In 1995, the World Summit for Social Development identified social integration as one of the three overriding objectives for social and economic development. This priority rose from a century that has ended with the collapse of many states and the sharpening of many strifes around the world. Therefore, social integration is seen as a pathway to reinforcing common identities, supporting cooperation and lessening the likelihood of violence and conflict. For the past 15 years, international, public, academic and third sector organisations ventured into tackling this issue, however methods for social integration interventions remain at the level of policy making and lack collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches at grassroots. Additionally, although conflict is always affected by communication, Jorge Frascara and Bernard Pompëy agree that the contribution that the communication design discipline can offer to social integration interventions remains unexplored.
This practice-led research case studies segregated youth in Lebanon, through an innovative interdisciplinary (drawing on sociology, political science, psychology and design) and collaborative (engaging audience, civil society, authorities and experts) approach to explore the potential of the communication design discipline in affecting social integration. The research addresses the extreme case of a politically, religiously, geographically, culturally and linguistically segregated youth in Lebanon, to inform the development of a set of communication design guidelines transferable across other socially segregated communities worldwide.
The interdisciplinary and collaborative research process spans through seven stages of practice to ensure meaningful, effective, empathic, ethical and sustainable outcomes: Discover, delve, define, develop, deliver, determine impact and diverge. This process builds upon the Design Council’s Double Diamond design process by incorporating stages from Frascara’s and the National Social Marketing Centre’s processes. Innovative communication design methods developed throughout this research are: Explorations, a cultural probes toolkit; Connections, an effective networking and recruiting method; Expressions Corner, a confidential diary room for virtual interviews; Road Trip, a ten-day ethnographic journey, and Imagination Clinic, a co-creation workshop. These methods enhance honest participant input, reduce ethical tensions, contribute to improved participant engagement experiences beyond the usual data-gathering objectives of research methods, and empower participants with ownership of their opinions and ideas.
The outcome of this practice-led research is a set of communication design guidelines – aimed at researchers and practitioners in design, sociology and/or politics fields – demonstrating how the innovative methods may be adapted to address segregation in different societies. The guidelines are supported with a multi-modal documentation of the case study practice, and this online blog to support peer-to-peer discourse.
how can the lebanese learn how to transcend their confessional affiliations and discover a common ground that ties them together? while affinities for a given kind of music/movies, loving the same brand of beer, sexcraze or the fiendish need to party are common denominators that could tie the lebanese, those are certainly NOT the grounds that i’m talking about.
during my MA study, i tackled this problem without seeking to alienate my audience;
so the medium that seemed (at least for me) most adequate for this mission, was illustration- i could point out the mess through an illustrated comic and people would take the comment with a laugh.
after more than 2 years since finishing my project i got depressed and disgusted by the lebanese to the point i almost felt ashamed of my nationality. right now i only feel numb. a while ago i thought that maybe the only way to unite the lebanese is to persecute them, WWII style. the jews for example, are a people that’ve been persecuted all their life and they’re just a handful. yet they control the world. because they faced the risk of being wiped out. should we face the same risk, we might forget that we’re sunni or maronite or druze and start behaving like lebanese. a recent example of unity was the hezbollah successfully ruining the israelis attempt to breach their ranks (battle of lebanon 2006) despite superior firepower, numbers and technology.
that’s bleak to say that, i know, so i hope you attack this beast with more optimism than I.
cheerios
JH
Hello Josef,
I knew that you were focusing on illustration during your MA, but I didn’t know that you were researching a common ground for a Lebanese identity. I would love to see the comics you produced. Is there any link that I can access to view them? and do you consider publishing them? The Lebanese audience is very receptive towards humour and paradox regarding the social crisis… an example of this is the success of Ziad Rahbani’s political comedies.
I am confident that there is a lot to be optimistic about. I think there is a general will for people to accept one another, and they only need a means or platform to communicate. The demography, education, employment structures, marriage constrictions, etc… limit that interaction, but I am hopeful that the communities would like to get to know one another through other communication means which facilitate that.
hi joanna
read “Never is the name of my homeland” on category (politics/finance Today) concerning how immigrant lebanese might feel and view Lebanon
Hi adonis,
I will do that. I ordered two books yesterday. The first is A History of Modern Lebanon by Traboulsi, and the Second is The Modern History of Lebanon by Salibi.
Hi! very deep!