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Short abstract:

My project is a methodological inquiry, exploring the multidisciplinary methods of community-based participatory research and a community-led co-design through a lens of disability design justice (Costanza-Chock, 2020), and the ethics of democratic process within digital government (Troon, 2024).

Long abstract:

I will conduct a methodological inquiry, exploring the multidisciplinary methods of community-based participatory research and community-led co-design through a lens of disability design justice (Costanza-Chock, 2020), and discussing the ethics of democratic process in a world-making through co-design research methodology. I will use reflexive autoethnographic analysis on a case study of co-design sessions led by OCAD to create digital accessibility standards and guidelines and its co-design format with blind and partially sighted participants. The normative assumptions and biases are often embedded in the design of technologies and infrastructure as well as in the process of design (Costanza-Chock, 2020), posing the question of whose knowledge, values, and experiences are imbricated in technology addressed for people with disabilities, and underlying power dynamics within the space of technology development. This analysis will be informed by the concept of disability dongle (Jackson, 2022), technoableism (Shew, 2023), and design justice (Costanza-Chock, 2020). Following this, my project explores the challenges and possibilities implicated in the process of disability co-design modalities and knowledge creation within the concept of digital government (Troon, 2024). In doing so, I will explicate why a co-design process that invites users’ opinions and input into the development of assistive technologies often fails to produce usable solutions and perpetuates the structural disposition towards normative discourses within the realm of inclusive digital governance. Following this, alternative models of co-design will be suggested using the principles of design justice participatory research and decolonializing research methodologies.