Mapping What Systems Cannot Say
A methodological hypothesis for decolonial systemic design in gender-based violence work in Cambodia.
- Role
- Author, corresponding author and presenter; University of Aveiro affiliation
- Venue
- RSD15, Relating Systems Thinking and Design, "Shades of Systemic Design", Turin, October 2026; paper talk given online, 9 October 2026
- Keywords
- Systemic design; gender-based violence; arts-based research; decolonial methodologies; epistemic justice
- Status
- Published in the RSD15 proceedings
argument
Arts-based multimodal inquiry, body-map storytelling after Gastaldo et al., smaller-format analog drawings and collective interpretation, proposed as a trauma-informed complement to text-based systemic maps in GBV response work.
position
The paper works through Cambodian idioms that service maps flatten: Chbab Srey, the code of conduct for women; baksbat, "broken courage"; khyâl, a somatic idiom of distress. It includes a reflexive family vignette about the author's grandfather, killed under the Khmer Rouge, and the photographs her mother narrates and reshares online.