge’ of the subject at hand. The borders of a phenomenon can teach us about its shape, and where it begins to blend with the other.
Curiosity, imagination, and learning are key elements and drivers of problem-solving and innovation. Indeed, they are more about what we don’t know rather than what we do know. Within the doubts, discomfort, and uncertainty of setting off on an exploration, the idea of margins also worked as a reminder of the nature of our work and the less travelled and unfamiliar places it would lead us to.
Listen to discordant voices.
An invitation to be open to different views and voices may sound obvious and easy. That said, ‘different’ can also mean critical. It can mean divergent from, if not in direct opposition to, our deeply held beliefs around what is relevant. It is important to ask ourselves whether we are going into a process to find validation of what we already believe, or rather with the willingness to be contradicted, proven wrong, or simply shown an alternative reality, an equally valid truth. Both positions have their place and raison d’être, but they require different research approaches and methodologies and will result in distinct final products. In the case of our first collaboration with independent research, the openness also applied to the selection of topics within a predefined overarching theme. Our initial questions were intentionally broad and, perhaps, elusive, but they acted as a frame to our blank canvas: we had an idea of where the centre was with respect to the margins, and were curious to learn if, seen from someone else’s perspective, things could look different.
The importance of experts from outside our institutions.
Evidence, research, and expertise can be lenses through which we see another version of reality and that can help us realize that there is not one scientific and objective truth, but rather different interpretations and ways to read reality. We were not looking for a single and definite answer. Instead, we were hoping to broaden our understanding around specific issues as much as possible. Our experts, in this case, independent researchers from various disciplines and with different types of knowledge, acted as our guides, showing us what we might otherwise have failed to see.
Collaborating independently.
This unique collaboration was something of a balancing act between direction and autonomy. Our small research and design team had to figure out the best way to create and nurture different spaces: a space to connect, exchange and discuss; a space to reflect and write; and a space to question each other. Because we started out with broad questions rather than a clear and set research agenda, researchers had the opportunity to combine their skill sets with their passions, ultimately producing deliberately unexpected pieces of research.
As a team, it was also important to understand that openness wasn’t a substitute for ‘not planning’, or not knowing the direction — but rather an effort to be comfortable with some of the uncertainties that would allow for unexpected outcomes. Definitionally, the unknown is the parent of novelty. We had the privilege of keeping the doors open longer than we normally can, or are allowed to. We also couldn’t have done that without the researchers’ patience, flexibility, and tolerance for the undefined and uncertain dimensions to the project.
Research as creative work.
To complement the research, we partnered with 3D designer and illustrator Jungmin Ryu to work on the visual communication component. Developing the artwork was done in a similar way to working with the researchers. We tested various concepts and techniques that would speak to the research work, and at the same time, build curiosity around the content. We developed a series of abstract images, building on the idea that abstraction could represent the spirit of our research, and the idea of exploring and understanding margins.
As a team, we understand that independent, differing, and validating voices and critical framings bring depth to the work of innovation. Successful but not flawless, there is a lot we can do to make the process a lot smoother, from the moment independent researchers are brought on board to the time we have a final product to publish. In line with this approach, we are keen to build on this work and continue to learn about the ways in which research — and independent research in particular — can reframe, challenge, and ultimately improve the work of UNHCR’s Innovation Service.
In 2020, a year that increasingly looks like a year of disruptions, we are curious to take this work a step further and apply an independent and experimental approach to research on a wider range of topics that are, could, or will be important for the future of innovation and forced displacement. We hope to see more organizations doing research that takes the margins into consideration, and combines the power of visual artists and commissioning independent researchers. The more we do this, the richer the centre can become, the further the possible reaches of innovation.
