When the Community Is Your Evidence – Participatory Research with AI-Governed Communities

IAS Residential Fellow Ms Crystal Bitutu Isanda delivers a workshop for Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) - 

This workshop introduces doctoral researchers to participatory foresight as a tool for researching communities governed by AI systems they cannot meaningfully challenge. Drawing on the UNICEF Innocenti Youth Foresight methodology and its application with school communities in Nairobi, the session demonstrates how one foresight instrument — the futures wheel — can be adapted for communities with limited institutional literacy, producing scholarly evidence and community-facing outputs in the same process, with the adaptation principles applicable across foresight methodologies more broadly. The session focuses on one central design challenge: making foresight instruments work for communities whose futures are being shaped by systems they did not choose. Participants work through a structured adaptation exercise and leave with a practical approach for applying participatory foresight to their own research contexts, wherever communities are ahead of the institutions governing them. Practical, discussion-based, grounded in fieldwork.

Arrivals from 1:45 pm for a 2:00 pm start. 

This event is hybrid format, please use the required booking button at the bottom of the page to choose either in-person or online attendance.
(Please note that in-person spaces are limited and booking is required, so we can manage numbers for catering and also the space in the seminar room)

By booking a place at this event, attendees agree to behave in a respectful manner such that everyone feels comfortable contributing as they wish. The IAS reserves the right to eject anyone who does not abide by this policy.

IAS seminars are typically recorded, minus any Q&A sessions at the end, again to encourage contributions. The recordings are then uploaded to our website on a Fellows bio page and/or Programme page, along with our IAS YouTube Channel. If you are not able to attend a seminar live, please do still register for the Teams webinar, as we will email everyone who registered to let them know once the recordings are made available.