Dédé Tetsubayashi
Hello, everyone, welcome again to another episode of Brave Spaces Roundtable brought to you by incluu, where we create brave spaces for life. I am your host, Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi, and here with me today is an amazing, wonderful guest that I’d like to introduce to you, Tania Anaissie of Beytna Design. Tania, please welcome and give us a little intro about yourself.
Tania Anaissie
Oh, thank you. I’m so excited to be here. I am a designer by training; I come from the Stanford design program, and I was always curious about how to be doing design at the intersection of justice and liberation work. And so that’s what has guided my whole career in co-creating liberatory design and starting Beytna Design, which is an Arabic word; it means our home, which is my studio. I grew up in Arkansas, I have two cats, and I like mint chip ice cream. That’s it!
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Tell me a little bit more about the name Beytna design. You said it means home in Arabic, how did you land on this name? And why?
Tania Anaissie
Ooh, yes, I was visiting my mother , actually, and we were brainstorming, like what are parallel…I knew I wanted to be something Arabic so that it could connect to… –that’s a big part of my life story, and what brought me to this work is being both Lebanese and American. And so we were brainstorming, like, what’s the best word for justice in Arabic, and what’s the best word for liberation? And a lot of them it was like, Hmm, this will be hard to read for folks who don’t speak Arabic, so we played around. And then we actually took a break from brainstorming. And I was just feeling my feelings with my mom, like, you know, my mom has been hard. And this work is can be emotional. And we’re just like, literally eating hummus in the kitchen. And my mom goes, “Hay Beytna”, which means, “This is our home”. And she just meant like, feel it daughter, like, tell me what you need, stuff your face with this hummus, like be as you are. And after the fact I was like, “That’s the name!” That’s what I want for my clients, it’s just like, come on in, I know it’s hard. Like, let’s nourish, let’s break bread…let’s talk about what you’re doing.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
That’s beautiful. That’s incredibly beautiful. And I know a little bit about your background and how that connects to being the name Beytna, and then of course, the design studio as well. But would you give us a little bit more information as to where you’re coming from what brought you to design in the first place? And then we’ll take it on to liberatory design?
Tania Anaissie
Yes, totally. What brought me to design; what a good question. I think I was in school and I knew that I wanted to do something that was focused on working in community, and I had no idea what that was. So there are physicians in my family, so I thought like, OK, that’s a pretty direct way of caring for people like is that of interest, but I didn’t feel like the culture of it was aligned to what I wanted to do. And then I saw someone in my dorm who was building a chair, and I asked her what she was doing, she was like, “Oh, this is my homework. I’m a product designer”. And so then I thought, well, that’s pretty cool, so I was just really curious about like building, making, creating and then I found my way into that field, just through being in college. I was really lucky that my college offered it. And I think what appealed to me about human-centered design, it just felt very culturally similar to how I grew up. It’s like, of course, you should talk to people who are most impacted, of course, we should reach out and work together. I just felt very like, Yes! And also it felt very different from the dominant school experience, which is like there’s a right answer that you must achieve at a certain pace. Design was much more like, I don’t know, you got to figure it out, like you got to talk to people, everybody has something to say. So it also felt as a learner, like a space that was very liberating to work in, I didn’t have to be the expert with, you know, all the information, I just had to be able to contribute something and trust that others would, too.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
I love that. It actually reminds me a little bit about my background, which is in cultural anthropology. I’m adopted transrationally, and I’m also a first generation immigrant and a child of immigrants to the US who also have fled political upheaval. But in growing up with my adoptive mother, she’s an anthropologist, and I followed in her footsteps. And I remember, as a six year old, I had my little notebook because she had a notebook and I followed along on her interviews, and it was a process of integrating oneself into the local community into the culture and actually becoming a member of local communities so that the work was not extracted. And that was a very important aspect of anthropology and the methodologies that we were taught to use. Of course, to not do harm and to not come in with our own preconceived notions about right and wrong and what was going to be the better answer or the solution for whatever the community was experiencing. But I remember sitting in classes and debating methodologies, like what is right and wrong, and what is our role as anthropologists and how can we work in a manner where we’re not extractive and we’re building relationships and that we’re trying to ensure those relationships don’t eventually get co opted, for example by the US government. And so we had a lot of questions around what does it mean to design? What does it mean to get invited to interview people? And what does it mean to use certain terminology like interview participants rather than research subject? How does that impact the lessons that you’re hopefully learning from the community, and your role isn’t to be an impartial member of the community or an impartial knowledge transferer? Instead, we’re human, and that’s the first important fact that we have to remember, we’re humans, and we come with our own problems. And we cannot– as cultured humans, we cannot go into another culture and expect to bring that baggage of our own preconceived notions and expectations with us. So I would love to connect that to design and would love to find out where you if you could tell us a little bit about liberatory design and what separates it and the work you do at Beytna now from other design frameworks. And of course, this background that you’ve told us a little bit about how you got started with design, I would love to hear about the connection.
