Exploiting Common Reference Points in Physical Devices

Problem: International policy makers are responsible for helping people with whom they share very little in common with. "Improved Decision Making" is trying to enable children in the west bank create short videos about what concerns them.

Idea: To give children a doll/toy etc that they will (hopefully) care about.. and that records video/audio from the child-doll interaction so that later viewers can have a glimpse what its like to be (and cared about) by that child. The common reference point in this case would be the doll. Western policymakers might be able to see how other children's lives are different by relation to their interaction with the doll.

Problems: Privacy -- it should definitely be clear that it is also a recording device. Also, this could generate a lot of footage.

Offshoot Ideas: Other ways to leverage common experiences into a physical device? It seems like this might be a rich area. Maybe a heavy camera that encourages people to only record when something is really important to them? (potentially giving the viewer a sense of weight to the footage)

Inspiration: Deepti Rohatgi's "Improved Decision Making" DV project

Notes: With the recent Hamas victory in the Palestinian territories, this project is being moved to Brazil (and its also with teenagers, not young children -- Scott and I learned this in meeting with Deepti yesterday)