Auricle is a new way to tune in to our community and learn about what matters most. It is a prototype that tests how a network of Edmontonians who listen to each other’s experiences of safety and wellbeing can use the power of story to bring people together. This year, we are testing it in transit spaces in support of transit safety and wellbeing.
If we asked you to tell us how safe you feel, on a scale of 1 to 10, we wouldn’t know exactly what the numbers say. Is your version of safety and wellbeing the same as the person next to you? With Auricle, you tell us what safety and wellbeing means, and how community can shape it.
A lot of research uses standardized scales, and we know that with standardization, we can’t really know how safe or well people feel relative to each other, as these concepts hold different meanings to different people based on their own lived experiences.
We know that many individuals, particularly those from marginalized groups, face systemic barriers to participating in civic engagement 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 safety and 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
We first tested Auricle in 2021 in the Alberta Avenue neighbourhood. This is the 2021 Auricle page with information on what we did.
What We Learned in 2021
Commonly used terms, including “wellbeing” & “wellness” are not well defined and are subjective. Existing measures give the illusion of certainty and validity.
Broad surveying and averaging practices eliminate nuance and localized findings. Context of data is lost and aggregated to the extent that it is virtually meaningless.
There is no single truth to uncover; instead, there are multiple truths and infinite ways of being and knowing in the world. We’re stepping away from the practice of collapsing information into one, dominant story, and learning how to attend to many experiences.
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.
What Happened in 2023
We recruited 9 people to be Local Listeners in this round of Auricle. More information can be found here: www.auricle.info/join.
We tested the Local Listener role again while collecting stories of safety and wellbeing in transit spaces. This work is a complement to larger quantitative data collection initiatives which are part of the City of Edmonton’s Enhanced Transit Safety Plan. Our Local Listeners collected 175 stories from a variety of people in three transit stations: Clareview, Churchill and Jasper Place. We hosted Knowsy Fest (celebration of the data and an opportunity to invite people to help with sense-making) in the three transit centres. All were invited to come read and listen to the stories and help make sense of them! Collectively, the stories presented a more nuanced picture of how people experience transit spaces and what draws people to them. Through the stories collected by Local Listeners, we sought to understand the aspects and context of transit safety not told by the current data that was available. We hoped to come away with a few ideas for prototypes and initiatives to try to address some of the challenges we have seen in transit spaces (and those that we have not seen but this research can uncover).
What We Learned in 2023
We learned much through the round of Auricle in transit spaces. A summary of what we learned can be found here. Below are some highlights. We learned:
how Auricle can broaden the stories told about transit, and uncover multiple perspectives and narratives — The stories collected trended on the positive side. The plurality of stories offered a more fulsome narrative about transit in Edmonton.
that the types of wellbeing varies by location/station.
that the culture and norms of transit spaces, as well as other people’s presence and behaviour, mattered a lot more in people’s stories than the infrastructure. On top of this, the role people played in their stories made a huge difference to whether or not they interpreted their story in a positive way. Some stories underlined the importance of interactions with bus drivers… many already make a big difference in peoples’ experiences and perceptions of wellbeing and safety.
how to reimagine the Local Listener role in the context of busy transit spaces. We also learned how we could attract, select and support people in this new role. — And then we learned that Local Listeners loved playing this role, connecting with strangers in transit. On top of this, we learned that transit users appreciated this role. Some said they experienced catharsis in feeling heard.
how we could broaden our activation strategies and engagement tactics in the transit space which is quite transient. We learned what sort of things worked to attract people to our activations and engage - spectacle and surprising elements worked well! Hospitality matters. We learned that the act of collecting stories with Local Listeners was also an intervention that improved feelings of safety and wellbeing. This data collection method is also an intervention!
that there is an appetite for more engagement. Given the depth of data we have, there is a real opportunity for continued sense-making. It would also make sense to spend more time socializing the data with various stakeholders. For example, it would be great for bus drivers to hear about the ways they make a positive difference in peoples’ lives. This round did not provide enough space to see the depth of the data.
What’s Next?
We hope to take a deeper dive with Auricle in transit spaces in 2024. There are three elements that we could explore:
spending more time with sense-making with community. This involves doing more activations.
conducting workshops that help stakeholders and policy makers to better understand the data, to build capacity and translate the data into more practical actions.
gathering more stories - possibly in other transit stations - and then adding this to the sense-making, understanding and translating above.
Here is a collection of reflections and learnings about Auricle in Transit and here is the one for Alberta Avenue.
In 2023, this prototype was done in partnership with the City of Edmonton’s Transit Safety Team, InWithForward and REACH Edmonton.
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.