This talk gave a broad overview of international issues and policies in agriculture and food security, and showcased three research projects that explore Agricultural BioDiversity, Genetically Engineered Crops and the difference between European and United States food laws.
The word mitochondrion comes from the Greek μίτος or mitos, meaning thread and χονδρίον or chondrion, meaning granule (thanks! wikipedia). But this isn’t about the mitochondrion itself. Rather, this is a story about how the genetic information that helps mitochondria reproduce and silk threads are rewoven together.
What is a mitochondrion? It’s an organelle (kind of like an organ in your body) for a cell. They generate much of the chemical energy used by a cell to carry out its different processes.
I have been working on a project for the last few months that extends work on what I call Silking Systems. By calling it Silking Systems, I’m trying to emphasize the patterning of silk and textile production as a set of relationships, things and interactions to accomplish varieties of silk/non-silk relationships, rather than as modes of behavior or production which are static – or should I say pre-threaded?
In 2008, some of my students researched How Silk is Made (after How Stuff is Made) for my class on Design for Sustainability. Their work documents the collection and processing of the silk fiber from cocoons to the thread you find in finished textiles.
Steps to a square cocoon.
About a year later, I worked with students at CEMA to develop square cocoon. Yes, a square cocoon. However, we also succeeded in learning a lot about sericulture – the raising of silk moths and worms – for silk cocoons which are then turned into thread. You can see some of process for making a square cocoon – as well as a lot of other aspects of silk production – in this flickr set documenting some of our work on Silking Systems.
In attempting to learn about sericulture from scratch, I visited some local producers in Karnataka, India and pulled in some textual research and advice – including Joseph Needham’s classic series on Science and Technology in China (1998 ed).
The most recent concept that I want to document here is pretty simple. Human mitochondrial genome sequences are woven in sequence using silk to produce a pattern that matches the mitochondrial nucleotide patterns.
Ashwathnarayann
Before I go further, I should acknowledge the assistance of Ashwathnarayan who aided me tremendously is becoming knowledgeable about silk production and weaving. He also did all of the weaving by hand with some help from me in reading the sequence. Nonetheless it was a true collaboration throughout. David Matthew was also instrumental in helping to build some of the loom pieces as well as providing emergency translation from Kannada to English when my conversations with Ashwathnarayan became difficult or too complex. At the beginning too was Millie who accompanied us to a silk production house in Vijayapura, Karnataka – just north of Bangalore. Millie did some great translation acrobatics using her English and knowledge of Tamil to translate for me and to speak with Ashwathnarayan – who in turn was speaking with the silk producers in Kannada.
Checking the loom's warp.
I have a few implicit goals and a few explicit ones as well. An implicit one is that I am attempting to push the relationship between craft, production, economic agency, and hybridity. I am drawing to some extent from the idea that economic value is generated through recombination – that goods and/or services emerge and create value when they are mixtures of other (especially unrelated) things.
Eric Beinhocker details this concept of value through hybrids along with an evolutionary algorithmic perspective on economics in his book The Origin of Wealth (2006). The book was recommended to me by Cesar Hildago, a Research Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for International Development. Cesar’s work on complex networks has also influenced this project, starting with his article on the Product Space of Nations (2007) and continuing with images like figures 1 and 2 which came out of his research. The network graphs make it easy to see how different economies differ in the products they export.
Fig 1. This image maps the products produced by the United States in 2000. The squares are things they are good at – in the US's case vehicles, chemicals, forest products, for example.
Fig 2. This image maps the products produced by India in 2000. The squares are things they are good at – in India's case textiles, chemicals, and diamonds, for example.
My thinking is that by challenging some aspects of the status quo in silk and textile production, new value propositions might be found. This comes, perhaps, by demonstrating that square cocoons are possible or by remixing molecular genetics and weaving to create a series of silk stoles based on a mitochondrial haplotype found frequently in southern India.
Another goal is to simply visualize the mitochondrial genome – and to make it as accessible for teaching and learning as possible. Making it tactile and making it in silk allows people to touch, feel, and to see individual sequence variation. Silk thread is a good scale for this sort of thing – not too small and not too big either. So in viewing these stoles (which measure about 5 meters each in length) one is challenged to look for patterns and they are rewarded with the same.