Tania Anaissie
Oh, yes, that was beautiful. Thank you for sharing that I love the visual of you with the little notebook being like, observation…
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yes, and translating, and being like, Oh, wait, no, that doesn’t mean that… that’s not what she said.
Tania Anaissie
That’s awesome. Very cool. Thanks for sharing that. Liberatory design–yes, so I think, I have a similar journey, in terms of being in the classroom being like, hmmm, I dont know is that feels right… I don’t know why we’re–there would be terms like, you know, you’re gonna go find the best nuggets from that community, or we’re gonna go story mining. So it was this literal, like, let’s extract, and that felt really bad and didn’t feel right. And I had a lot of questions. I think, over the years, the validation I got…I mean, it took years to find other people who wanted to talk about this in the design world. They were out there, but we hadn’t–I hadn’t found them yet. But there was a research piece I read by an anthropologist who’s a Palestinian researcher, and was talking about how working with Palestinians, particularly working in refugee camps, like how is research liberating and non extractive? And that was a hugely seminal piece for me being like, Yes, that’s right, and that really hit home, you know, Palestinian and Lebanese, have a lot of overlapping history and language and food. So, when we first came together, the co-creators and I, (there were five of us, total), we were trying to explore what is the intersection of design work and liberation work, like they each have their strengths, they each have either harm or challenges, like how could they build on each other. And so we created the first version of liberatory design: the framework, and then I had been building lots of card decks, so I thought, like, hey, why don’t we make a card deck? So then I designed for us the card deck and we all went back to our own organizations to figure out how would we create impact in our worlds. And so then at Beytna, we built it out our own way in terms of what we think is going to be most impactful for our partners in the field, and how we think it can be actionable. And so I would say some of the big differences of how we built it out at Beytna is there’s a there’s some conversation and work around power, and what is the role of the designer, rather than shifting from an expert who decides, to a facilitator who opens space. And so there was a lot of round, how does that shift all of our tools, basically, and our mindsets if we’re now facilitators or space-holders? What does it mean to co-design? Like, how do we build an invitation? How do we offer trust, they may not want to work with us, but like what, you know, what’s the invitation or the relationship building? So a lot of tools around that, some understanding and awareness around trauma, and how that might show up in research, especially if we’re working on these kinds of projects. And then, we’ve built out a concept called safe to fail as well; like, what does it mean to fail? Fail is an important part of design to learn, but how can we do it in a safe way in the sense that we’re not risking people’s physical material, mental emotional harm, to learn. Right and opposed to the like, move fast break things of Silicon Valley’s like let’s learn by failing, but not at the cost of our people. So those are just a couple of snippets. But really, it’s the biggest difference is notice and reflect which is at the core of our process. Notice power, history, context, systems, reflecting on our relationships. So that’s the core of it, and then how the tools have shifted over time. It’s basically like every year we’re like, oh, this could be sharper; we need this, we didn’t know we needed it , so I would say it’s kind of a big range underneath that umbrella.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Wonderful, wonderful, so in the process of crafting and designig and setting up Beytna Design and the design framework, you mentioned that, at first when you started to think about what liberatory design meant to you, in terms of power shifts and design concepts like conceptually different from standard human centered design. There weren’t that many people that you were able to find who actually had been having the same difficulties that or grappling with how do you do design in humanitarian… Like human-centered– truly, human-centered way that’s not as extractive along with data. Clifford, Susie Wise, and the National Equity project’s Victor Carey and Tom Malarkey. Which parts of your personal intersecting identities were the most integral in its creation? If any?
Tania Anaissie
Whoa, what a great question. Do you mean, like, for me personally, or as a group our intersecting identities?
Dédé Tetsubayashi
I would love to know about yours personally, and then, of course, as a group, because having that group cohesion is probably critical to how you all ended up with the framework that you came up with.
