Moving away from Erindi-roukambe: Transferability of a rural community-based co-design

It has become increasingly clear that situated design and contextualized research needs to undergo a validation phase to determine transferability. Within our longitudinal research project in rural Namibia, we have reached a maturity of methods and product. Yet little do we know about their validity beyond the limited context in the absence of cross-contextual verification. In Erindi-roukambe, the site of our community-based co-design, we have learned to understand and include local perspectives and structures within the dialogic of a participatory action research approach. By engaging with the community over a long period of time local research findings, as well as mutual knowledge have fostered and enriched design decisions. Recognizing that indigenous rural communities in the regional and globally face similar challenges with inappropriate mainstream technology we are currently investigating the applicability of our findings, processes and prototype in other contexts. We have introduced our approach at three other rural sites, two in Namibia and one in East Malaysia. The communities responded well to the technology demonstrating intuitive use and engagement. However, although we have gained promising results we wish to caution pre-mature conclusions on transferability without a more profound understanding of the depth of community engagement, transformation, contextual similarities, and cross-contextual validation.