The mitochondrial sequence used to produce the pattern next to shuttles that carry the silk thread through the warp.
The process is pretty simple. I started with the stored Genbank sequence of the M2 haplotype which is traceable to early settlers of India. I took the nucleotide sequence information (atctcgctagatagacat, etc) and printed it out in BIG type so that we could follow the pattern easily. By assigning a color to each base type, patterns will reveal themselves. For our first prototype, I chose yellow, blue, green, and red. These are used commonly in genomic sequencing and prediction software (at the University of Michigan, for example) and I wanted to start with something that would resonate with biologists and would also suggest a playfulness associated with childhood and formative development.
Checking and threading the warp. You can see the silk fibers and how thin a single one is. It takes years to master silk weaving because it is a very delicate and dexterity-rich process.
Weaving the pattern is excruciatingly slow. In fact, this kind of work goes against a lot of how silk waving is organized from a production standpoint. There are no repeated patterns and each thread is individually sequenced – that’s the point! We accepted that we might introduce our own errors into the fabric, but then that fits well with the concept; as we try to speed up we might lose fidelity with the original sequence. There are a handful of good correspondences between the weaving process and DNA replication, and they are themselves teachable moments for students that encounter the project. It also gets them thinking critically about what correspondences do or do not exist, as a way of developing their own comprehension.
Finished pattern stretched on the loom.
I’ll expand this article as the project develops further, but I’ll end now with one nagging curiosity. The pattern that is being produced is engaging and pleasing. It makes me wonder if it in some ways exploits a bias we humans may have towards certain arrangements. Specifically I’m thinking about pink noise patterns…but I need to search more.
References
Needham, J., & Kuhn, D. (1988). Science and civilisation in China: spinning and reeling. Vol. 5. Chemistry and chemical technology. Pt. 9. Textile technology. Cambridge University Press.
Beinhocker, E. D. (2006). The origin of wealth: evolution, complexity, and the radical remaking of economics. Harvard Business Press.
Hidalgo, C. A., Klinger, B., Barabasi, A., & Hausmann, R. (2007). The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations. Science, 317(5837), 482-487. doi:10.1126/science.1144581
It’s not often that unfunded proposals make their way into disinfecting daylight. Sometimes you try again, and sometimes you just let them waste away among the dusty electrons of your hard drive.
I don’t know which category this one falls into, but I do feel it’s worth sharing and making public. Perhaps someone will even comment with improvements. I can only hope.
In any case, this proposal was dependent on a constellation of partnerships (and funding) to make the project move forward–at least from my perspective. Sometime a little cash can help develop needed projects and spur collaboration. This was a submission to the Knight News Challenge which is supposed to announce its winners sometime in mid-June. Since I know I’m already out of the running, there isn’t really a compelling reason not to share—but please tell me if there is!!!
envirocasting logo
Anyhow, here is most of it—-minus some names to protect the innocent—–except one: this logo was created by Zack Denfeld, and we’ve used it on a variety of projects. For more, you should visit his launchpad.
Describe your project:
Envirocasting adapts global weather information to the cultural and operational needs of local [international disaster preparedness organization] branch offices and communities, supporting their risk assessment and preparedness needs. A wealth of information exists to support disaster preparedness, but a gap exists between the design of information services and their local use-contexts, limiting widespread use and effectiveness. The benefits of these information services are clear to local decision makers, and they are anxious to put the tools and news sources into practice.
However, exposure to digital news platforms is low, and the capacity to use them in decision making contexts is minimal as a result of this disconnect between design and use.
Envirocasting takes a design anthropology approach to inform the design, distribution, and acquisition of digital weather information services to local decision makers. Design anthropology seeks to understand the role of design artifacts and processes in defining what it means to be human. Using this approach, local patterns of information consumption and culture related to futures, information design, and technological metaphors can be identified, allowing for the design of appropriate services. Design principles as well as specific, local use-applications will aid in the distribution and assessment of weather forecast efficacy. Thus, weather news for risk assessment can flow more precipitously to decision makers, allowing them to coordinate the disaster preparedness efforts more quickly and strategically.