Tania Anaissie
Yes, okay. I totally hear that. I think for me personally, growing up with two cultures, so my family are Lebanese, like I’ve mentioned, and we spend a lot of time back home, and we were speaking Lebanese, Arabic, English, French. And so there was a lot of like, translating, like you said, learning picking up on the fly and just at a really young age. I think it was important for me growing up in Arkansas to see that like, there isn’t a way to live like, even within Arkansas, within Lebanon, there are 100 ways to live. And so that created I think, when it came to the creation of liberatory design, what it built in me is like a real curiosity and a real understanding that people will want to use this in millions of ways, and they will adapt it in ways we can’t even imagine. So like, how do we play that translator role of making this one: as accessible as possible? Like not assuming it’s just a US lens or not assuming that people will use it the way I want to use it, I think that was one of the things that contributed for my intersectionality. And another piece probably is part of that translation, also, I think was my role in my family was like, get to the point. So like, what do you need? What does it mean? What is it going to do for us? And so I think that’s another thing. It’s like, how are people actually going to use it? It should be physical? What What about this language is confusing? How can we make it clear? So I think that’s the other piece of being a translator child. Yeah, like, tell me what we’re trying to do here, like make it easy for me to engage. And so that was also my lens in amongst everyone else’s contributions. And like, how do we make this practical and real and helpful?
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Great. And so when, when it comes to those intersecting identities, talking about translation, obviously, I would say that you’d have to put yourself in the center of the experiences and to bring in your lived experience of being bicultural, multilingual, living in what I call multiple identities, or fractal identities, because depending on the sphere of influence that you’re in, or the circle that you’re in, you have a different aspects of your identity that you can pull on when you’re with your family, you’re a Lebanese, you’re Lebanese American, you’re a French speaker, you’re an Arabic speaker, and it’s the amalgamation of all those things and then being the bridge, literally, between multiple cultures, you’re doing the translating, with your language, with your body, with your experiences, with those who are around you. Can you speak a little bit more about the people who you ended up cofounding with? Can you talk about how they were able to bring in their multiple identities, if they had any, what role that played in, in thinking about designing with, rather than for an identity or an intersectional identity that we may not–that we may not have lived or may not have experienced?
Tania Anaissie
I love that. Okay. And let me know if I’m not answering it. You can always correct me. Okay, if I misunderstood, but oh, gosh, yeah in those early days, I think I had had questions, like I mentioned, since I was a student that I like, would bounce off of the people, and they were kind of like, no, like, that’s not interesting or like that doesn’t amek sense. Exactly or like, you know, if something went wrong, that was just a one-off project, or that’s a bad designer, but doesn’t mean y’know, there’s anything wrong with the process. So then in 2016, I started talking about it with David, and then I read an article about internet with Carol from Craver Action Lab. And then we saw a Medium piece with Christina Ortiz, Michelle Molitor, Caroline Hill, and it was like, wait–wait a minute, there was all these signals, and so we all just called each other. And we started meeting monthly actually, to just be like, What are you trying? What are you learning? So that was a huge transition point, I think and being like No, this is real. This is worth pursuing, like there are other people with similar questions or other people who have been working on it for years before us we can learn from and liberatory design was sort of a similar combination. I think. Our intersectionalities varied in the group greatly by age, the type of work we’ve done, whether we have like more in-depth and time spent in design versus equity worlds, whether we’ve worked in big systems or small systems. So between us in terms of experience there was a huge range. There’s some racial diversity on the team. There’s some gender diversity. And so I think coming in, what was so exciting about the collaboration is that just ideas were sparking everywhere. It was like we struggle with this. So it was like, oh design so good at that, like, look, look, look. And then they’d be like, oh, what design doesn’t talk about, you know, unintended consequences, or the history that got us here. It’s like, yes. Oh, we’re so hungry for that. So I think it was so exciting, because everyone had like fire to add to the cauldron. I don’t know where I’m going with this metaphor. Yeah.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Well, everyone, throws in a bit of their spice and…
Tania Anaissie
Yeah, which was super helpful. And I think, you know, I’ll speak for myself being the youngest on the team, there were a lot of either thoughts that I had that I hadn’t applied yet. And they could speak to like in the system, that’s how I’ve seen it work. Or they could also, conversely, add things that they had seen time and time again, but I could add niche examples like no, I’ve seen people do it other ways. Like, this is some new stuff I’m seeing. So I’ll pause there, I could go on forever. But yeah–enough difference for it to be really fruitful.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yes. And to actually then be able to say, we’ve tested this, we’ve lived this not only have we applied learning experience, we’ve also applied lived experience, and we’ve applied this co-creation co designing process, we’ve actually tested it with ourselves, so that it’s a concept that we know, we can take to others and either teach them or invite them to be participants in co-creation. I love it
Tania Anaissie
Truly, totally were noticing and reflecting all over the place in our own meetings. It was like how was our collaboration, a model of liberatory design? We’re pulling mindset cards in meetings and like, anyway, yeah, nothing’s perfect. But it’s, it’s been a really cool space over the years.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Okay, so you’re quoted as saying, “If we are designing in status quo ways, we’re going to create status quo outcomes.” Can you tell us what to date has been your greatest win in disrupting the status quo?
