‘ความอุ่นใจ (Kharm Unn Jai)’: honouring transcultural experiences in supporting women

Khemmiga Teerapong*, Ko-Le Chen, Yoko Akama, Sarah Kushinsky, Jun Yi Mah, Sarah Teasley, Joyce Yee, Yuko Kikuchi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper presents autoethnographic accounts from women design researchers, each sharing their culturally grounded approaches to support women in a transcultural mentoring programme. The authors examine the concepts of ‘safety’ and ‘safe spaces’, by unpacking these terms through decolonial perspectives. The paper’s title ความอุ่นใจ (Karm Unn Jai), roughly meaning warm hearted, represents the first author’s state of being, relating and co-becoming during the programme and became an invitation for all authors to reflect on diverse personal experiences of safety. This paper offers six reflections on atmospheric and felt dimensions of codesign practice as prompts for readers’ own explorations. Their differences and resonances point towards the intersectional positionalities and relationalities that comprise codesigning, rather than collapsing them under generic guidelines for designing ‘safety’ or ‘safe spaces’. We highlight the transcultural emergence of trust and kindness, and expand the scholarship on inclusivity in multilingual and multicultural contexts. This work advocates for a more nuanced understanding of codesigning that recognises and values diverse lifeworlds, thereby contributing to efforts in decolonising and pluralising codesign discourse.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-16
Number of pages16
JournalCoDesign
Early online date21 Jan 2025
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 21 Jan 2025

Keywords

  • co-design
  • participatory design
  • mentoring
  • asia-pacific
  • transcultural women
  • auto-ethnography
  • decolonising
  • Autoethnography
  • codesign

Cite this