Simulation games for local communities will support learning and the application of information services in context. This provides use-case memories of the future and practice in managing uncertainty with minimal risk.
How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities?
Envirocasting aims to localize climate information by making it simple, non-technical, clear, easy to use, and as meaningful as possible. Maps are relevant when their colors, numbers, icons, and scales are relevant and supported by culture and context. Information that connects with specific actions can be used confidently in planning and decision making. Specific use-cases communicated by local communities will drive the development process and will help weave the digital media fabric with aesthetics, narratives, and metaphors. Games support critical thinking and social play to help decision makers and communities explore the dynamics of news and information-based decisions for climate-related disaster preparedness.
How is your idea innovative? (new or different from what already exists)
Envirocasting innovates by translating connections between design and use. When local conditions refract the design and dissemination of information from distant or multiple sources, innovation is an inherent byproduct. Envirocasting is designed with the mind in mind, understanding cultural legacies that influence the recognition of uncertainty and metaphors. It bridges experience, play, and interactions, creating memories of the future. The project identifies appropriate implementations of open-source digital information services and defines a set of prescriptive resources for innovating across disaster risk contexts and cultural processes based on abstractions and lessons from six local communities in three countries.
What unmet need does your proposal answer?
A fact-finding mission conducted surveys, interviews, meetings and workshops over two-month periods in 2008 and 2009.
Explicit unmet needs include:
An Increase in the Accessibility and User-Friendliness of Climate Information Products
New Products to Fill Information Gaps for Needs–Starting with Improved Flood Forecasting Tools
Training in the Use of Climate Tools and How Climate Information Could Trigger Action Such as:
Learning to access and interpret climate information tools.
Learning how to monitor seasonal forecasts in conjunction with medium and short-term forecasts.
Understanding how to take gradated actions.
Channels of communication and decision-making to receive and take action based on time-sensitive climate information.
And don’t take my word for it:
What will you have changed by the end of your project?
More-Measurable outcomes:
Prototypes that adapt weather information services to local use-contexts.
Documents that communicate design processes for cross-cultural communication.
Heuristics or ‘rules-of-thumb’ for the design of climate information services for risk assessment.
Country and local use-context reports that document specific patterns of information acquisition and behavior.
Relevance of climate information for local decision-makers.
Ability to align information with decision and action.
A folktaxonomy of climate information and categories for creating a cultural consensus model (CCM) to realize translations in cognition and practice among cultural contexts.
An index of context-specific actions and the values associated with them.
Less-measurable outcomes:
Perception of the design process and innovation pathways for news and information about climate-driven risks.
The relationship between information providers, researchers, designers, policy makers, and implementing offices providing the opportunity for continued support, training and dialogue necessary to realize the potential benefits of using climate information.
Channels of communication between information providers and decision makers and between decision makers and community constituents (incl. digital information services).
The scope of the implementing organizations to conduct cross-cultural research and information adaptation projects.
How will you measure progress and ultimately success?
The uses of weather and hazard preparedness information can be measured using surveys, interviews, meetings and workshops and compared to current estimates of use and use cases, but those data are useful differently for different people including the decision-makers, their constituents, their supporting agencies, and funders of this project. Thus, we intend to cast progress in varied terms for the different stakeholders and partners.
Some of these guiding questions include:
What are the iterations, changes, and improvements to existing systems?
What does the trajectory of individual decision-maker’s tasks or questioning look like?
How do other elements of the media ecology change and what stakeholders are invoked or leveraged in the process?
Success, on the other hand, is more elusive. Disasters are sporadic and may not always afford a direct link between information effectiveness and risk reduction. However, existing case studies show that these types of information, when combined with specific actions, can lead to significant reductions in both the vulnerability and negative effects of a disaster such as flooding. The key to assessment it to engage in a continual processes where we value choices and transitions in practice. The design of this project take into account the high-stakes involved in the decision-making and information uses by providing opportunities for both high stakes (post-hazard) and low stakes (simulation-games) assessment.