Tania Anaissie
Oh yes! I would say, reflecting on this, I think one of the things that I’m most proud of, and that it will probably have, who knows, my impression of what will create some of the biggest impact has been our contributions to the larger movement of how design is shifting. So whether that’s putting liberatory design out there speaking events, working with clients, writing–it feels like back in those early days, we were super niche, I went to a design conference in Providence, and I shared that I wanted to talk about these topics, and they were like, yes, let’s get you this big room, it’s gonna be awesome…and then like, 15, people came! It was great! I mean, I had a great time, I was like, these are my people, they need to be here, I need to be here, but it was very like niche for a long time, or people would say in the design field, like, Oh, that’s cool, if it’s a project about like racism, y’know, versus like, No, this is how we do design. Racism is everywhere. That’s, that’s a different conversation. But…
Dédé Tetsubayashi
We designed racism, so now let’s figure out how to undesign it.
Tania Anaissie
Exactly. So I think, to see how that has grown, like, right, like, we found those initial people like, oh, my gosh, what are you working on? I’m so excited to work with you to meet you, and then there came, you know, then we learned about the Design Justice Network. And then we saw this article that had been written about decolonization of design in the UK, like years before. And then so like, slowly, it started to grow. But it was very much like we all know each other. And now it’s gotten to the point where I feel like it’s a tidal wave, right, like people I’ve never met, or liberatory design studios over here and equity designers over there. And now there’s restorative design, and there’s like 1000s of different kinds. And to me, you know, companies are calling, design firms are calling and asking for, like, we want to practice differently. So that was literally my dream when we started liberatory design is like how could we make harmful or status quo versions of design obsolete. So it’s not like this is a nice way to practice but being equity aware is good design. So if we have contributed in any way to the movement, that is by far, like my biggest accomplishment, I would say.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
I think that is a pretty big accomplishment. And something you can be truly proud of. It is something that I also strive for in my work, and my work has been centered specifically on product design. And when I say product obviously encompasses technical products, physical products, but also non physical products like education, growing like and training and raising children, and raising the next generation and instilling values. We need to actually create a step by step process through which we’re thinking about all the ways we are as humans, with our biases, of course get instilled into the programs, the products that we create, and if we’re not questioning our motivations, if we’re not thinking about The outcomes and the impacts–unintended or intended, then we’re not truly great designers, great product managers, great engineers. And it’s been something that I’ve always said that in order to be a great product manager or a great engineer, we need to get to the place where we are designing with accessibility, inclusion, equitable outcomes, non discrimination is the bottom line or the the Florida product floor, into our product processes so that it’s not the separate but equal aspects of product design, product management, engineering, it is literally just product and engineering, we shouldn’t have to think about what does it mean to make this product more inclusive? What does it mean to make it more accessible to more people that should be the foundation and the core. Why are you making this product in the first place, if it’s not inclusive, if it’s not accessible, if it’s not available to as many people as possible, and if they’re not having positive outcomes and experiences, using what you’ve created, what you birthed into the world shouldn’t exist that?
Tania Anaissie
Yes. 100% It’s like, it’s like people view the status quo as okay and acceptable. But it’s like, no, the status quo is designed for exclusion; designed for harm. So if you ask someone, why are you designing this for harm? They’d be like, Huh, I’m just doing it the normal way. But it’s like, okay, normal way equals harm.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
So! Oh, my goodness. Okay. So what are what are some of your greatest challenges, or what have been some of your greatest challenges in divesting from whiteness or white-centered status quo? I will pause there.
