Temporal Tensions in Digital Story Mapping for Housing Justice: Rethinking Time and Technology in Community-Based Design

Brett Halperin, Human Centered Design and Engineering and Erin McElroy, Geography

In this paper, we explore temporal and technological conjunctures of community-based design responsiveness based upon our experiences of making an interactive digital story map amid housing crises. Through reflexive ethnographic work with the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, we trace three intertwined genres of temporality in our community-based design process: slow design with care; rapid design in response to the urgency of crises; and disruptive design that seeps in from Silicon Valley, proving to "move fast and break things.'' We assess temporal tensions and contradictions in an evolving data landscape by examining struggles over our pace of practice, time-based media lifecycles, and tooling trade-offs. Theorizing community-based design dilemmas, we contemplate ways of mindfully designing with time, making the past present via digital storytelling, and reimagining technological relations over time.