Do you see any risk in the development of your project?
The biggest risk at present is that the organizations listed do not have a history of working together (this is indicated by the generic names rather than their proper ones), but this is also where the opportunity exists. The leadership (particularly of the larger orgs) is wary of their participation in the project without first-hand knowledge of all partners and/or certain funding. This conversation is ongoing at the time of this application and continues to develop. If the proposal moves through to the next round, we should at that point be able to name each of the partners in more specific terms.
Supply-side risks (design-mediated)
Inability to generate meaning either through lack of empathy or translation of needs to designers
Research products are not absorbed and implemented during the design processes because they are non-normative, unclear for direct application, left uncommunicated, or other
Partner coalition denatures from lack of shared goals or mental models
Emphasis on technological development or information diversification over use-context and user needs
Existing insights, stakeholders, and methods are unknown or unengaged
Irrelevance, inability, or non-linkage of digital mediums and meaningful information services
Cultural heterogenetiy too great for scaling of appropriate information services
Ability and capacity of project managers to recognize and adapt to other sources of risk
Expertise of project partners is missing or unleveraged
Translation of local use-contexts into primary research is distorted or biased
Demand-side risks (user-mediated)
Low frequency acquisition of technology platforms, information services, and/or symbolic systems
Scripting of use and application to local decision making is unclear
Appropriation for local use-cases is nonexistent
Assembly does not fit into the local context of everyday life
Cannot be integrated into normal practices, culture, and concerns
Practice with information and platform is sparse
What is your marketing plan? How will people learn about what you are doing?
The conduits for marketing are, in many respects, already in place. The organizational structure and extent of [intl. disaster preparedness agency] branch offices will facilitate branding and distribution using existing networks of community organization, tactical planning, and response offices. Though the value of the services should be self-evident in the design and cognitive acquisition of the services, the goal is to help users to practice using and applying these information services. We also recognize that aesthetic values can elevate the recognition of value and the maintenance of that value through everyday use. Thus, arriving at these values will be a principle objective for all participants.
In order to increase domain knowledge, the outcomes can be shared among the participants, their centers, and via professional and interest networks including the design research community which actively engages with similar project goals. Because some of the project partners include university centers, schools and research organizations, the outcomes will be shared with emerging professionals including graduate students and visiting fellows.
Tactically, the marketing plan for simulation game-based training is slightly more difficult because it requires additional preparation, training, and presentation. Nonetheless, with a bit of effort, these games will reinforce the marketing strategy for the primary goal of adapting weather information using the same local community branch office network structure. We also expect to develop videos that demonstrate our process as well as the use and value of the informations service under construction. But ultimately, the best marketing will be the effectiveness of the adaptation process.
Is this a one-time experiment or do you think it will continue after the grant? If it is to be self-sustainable, what’s the plan for making that happen?
Envirocasting is the application of a process to translate meaning across cultural contexts with relevance for local concerns. We do not view it as an experimental process so much and an underutilized one. Luckily, there are many resources, case studies, and additional expertise to draw from in the process. Our goal is to assemble them and to draw the pieces together into relevant platforms and prototypes for weather information services.
The project will accomplish this goal as a one-time research project that will publicly document its methods and outcomes as guides so that they can be applied in new use-contexts and for wider information arrays. We fully expect that the different project partners will continue to apply the work and experience in varied ways after the initial project, although they may carry it out to their own ends.
Our method for fostering rhizomatic-like dissemination of the results (and thus, sustainability) is to link with additional strategic partners whose networks span varied social groups, languages, use-contexts, and concerns. Furthermore, the acquisition and integration of the research (as well as the information services it supports) can be broadly advocated from a policy perspective because successes arise from its application and benefit in specific, local communities. The overall plan for sustainability is to demonstrate that these information service platforms reduce risk by enabling decisive action before pending hazards become disasters. If this is demonstrated, sustainability will ensue, even if not in the form described in this proposal.