Tania Anaissie
Well, let’s make a three hour podcast about this.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yes-multi series, please come back.
Tania Anaissie
So good. I would say the hardest things for me, personally have been dealing with urgency and perfectionism. And I think with urgency in particular…I read this article, once someone shared with me, actually, from the Equity Design Collaborative, that was the difference between urgency and a false sense of urgency. So and I think so much of our work culture is this false sense of urgency, right? Real urgency is like, listen, our people are out here getting hurt, like people are dying, like people are in cages, we got to do something. And that is like liberation work. And then there’s false sense of urgency, which is like we’re staying up late, we’re stressed, we’re not eating, we’re working through pain, because we decided there’s gonna be a product launch this day.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yeah, it’s like, we got to be first to market.
Tania Anaissie
So that’s something that I struggle with internally is honestly doing that in my own company of like, I want it done by this time. But then if I sit there, and we’re feeling all the stress of getting it out, like even a newsletter deadline recently, and it was like, okay, we can work on the long weekend. And then it was like, wait a minute, why? No one is checking what day we send our newsletter. If people get it the day after, it’s probably the same. So there’s…we’re constantly trying to undo it, right? Because like, we work with work, and then every time I take a break, I’m like, Whoa, half of this does not need to be this way. So that’s been hard for me of like, where do we push on the real urgency? And where is it, you know, needs to happen at its own pace. And then perfectionism for sure. I think, well, man, for my early days in Arkansas, like, the way you protect yourself is to be perfect, right? Like, don’t mess up, like the way that you succeed, will be school and getting out and doing this in the end. Like, if you mess up, you’ll lose the job, or the scholarship or whatever, like, whatever it is. And so I think I brought that into my company. And I still do this. But especially in the early days, we would totally over deliver and like over the top, every detail perfect, that I remember my web designer, Jennifer Hennessy, who redid our brand. Recently, she asked me to go back and interview old clients about what was most valuable. I was like, you love that we customize everything, right? They’re like, no, that didn’t actually matter to us. I was like, what, why am I spending all these hours perfecting, and customers… So I’ve just noticed in myself, like, I have to have 15 layers of value that I’m offering at all times. I can’t drop the ball anywhere else, the whole company is going to crumble. And it’s like wait a minute, there’s no data to support that. Like the risks of you know, leading as people of color is real. But I think like if I literally look at like, who do we trust to be our partners, who like well, how do they behave? What do they expect? It’s not true. So… I’m tired just thinking about it. But those are the two biggest ones for me. I was actually going to ask you ask you how you feel if you’re comfortable sharing.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yes, I was actually going to also talk about this fallacy of speed and perfection. It’s actually something that I’m still struggling with in terms of perfection, internally, personally, and I constantly have to remind myself and thankfully, I have wonderful therapists and coaches and a great support network who remind me regularly that there’s no need for perfection. And yet, I’m only just now starting to recognize that this need for perfection is borderline OCD, for me. It’s not something that internally generated, it is a product of my upbringing, it is a product of my inculturation, it is a product of how I have been raised to be a dark skinned Black woman in the US in particular. I’ve mentioned before that I’m translationally adopted, my adoptive mother is white born in Texas in the US, and she speaks multiple languages, but imagine being in the Midwest, growing up with a little–like two little Black girls, with a white Mom, I have a disability I have I have sickle scell anemia, a genetic illness that is life threatening, which forces me to the hospital on regular occasion, and the racism that I experience as a child taught me that if I did not move and behave in particular ways, I would either not be believed, because of the way that I looked. Because I either had an accent as a child, I lost that accent very quickly. And because of the expectations of what it meant to be a little Black girl child in the US, I didn’t come into this country with those same expectations and those values, at all. And only now am I starting to understand and disentangle what are the voices that are actually mine in my head that are controlling me and forcing me to try to be perfect and chase this perfection that is ever forward moving and never achievable versus what is it that I can do that my counterpart will understand and know that it is my best effort? And love that, because it is my best effort. What is it that we can do together? And what is it that I am imposing on them, assuming that they are assuming that I will be perfect and I will be fast and I will deliver immediately. They don’t necessarily think that, but in my head, that’s what I assume, because that’s what I’ve been taught; working in Silicon Valley working in corporate, it is a million times worse, because those voices in my head are actually voices external to me, maybe not saying those exact words, but the voice the the words may be different, the tones may be different, but the looks, the expectations, the performance evaluations, they’re there. And it’s a constant struggle every single day.
