Auricle
The Context
Increasingly countries, cities and communities around the globe want to know if people are happy and well. Current methods try to quantify happiness and wellbeing using standardized scales or generic indicators (like access to parks or primary care doctors). But, the indicators don’t tell us how happy or well people feel and standardized scales hold different meanings to different people based on their own lived experiences.
Ancient and intuitive wisdom tells us that wellbeing is about more than the absence of illness or the presence of material things. Wellbeing is personal, rooted in the different connections we feel: to ourselves and our bodies, to the land, to family and community, to the sacred, to culture, and to the human project of finding purpose and self-actualization.
We know that many individuals, particularly those from marginalized groups, face systemic barriers to participating in these sorts of civic processes and that “data collection” as it’s typically practiced has a long history of extraction and exploitation. We respectfully acknowledge that Indigenous Peoples of these lands have long been the objects of research that has taken ‘data’ out of context to tell stories that reflect researchers’ beliefs and philosophies, often dehumanizing and reflecting at best partial understandings that reduce the complexity of culture. That kind of research becomes a tool of colonization which Indigenous peoples have long resisted by continuing to tell their own stories, and assign their own meanings to those stories. We seek to discontinue that legacy.
The central question for this prototype is: what would it look like for a city to engage citizens in more humble and authentic ways, deeply listening and understanding what wellbeing means to them?
Relation to RECOVER’s Wellbeing Framework
Targeted Outcomes: connections to community and the human project
Tools/Levers: knowledge & meanings, frames & narratives, and roles & resources
What We Did in 2021
Took a deep dive researching existing wellbeing and happiness measures being used around the world… and found them to be lacking
Engaged in learning and unlearning around decolonizing data
Created and tested a new role called a Local Listener
Recruited ten people from the Alberta Avenue neighbourhood as Local Listeners
Oriented our ten Local Listeners on how to respectfully and warmly engage neighbours who might experience barriers to participation
Recruited a Sounding Board made-up of scholars and practitioners, with a background in community-based research, wellbeing, data visualization, and intercultural approaches to data ownership and sense-making, to advise on the Local Listener role and processes
Created a public-facing website, brand identity, and narrative
Through the 10 Local Listeners, collected 150+ stories from people in the Alberta Avenue neighbourhood. People were invited to share their stories and tell the Local Listeners what the stories meant to them
Hosted an “event” called Knowsy Fest, where the stories were shared back with the Alberta Avenue community, and people were invited to explore the data (stories); consider what the data might mean; and imagine where the data could be used in the future
What We Learned in 2021
Social factors were the most cited factors influencing wellbeing (vs material or environmental factors).
Small moments make a difference.
The act of collecting data using Local Listeners was an intervention in and of itself. Collecting data in this way generated moments of wellbeing for residents.
Wellbeing is not a destination, something that people acquire… it is more of a journey and it can fluctuate.
There is no single truth to uncover; instead, there are multiple truths and infinite ways of being and knowing in the world. We stepped away from the practice of collapsing information into one, dominant story, and tried to learn how to attend to many experiences. Commonly used terms, including “wellbeing” & “wellness” are not well defined and are subjective. Existing measures give the illusion of certainty and validity.
Wellbeing is personal, rooted in the different connections we feel: to ourselves and our bodies, to the land, to family and community, to the sacred, to culture, and to the human project of finding purpose and self-actualization.
There is a great deal of curiosity about this particular prototype from others in the City of Edmonton organization who are also wrestling with engagement, measurement and evaluation. There is a particularly interesting applicability of the learnings that emerge from this prototype to activities that support the implementation of the City Plan, specifically the Inclusive and Compassionate big city move.
Here is a collection of reflections and learnings about Auricle in Alberta Avenue.
Where to From Here
We will get working on the next iteration of Auricle again in 2023. It will be tested in transit spaces in support of transit safety and wellbeing.
Here is a collection of reflections and learnings about Auricle in Alberta Avenue.
In 2021, this prototype was done in partnership with InWithForward and MacEwan University, as well as with support from Mitacs.
For more information about this work, visit InWithForward’s Auricle website.
For more information about measuring wellbeing, check out this brief that is on our Evaluation and Reports tab.