Disasters are a combination of cognitive, social, infrastructure, and ecological failures. Preparation in each system helps to create buffers to provide resilience within each system that can in turn translate to resilience in each of the other systems. Thus, trends, impacts and the frequency of disasters are often amplified by the interactions between different social domains, resource bases, and locations.
riskTable
Key requirements for recognizing trends in disasters include being able to:
differentiate between high frequency trends and low frequency trends (partly because cognitive biases inhibit objective estimation),
the potential for changes in their relative frequencies and path dependency (low frequency becoming high and vice versa),
the cumulative impacts at different temporal and spatial scales of interaction, and
the emergence of threshold effects where small impacts can have big effects.
The rise in frequency of natural disasters is being compounded by population growth (especially in urban, coastal, and low-lying areas) and increased vulnerability because of interactions among resources and risks (see table 1 for examples). Many natural phenomena tend to be recurrent. For example, diseases re-emergence in and out or areas and population, sometimes in cycles, while often borne from social-ecological network differentiation (Janssen et al., 2006). These recurrences can affect the same regions and populations again and again–either out of geographic, genetic, or behavioral specificity. Impacted populations have narrow opportunities (if at all) to restore livelihoods and coping mechanisms between events. This can accelerate chronic vulnerability.
Key trends discussed and communicated in the literature relate sea levels, temperature, precipitation, resilience, and extreme events to climate change (Prasad et al, 2009). While these are specifically the result of abiotic processes, other, underemphasized, social trends emerge that are important for managing coping strategies–especially where cities are concerned. These trends include:
Cultural Preferences: This is perhaps the least understood of any emerging trend, and we don’t know much about how the various components of this trend are distributed at any given moment. Cultural preferences includes things like how new skills, uses, and behaviors are acquired, the ways they are arranged in everyday life to fill particular needs, how existing artifacts or concepts are appropriated, and what it takes for small, limited sets of practices to widen and become normalized in larger populations. As a trend, many human systems are moving towards knowledge networking which will accelerate normalization. Less frequent are the hybrid ways of creating new coping strategies that build on other unrelated themes or needs. As a result it is pretty easy for most disaster management and preparedness disciplines to dismiss it as a leading component of interest.
Uncertainty and Risk Diversification: As the intensity of experience and practices with technologies, the environment, and human population increases, uncertainty and the recognition of risk becomes more evident. This is to say that we tend to project more uncertainty and develop a larger number of risks as our knowledge of the environment widens. Thus, while there are real and significant increases in the number of risks, the increase and perceived impact is also a function of our own cultural sources of knowledge production and risk assessment. This in no way delegitimizes the risk of climate driven disaster. It only adds a unique dimension to our reception and relationship with them.
Urbanization: In 2008, the global population became equally distributed between rural settlements and cities. This trend will continue for a variety of reasons including individuals’ search for economic agency in cities. It highlights a broader pattern of preferential attachment–a social phenomenon in which people (agents) tend to want to join up with other agents that have multiple connections, either to other people, things, or places. It also signals a significant perceptual shift in our understanding of ecology and its anthropogenic impacts–away from systems where humans are seen externally to one in which the landscape is unequivocally ‘disturbed’ and redistributed (Ellis and Ramankutty, 2008).
Ecosystem Service Disruption: Healthy ecosystems are a keystone of resilience. They buffer vulnerable populations from the impacts of disasters by maintaining critical life support services such as soil for agriculture, water filtration and sequestration, nutrient cycling, organic waste recycling, gas exchange + air pollution mitigation, and the ambient commons (McCullough, in prep) which support the awareness of a continuum between culture and infrastructure.
ad hoc Solutioning: In India, the Hindi term Jugaad describes technologies that are patchworks of on-hand materials to fix and make due with what is convenient and ‘affordable’. They build (no pun intended) on an ease of use and innovative skill in the context of personal or collective economic agency. They can insert sustainability using biodegradable, local, and available materials–deemphasizing systems of manufacturing while emphasizing individualism and craft. However, jugaad may also substitute expectations for semantics, trading durability for extended (or distended) service relationships in the absence of independently verifiable standards. The impact of this behavioral tactic with artifacts is that technologies can have a low threshold for failure because they depend on service and labor for continued maintenance. When the services become otherwise compromised, the artifacts create further risks.