Tania Anaissie
Oh my gosh, I’m feeling that so much in my body. Thank you for sharing that. That’s like, here we are looking at what we inherited, and now it’s the undoing and some days I feel like how liberating that I can undo this, and some days, I’m like, ugh.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
I’m so tired. I’m so tired. Why? Can just put it down for bit? And like, go swim. And yes. Oh, wait, no, I can’t do that.
Tania Anaissie
I will say since I’ve gotten COVID. Since I’ve come back to work, I’ve taken a nap every single day. Yes, I was saying like how I gave myself permission once I was like on the books feeling ill. Oh, I guess I couldn’t have every day if I needed to and still run this company.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
It’s amazing what we still do being founders and owners of our own companies. It’s amazing what we still repeat unconsciously, and what we still expect of ourselves the standards that we hold ourselves to that are unachievable, and we’re also imparting those same exact values onto the people who are working with us because they see how we behave. I don’t take breaks, and yet I’m like oh I’m supposed to be taking a break. I’m supposed to be resting Yes. This two week period is my holiday and what am I doing? Do to do to do? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. More work more work, please. So I would actually love to follow up with how do you remind yourself regularly be that it is okay to digressed. And then what does your body do?
Tania Anaissie
Oh my goodness, well…almost on the flip side, my body will revolt if I don’t pay attention. It’s like, oh, rash on my face. Oh, pain in my back. My body will be like, Hello, I’m calling on you. So it makes it apparent that it’s displeased. And then yeah, like you’ve said, the therapists, the support networks, even just the partner that’s just like, hey, you’ve been feeling pretty down for like, couple of weeks. What’s going on? I’m taking a sabbatical for the first time this year–taking off July off,
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yes, yes!
Tania Anaissie
That’s something that came up with my leadership coach, he was just like, yeah, obviously, you could do that if you want, like someone who even is just helping you paint that reality. Yeah, but I am really feeling what you’re sharing. And I think that has been leadership growth for me too. I think also even working with Clancy. She’s our liberatory design strategist. One time we were co working together in person. And she shared something like, Oh, these co-working days can be really intense, because we don’t stop for lunch. And it never occurred to me, I was like, oh, that’s bad. Like the one day she works with me in person, and what am I modeling that, like, we don’t eat; that we don’t stop. So I think a lot of it is outside accountability. And then my body is my inside accountability.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
I’m so happy you’re listening to your body. I have literally just started–literally just started. Because of my illness, I usually have pain on the daily; I have chronic pain. And my way of dealing with chronic pain has always been, it’s white noise; I ignore it. But that chronic pain has actually not been chronic pain, it is built in my body telling me you’re hurting me, stop hurting me. And in my head, I’ve just been like, oh no, today’s just–today’s a bad day. Well, let’s crank up the white noise a bit more and ignore it. I have been using my own body as the blocker between what I’m able to do and just pushing on through. It’s the dam, and now the dam is breaking and she’s not happy. And I’m like, oh, no, I–Oh. And I’m starting to literally receive notifications from her, in the moment; the moment I step over a boundary, the moment I step over a value, the moment I’m like, I’m about to say yes to something that’s not good for me, I feel intense pain, and I’m like, I think I think it’s time to listen. It’s time to listen. So…
Tania Anaissie
Oh my gosh…
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Thank goodness for the bodies that keep us together…I love you, body
Tania Anaissie
Thank you! That’s what I’m saying during COVID. I was like, Look at you. Good job. Look at you fighting this virus. I’m so proud of you. Okay, well, this other podcast I guess everybody’s gonna hear now, but I was just gonna share with you. Okay, I went with my partner to see this amazing acrobatic show of people who used to be formally Cirque do Soleil, and just like, absolutely mind boggling performance. And then I went home and cried, because I was feeling so weak with COVID I was like, my body can’t do that. And I was just feeling a lot of things that, you know, we’re all temporarily abled. And I was just feeling so much of like, oh, this is something that like I need to learn from, and feel my way through. It has been. Yeah, very interesting. But I’m really inspired by how you’re listening to your body. It’s like; it’s like there’s another person in there, like your higher self.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Literally–now, I’ve apparently just shut her down. And she’s like, nope, not coming out. That’s right. You’re old enough. Now you’re an adult, you should be a proper adult, you’re gonna be 40 You better listen.
