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South America has a strong design culture. The region counts with a long tradition of professional practice in different design spaces, such as graphic, industrial; and product design (Fernández & Bonsiepe, 2008) and academic endeavors represented in local conferences that have been running for several years that explore more recent spaces such as interaction design and human computer interaction among others (e.g., Gomes, 2011; IxDA Latin America, 2014; SIGraDi, 2014). These efforts have provided the basis for the development of local design traditions that albeit similar, obey to the particular situation of each country, e.g., the return of democracy to Argentina (Fernández, 2008) or the Colombian economic aperture from the 90’s (Franky, 2008) among many others. In some cases, the research work developed in South America in interaction design and Human Computer Interaction places an accent in understanding how local research communities and approaches are addressing regional and local issues, including cultural nuances (e.g., Gasparini, Kimura, de Moraes Junior, Pimenta, & de Oliveira, 2013; Gasparini, Pimenta, & Oliveira, 2011; Salgado, Souza, & Leitão, 2011), the lack of connections between the government, industry and academia (Collazos & Merchan, 2015), exploring design tools (Guimarães, Carvalho, & Furtado, 2011) and the relevance of foreign models adapted to the local context (Kapp & Baltazar, 2012), and further proposing agendas for establishing the potential of applying subfields such as interaction design to South American cities (Parra-Agudelo, 2011). By considering the differences and similarities in South American countries (Fernández & Bonsiepe, 2008), we set out to identify some of the key issues of developing research projects that respond to the particular subtleties of the region and each country, as well as those elements that are common between South American nations. Furthermore, we have an interest in gaining an understanding about how to approach a design research project in the region. MethodologyWe collected eight questionnaires during a main paper session at the annual conference of the Ibero-American Society of Digital Graphics (SIGraDi) that was held in Montevideo, Uruguay in 2014. We collected the questionnaires after introducing our current work and interests, namely, applying design processes in the Latin American urban grassroots context, and discussing future research paths that focus on social entrepreneurship in the region. In addition, we collected seven semi-structured interviews from South American design experts that work at the intersection of design, community and technology.The questionnaires included one open and four closed questions. The first question had two components that asked about the unique conditions of doing design research in the Latin American context and the key challenges and opportunities of working in design research in the region. The closed questions had two main purposes, to establish if the participants were engaged in research projects in areas related to our own, and identifying people working in either with grassroots organisations or social entrepreneurship. The questionnaires also asked for the country of origin of the participants, and for their academic affiliation at the time. Respondents to the questionnaire come from various design fields including architecture, graphic design, interaction design and game design among others. The common factor between our participants is that in all cases their research projects incorporate a technology component. The semi-structured expert interviews included seven design experts in the region. One from Peru (E5), two from Brazil (E4, E7), and four that concentrate their work on Colombian cities (E1, E2, E3, E6) (approx. 70 min each). This approach helped us to immerse ourselves in the work that is currently being undertaken in the region, and to situate the project in Bogota, Colombia. During the interviews we learnt that there are similar and pervasive issues across South America. Each expert highlights the local nuances and fine distinctions of each location, and discusses the local conditions and proceeds to explain how relevant and community-oriented solutions should be framed.Thematic analysis and code development guided the process that we employed to derive findings and engage in a discussion about the design research potential in Latin America. From this, we were able to develop key emerging themes (Boyatzis, 1998). ResultsThe three themes that we outline and discuss in this section provide insights into the main concerns of some of the members of the SIGraDi community in relation to the key challenges and opportunities for design research in Latin America. Positioning Local ResearchLatin America is no stranger to design research, and an example of this is SIGraDi itself, with eighteen conferences that have been held throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America since 1997 (SIGraDi, 2014). However, we identified that an overarching theme that concerned the participants was how local design research was positioned in relation the work produced within the region, and a wide worry about engaging in local research projects using existing models coming from outside Latin America. The apparent need of working at a regional level seems to be grounded in similar qualities among Latin American countries, including a ubiquitous lack of funding and access to economic resources, a constant search for local identity, and the unique cultural diversity of each country, and the region as a whole. These qualities appear to be native to both research practice and a general civic struggle of the South American population. The participants manifested as a demanding requirement to re-position design research within the local constraints, by leveraging the already existing local capacity for overcoming the challenges presented by living and working in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Argentina. Turning Difficulty into OpportunityThe many challenges of engaging in design research put forward by the respondents of our questionnaires reveal the everyday struggles that the population and academics working in Latin America grapple with. Some of these include poor educational levels and access to opportunities related to the pervasive economic resource issue mentioned above. However, it seems that these struggles and obstacles can be leveraged to promote critical and reflexive approaches in relation to creative and innovative solutions. Mostly rooted in informality, the creative potential of Latin America is highlighted by the emphasis placed in referring to the Do It Yourself (DIY) approach, and to how it is well ingrained in local traditions for addressing and solving everyday problems. This is further supported by comments about the adaptability that comes natural to Latin Americans, which could be a result of the difficult social conditions encountered in most countries. Building Collaboration NetworksUnderlying the previous two themes, we identified that collaboration is a key factor that underpinned the discussion about the challenges and opportunities of running design research projects in Latin America. We encountered that collaboration is central to various scenarios, from region-wide needs, e.g., cooperation between countries, between governments and research institutions, and between academics and the local population. It was also highlighted that there is a need to establish communication channels and collaboration networks across all the aforementioned levels, with an emphasis on solving the local demands via these networks by making use of bottom up approaches. Drawing attention to a regional need and in turn to the opportunities presented by solving it, does not provide a clear path of action, or hints about how to face the challenge. Rather, it unveils a rather structural question that is at the core of the problem, which was explicitly formulated by one of the respondents: How do we collaborate? DiscussionIn this paper we have discussed the main concerns that we encountered by surveying a group of design researchers based in Latin America. The study provided details about the challenges and opportunities for design research in the area. The threefold points revealed by the data, show, firstly that researchers face the challenge of re-positioning design research in the regional context and leveraging the existing local capacity. Secondly, that the ubiquitous shortcomings and difficulties in Latin American can be turned into advantages that could result in creative and innovative solutions that respond to the local needs. And thirdly, the data shows that collaboration is at the core of addressing Latin American struggles. We argue that by considering these three themes in conjunction, an opportunity for crosspollination and collaboration between Latin American researchers opens up, which could also be extended to groups and people working in similar areas in other countries. As a preliminary attempt at identifying the potential presented by running design research projects in Latin America, we presented the insights obtained from the analysis of a data set provided by a group of eight researchers that were present in SIGraDi 2014. As a result, the results are only indicative of what could be larger issues, concerns, struggles, and opportunities and challenges related to conducting design research projects in Latin America. A greater understanding of the possibilities and limitations of how research in design operates in the region is required, in order to provide a more comprehensive picture and answer some of the questions raised in this paper. The starting points to address the shortcomings of this study could be firstly, performing similar studies in further iterations of SIGraDi and other academic Latin American venues; and secondly, performing scaffolded studies, in order to understand how through the nuances of each community of participants, researchers, institutions, governments, countries and the region as a whole, could collaborate with each other.

Design Research, South America, Interaction Design, Urban Informatics