Analyzing Resources through the Lens of the Community

Connection to Tech Comm

Chris Lindgren, Marissa Buccilli, and Amilia Evans shared the analytical model behind their “Socially Just Content Strategy.” They are working with Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq on rematriation of Inuit knowledges (and there’s lots more on what goes into this work, but I stupidly did not write down enough notes on it).

What stuck with me was their system of landscape analysis, which considers how/if website design fit with the needs and ways of thinking and knowing of the readers the site. They use a three-part metric that examines (1) accessibility, (2) positionality, and (3) overall impressions. In small groups, we practiced using the analysis on the Passamaquoddy People: At Home on the Ocean and Lakes website. We worked through the site and considered how Passamaquoddy people would use the site, recording information in a spreadsheet.

As I considered the pages, I realized that this analysis strategy belonged in the community action work. Likely not in the exact form as Lindren, Buccilli, and Evans use it, yet students would very much need to consider the existing resources that a community has through the lens of that community. Further, the resources that they might make for the community must attend to the same issues. If the community action materials students create do not it the ways of thinking, knowing, and acting, they will be useless to that community—regardless of whether they are on point for the mission and message of the community.