Tania Anaissie
You’ve got the resources and the time… Now, there’s no excuse.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yes, yes. Oh, goodness. Okay, well, taking a little bit back to to our day to day work and trying to function in a white centered status quo. What role if any, does data play in laboratory design? And what are the biggest challenges that you have when data comes into play?
Tania Anaissie
I would say data–when we’ve been working with partners, this is something that I have learned a lot from them; of like, what role does data play? And I would say in really huge systems, or we’re talking about like, let’s design with community and that community’s, a million people or more. I know you know a lot about this data can be helpful to just help us know even where to start, or if we’re looking at inequity and disparity like, is there some cross section of intersectionality where we know people are getting hurt or they’re not being served? So I feel like data, I describe as like showing us where to flash the flashlight, just like it’s like giving us a signal of where to start. So it might tell us what’s happening, but not why it’s happening. And then so much of the, you know, your background, the qualitative research, the exploration, that can tell us more why and help us say, Okay, this community is being hurt, but they’re incredibly diverse, like, why and how, and… So I think data is a way to, in a complex system, like help us see more than we would and help us know where to focus. And then on the flip side of the value of the qualitative work is, yeah, like I said, so I feel like they interplay with each other. And I think the main challenge is when people use only data or data to replace design, and say, like, they’ll jump from, I see this pattern in the data, therefore the solution is this. And then it creates a cycle of like, no, that didn’t work. Why is the data still happening? Oh, something else having the data? Oh, no. So we try to encourage people to not make it the absolute truth, but rather like a starting point. And on the flip side, you make a design, you put it out in the world, you need to know at scale, like how it’s doing, and real talk how it’s impacting people. So I think they’re very good friends. But maybe an isolation can be weaker than they are together. What’s your take? How do you work with data?
Dédé Tetsubayashi
So, we consider and I personally consider everything to be data.
Tania Anaissie
Oh, cool!
Dédé Tetsubayashi
And data isn’t necessarily negative or positive. And I think that that’s something that’s not necessarily believed in Silicon Valley in a lot of corporate environments, because especially in tech, people want to say, we are using, we’re making data driven decisions. Unfortunately, they have a ton of data. But they don’t know what the data is actually telling them. So they have a bunch of information, they don’t necessarily know how to interpret that information. And they don’t know who they need to have it to do, who they need to partner with, to understand that data. So it has to be a combination of people with qualitative skills and quantitative skills, you need to be able to understand, of course, the percentage, the numbers, the sheer concrete numbers of what is happening where, and as you said, then you need the folks who have the understanding whether they’re a part of those communities, or in partnership with those communities that are impacted, whose data you’ve collected, to be able to shine a light and understand. Okay, so something’s happening here, but what exactly is happening? Is it something that we’re causing to occur? Or is it something that others on the platform are causing to occur? Is this between person and person on the platform? Is this something that’s introduced the product creators? Or is it something that’s being introduced? Based on the actual data that we have? Are we collecting the right kind of data to answer the kind of questions that we’re asking? So for me data is, it’s neutral, but the context is everything. And who looks at that data and the story that they tell with that data is the critical piece, because most people want to use data to already confirm a preconceived notion rather than coming into a scenario thinking, let’s bring everybody together. Let’s bring researchers, designers, policymakers, security people, engineers, product folks, like everyone, the community members who are actually impacted, to take a look at whatever we think we’re seeing, and then have a conversation about what is it we’re seeing, what can we do about it? And is it something that we actually need to do something about? Is it telling us that we’re doing something wrong? Or is it telling us that we’re doing something that we should continue to try to push forward and do more of. The challenges that I have, are the people who want that data. So there are power dynamics in every environment that we walk into, and mostly, the people who are experiencing the outcomes of the product, from whom we’re gathering that information, don’t necessarily care about the data. They will continue to give us feedback if we’re receptive, and if we’re actually partners. If we’re not, they won’t share anything with us except the bare numbers. But everyone who is in a position of power– most usually executive leadership or those who are making decisions about what happens with that information, don’t have the qualifications to interpret the information and yet, they want all of that information. And when you don’t give it to them, there are meltdowns and temper tantrums, and it’s incredibly important to separate who has access to that information because there are key components of people’s personal identities, private information and vulnerability encoded into any kind of data that you have. And if you have the group who is in the, let’s say, the majority group or the normal status quo group, who also happen to be the ones who are decision-makers and leaders and the ones with the power to determine what the outcomes are to… or the impact on the communities who are actually already being impacted by that collection of data.