Occupation of High Disturbance and/or Diversity Landscapes: Along with trends in urbanization and ecosystem services, people tend to locate in regions where resources are abundant and that tend to support a large amount of diversity. One of the main ecological predictors of biological diversity is the ongoing process of disturbance, which continuously opens up new niches and creates genetic diversity across populations. This points to the presence of large urban settlements in areas prone to disturbance and potential disasters either from earthquakes, flooding, cyclone, tsunami, or wildfire, for example.
Now what do these trends mean for emerging health risks in the context of climate change?
References:
Ellis, E. C., & Ramankutty, N. (2008). Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6(8), 439–447.
Janssen, M. A., Ö. Bodin, J. M. Anderies, T. Elmqvist, H. Ernstson, R. R. J. McAllister, P. Olsson, and P. Ryan. 2006. Toward a network perspective on the resilience of social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 11(1): 15. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss1/art15/
Prasad, N., F. Ranghieri, F. Shah, Z. Trohanis, E. Kessler, and R. Sinha. 2009. Climate resilient cities : a primer on reducing vulnerabilities to disasters. Washington (DC) : World Bank Group Info Shop. ISBN 978-0-8213-7766-6
I recently scanned this report that leveraged domain understanding in psychology to the problem of climate change. While the problem of climate changed could just as easily be reframed as a problem of recognizing variability and relevance, the research and patterns that the report draws upon can be used in the design process as levers to recognize opportunities and constraints for sustainability and adaptation.
It’s worth noting that the authors admit that the results are not drawn from a representative sample of the world’s population. Most of the work described comes only from studies done in North America, Europe, and Australia. Even the researchers who put the report together were from only the United States, Canada, Australia, and one member with dual citizenship in the United States and Germany. So while the report doesn’t represent a diversity of perspectives, it does emphasize the fact that there are significant gaps in our knowledge about environmental psychology and what intercultural similarities and differences exist in how we perceive and respond to problems like climate change.
Given that much of the work in the report describes what we could call cognitive or psychological biases, there are probably vary important differences in the processes people will use to adapt to climate variability. Indeed, one finding was that perceptions & reactions to climate risks are mediated by cultural values and beliefs.
Examples of design levers (observation followed by lever):
Small probability events tend to be underestimated when based on personal experience. Thus, designer should gather multiple personal experiences (embodiment? experiential learning?)
Recently occurred small probability events tend to be overestimated. Thus designer should show longer time frames (the historical context?)
Emotions influence perceptions of risk with respect to climate change. Thus, people tend to be conflicted and muted because it is seen as being beyond personal control.
The report also details how psychology looks at the relationship between consumption and behavior, where individual ability + motivation, context, and external motivators shape practice.
There was also a specific focus on the psychosocial impacts of climate change as driven by health an by relationships with common goods.
Adaptation in this context has multiple conduits:
sense making
causal and responsibility attributions for adverse instances
Which can be affected by media representations as both formal and informal social discourse that moderates the social construction, representation, amplification, and attenuation of risk and impacts.
In summary, the report identified psychological barriers to climate change action:
unaware
unsure
lack of trust or believeability
“not in my backyard”
fixed behavior
other people’s problem
belief that actions are unimportant or make no difference
engaged in token or objectively unhelpful actions
not under human control
other competing goals, time, resource, or effort draws
Much of the discussion and research seemed to point to a question of the cognitive architecture of risk. That is, how are categories learned, does information become relevant, risk construed, and behavior adopted? And what does that mean for vulnerability and adaptation?
Detection of climate change means distinguishing between climate and weather, making relevant the need for planning and decision making, and addressing expectations based on categories (e.g. latitude or place) since these beliefs bias the direction of our errors in perception. It also means understanding how information acquisition takes place which leads to differences in perception and action even when it comes from the same source.
associative + affective processes + repeated personal experience = fast and automatic
A colleague of mine recently received a request for a response on the topic of designing interculturally. It came from a graduate student in design who wrote about how his research “focuses on examining how culture influences visual language and what that means for contemporary designers who are increasingly asked to design across cultural boundaries”. The goal of his research is to create a guide to intercultural design.
