Present Day //
Detail of Ben Quilty’s ‘Self-portrait after Afghanistan’, 2012. Captured at his recent exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Locating yourself as a researcher is an important component of academic work. It’s a rather fascinating component at that, as its necessity reflects the fact that none of us are without bias or blindspots. The best we can do, then, is to acknowledge them.

As I near the end of the PhD, I’ve taken this locating of myself a few steps further than required – all the way back to birth, in fact. As an Appalachian American, I’ve seen plenty of people’s needs go unidentified and unmet. Perhaps this is what drew me to human-centred design as a topic of research. Certainly the work ethic I learned growing up in West Virginia is what has kept me going. It won’t appear in any of my journal articles, so this note will have to serve as my acknowledgement.