Taking a walk for sustainability
- Partners: ARUA Climate Change and Inequalities Symposium 2023, Kapstadt
- Topics: Sustainability, Diversity, Ecological Justice, and Climate Change
- Key Actors: Researcher and Conference Participants
- Outputs: Field Estimeter
- Timespan: February 2023
Want to hear how can participatory formats promote innovative exchange at international conferences and make diverse perspectives visible?
Listen to the audio walk.
The ARUA Climate Change and Inequalities Symposium
The international climate conference in Cape Town brought together many, many scientists, primarily from African countries, to address the pressing challenges of the climate crisis and its associated inequalities: from leveling access to energy, water and waste disposal to unequal protection against the effects of extreme weather events and the resulting disasters.
High Complexity
Specialist conferences like the ARUA must pack a lot of complex content into a dense program. This often makes it difficult for participants to actively immerse themselves in the topics, which in turn impairs exchange and understanding. In response to this dilemma, we developed the interactive audio walk and the field estimator method. The audio walk encouraged participants to contribute their perspectives actively and thus integrate the complexity of their views into the conference discourse.
Unusual Insights
With the Field Estimeter, we offered participants a means of visualizing expectations and insights.
A mood board was created, via Padlet, to which everyone contributed; this brought to the fore participant diversity and the oft-overheard voices of soft-spoken or reticent individuals. This method shed light on the wide variety of cultural perspectives, but also revealed how exclusion and inequality are perceived differently. Our integrative approach promotes a multi-layered and more inclusive research practice.
And now?
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Miriam Lahusen (she/her)
miriam@kite.designMiriam is a co-founder and managing director at KITE. In her role as CFO (Chief Financial Officer), she is responsible for the company's finances. Her focus areas include participatory methodology and social sustainability.
She began her career in textile design, later specializing in sustainable design research at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). She studied at the Berlin Weißensee Academy of Art and completed semesters abroad in Casablanca and Havana. She graduated with a project on sustainable development in cooperation with the Institut Futur of the Free University (FU) Berlin.