The document explores the intersection of design and memory practices among Namibian youth in a post-colonial context, focusing on participatory approaches for shaping future narratives. It emphasizes the role of design anthropology in fostering collaboration and transformation through digital and cultural interventions. Key research questions address the impact of past memories on present youth and the creation of alternative future-oriented narratives.

1. [Connectivities built by people and groups]
Future Memory Making: Prototyping Post-Colonial
Imaginations with the Namibian Youth
Assist. Prof. Rachel C. Smith and PhD Asnath Paula Kambunga
/with
Prof. Ton Otto and Prof. Heike Winshiers-Theophilus
Knowledge Hub 1 | Hamburg, 14. Dec. 2018

2. Designing
Futures
of Heritage
Participatory and digital cultures ‘change the complex set of
memory practices through which we give meaning to the
past in the present and thus shape our image of the future’
(Giaccardi & Plate 2018: 65, Giaccardi 2012)
Futures understood ‘as collaborative explorations of situated
possibilities, formations and actions at the intersection of
design and everyday life’ (Kjærsgaard et al. 2016: 1)
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3. “We call this toilet valley”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38905195
Digital Natives:
Designing
Heritage for a
Digital Age

4. Anthropology Design
Cultural reality Potential futures
Participants observation Design Intervention
Description Action
Reflexivity Collaboration
Past-present-future Future-making
(Smith 2013)
‘A distinct style of knowing’
Emergence and intervention into socio-technical worlds
Oriented towards change and transformation
Complex roles of researchers, facilitators, co-creators
Critical holistic (re)framing and engagement
(Otto & Smith 2013, Smith & Otto 2016, Balsamo 2011, Ehn et al. 2014)
Interventionist Design Anthropology
Designing cultures and making futures

5. Anthropology Design
Cultural reality Potential futures
Participants observation Design Intervention
Description Action
Reflexivity Collaboration
Past-present-future Future-making
(Smith 2013)
‘Hybrid Third Space of participation’
Boundary regions of understanding
Unpredictable and dynamic inbetweenness
Dialogues across and within differences
(Muller 1999, Bhabha 1994, Akama et al. 2015, Winschiers-Theophilus et al. 2018,
Mainsah & Morrison 2014)
Participatory Design of Alternative Futures
Designing cultures and making futures

6. ‘There is something
to be learnt from
those who were
born free. The
young Namibians
who carry the
hopes of the nation
on backs never
beaten or bent by
the tyranny of
colonialism and
apartheid’
Post-Colonial Namibian Context

7. “We call this toilet valley”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-38905195
Future Memory
Making:
Prototyping
Post-Colonial
Imaginations
Artist: Juergen Sieck

8. Future Memory
Making:
Prototyping
Post-Colonial
Imaginations
Research questions?
• How does memories of everyday postcolonialism affect the youth present?
• How can alternative and future oriented narratives and representations be
created, prototyped and designed based on present resources, materials
and digital technologies
• What might participatory approaches to future memory making contribute
to new ways of making futures

9. Thank you!
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