It’s like putting sensitive information in the hands of the people who are going to use that to tear you down. So it’s very important for me to keep that information separate, and to work with those who actually don’t have preconceived notions about what story that data is telling us, and are coming in with curiosity and openness and transparency…to work with the people who are providing us that information to then decide, what can we do with this information? What exactly are you trying to convey to us? And are we actually getting the message if we’re not receiving the message? That’s where we need to focus? Why are we not getting that message?
Tania Anaissie
That’s fascinating. I think it speaks so much to the complexity that was required in human systems, the way you were describing that if, like, who and what, and what could it mean, and the protection layers, and I think that is where it clashes– what I’ve seen, with urgency. Like we have the data, okay, decision made! And then it’s like, oh, no, I’ve been in that situation before where we did some research, and then we gave it to folks, they’re like, okay, cool, we executed– bye! And we were like, no, what have I done?! Yes, there needs to be like five steps before that! So I appreciate the way you think about that. I think… have you found partners that when you structure it that way, they’re aligned, like yes, I see why we want to do it this way, or are folks still pushing back?
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Folks, still push back, but yes, we do also find partners, especially if we have spent the time to give them the context of why we’re separating that information and how it’s going to, in the end, benefit them, if they’re not the ones directly connected to that information. But there’s always pushback because people want to know, they’re like, well, I need to know, I, well, if I don’t know, how can I make a decision. For example, if you’re looking at information that you don’t have the complete context for, you’re going to make conclusions that are erroneous, that are not correlated to that information. So you’re going to be like, Oh, these people, ABC, people are actually doing this, so we need to focus only on those people. Rather than thinking about the holistic picture, actually, everyone is part of this entire systematic process, so if some people are experiencing harm, we need to figure out why those particular people are experiencing harm and work with those people to figure out what’s going to benefit them. And by extension, the larger support group around them, not just solve for everyone who’s going to be able to equally access whatever information you have.
Tania Anaissie
I hear that, wow, fascinating.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
People like to– I mean, we’re humans, we make faulty correlations, and jump to erroneous conclusions all the time. Because we don’t know what other people are actually trying to tell us. And if we’re not in a safe space, in a place where we feel as though we’re in a place of trust, and can be vulnerable, we’re not going to–we’re not ever going to be able to build the relationship whereby we can share information back and forth and lead with intentional curiosity.
Tania Anaissie
I feel like it just brings me back to like how complicated it is even for two humans to understand each other. I feel like I’ve had conversations recently with my partner and like, I thought when you said that, that you meant this about me, I’m like, not at all Oh. Wonder why it takes so much work to understand each other, but that’s– that’s the joy of it, too, it’s like that’s why we do this work, y’know.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
All right. So Tania, it’s been lovely. I would like to invite you to share any information that you would like to about upcoming work or any any information that you’d like to share with our audience about Beytna Design or about yourself and let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to share with the audience as a conclusion.
Tania Anaissie
Rad! Yeah. Well, I would say we’re launching some free community events to talk about what is liberatory design — Yes, coming up this summer, led by Clanci, on our team. So I just invite people on our website, they can join our newsletter, there, we’re always talking about… I’m doing a presentation remotely for a group in Sydney that’s open to the public, we’re presenting at the Allied Media Conference, we’re doing a session inspired by Octavia Butler. So if people want to come talk about like the future, the liberated future. So there’s tons of events that are always happening, so we just invite people to join the newsletter. And if they want to understand like how Beytna might be able to support them with redesigning products or programs or services, of course, they can also reach out to us on the website, but we just want as many people as possible to have access to liberatory design and to make it their own. That’s our dream.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
Fabulous. Thank you for sharing that with us. And, as usual, it’s been a pleasure.
Tania Anaissie
Thank you so much. I had a blast. I really appreciate it.
Dédé Tetsubayashi
You can come back any day!
Show Notes:
The National Equity Project: https://www.nationalequityproject.org
The Allied Media Conference: https://amc.alliedmedia.org
Beytna Design and home of the Beytna Design newsletter: https://www.beytnadesign.com
Liberatory Design deck for purchase here: https://www.liberatorydesign.com
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