The request from the grad student was forward to a listserve along with a statement of alarm from my colleague about the standards of graduate education. I’m not sure what he was alarmed by, but he seemed to be concerned about the empirical validity of the questionnaire the student had sent. I replied to forward by asking, “So what alarms you exactly about the questions as posed? That is, what is it about his culture and your culture that makes this way of designing a guide so alarming to you?”
My colleague’s reaction to the student’s request made me wonder why the empirical validity seemed to be so lacking. The student was making an earnest effort (something I may personally have to do in the near future) to gather varied perspectives on the topic of intercultural design. Perhaps my colleague knows of a right way to do intercultural design or if there are more ‘empirical’ ways of conducting design research and of designing.
In any case, I took on the student’s questionnaire and found it more difficult than it seemed at first. If anyone reading this has any perspectives and ways of going about intercultural design that are developed and seem to work, please share!
Here is the questionnaire with my responses:
Background information
Describe your current job. Please include your job title.
My current job title is artist-in-residence. Typically artists-in-residence work with or at an institution to create artworks. They interact with faculty, staff and students to share their processes and sometimes even collaborate. However, I refer to myself as a design ecologist since that might better describe what I do. Initially I came to the institution I work for under the assumption that I was helping to start up a graduate program and research lab in experimental and new media.
My work ranges from research into the traits and practices that characterize experimentalism and how they contribute to new knowledge and hybridity in form, practice and context. I’ve taught classes and developed curricula much as a faculty member at a college or university would. I’ve led workshops, labs, and helped to organize conferences. I research and write about design in cross-cultural contexts, and how to work across those contexts based on the kinds of knowledge that each creates. I am particularly interested in how experimentalism and objectivity are made. I also work to apply research in psychology, sociology, & anthropology to understandings of bias (cognitive and social) so that we can design more fluidly across different social orders. Today I attended a grad review session to give feedback to students. I also try to connect where possible people, projects and institutions where I see great value in their working together or in the synergy of their approaches to knowledge and its application. Other days I just do graphic design or sculpture…still others…I call people and do all the mundane stuff that goes with helping to contribute to the maintenance of a project or organization.
Describe your cultural background. Is your cultural background evident in your work?
Please give examples.
My cultural background is based in the East Side of Detroit. It borders two edges, the suburbs and the Grosse Pointes. The Grosse Pointes are a wealthy edge of the city on the lake, while the suburbs are mainly made of of people who left Detroit or who inhabit communities that sprung up outside of it. I lived in a pretty culturally-mixed lower-middle class neighborhood composed of houses built in the early 20th century. I lived sort of at an edge, a hybrid zone if you will. I went to Catholic school (like most of my family) in Grosse Pointe Park and I visited relatives in the suburbs. I went camping in the woods as a kid. We had a house, but we were never well-off. My parents were divorced when I was in second grade. My mom worked her way through grad school to support and get my sister and I through school. I lived in the midwest most of my time through college. I travelled to far away places a few times through the generosity of relatives. I learned to be critical of what was presented as fact or as law because I saw it being used arbitrarily and without it’s own self-reflection or criticality. Maybe I just didn’t like nuns telling me what I should and should not do. Late in college I started working with a group of evolutionary biologists. Later still I studied organizations and cybernetics. I prefer soccer to other sports. Especially in playing.
Is my cultural background evident?
It depends where you look. I think it is. I come from a strong maternal line that last generation had 10 brothers and sisters who lost their father and breadwinner during the Great Depression. Plus they were Catholic. So for me to be interested in organizations, feedback, management, systems, knowledge construction, sustainability, robustness, and critical inquiry + truth and justice…yeah I’d say so.
Cultural considerations in design
How important is it for you to understand the culture of your audience?
It depends on the context and what I am trying to do. One question I ask is if my understanding matters at all. Most people in the world are muddling by, understanding very little, and they seem to be doing just fine. Then again, there seems to be a lot we can learn about each other–culturally speaking. I think there is a lot to be gained in understanding each other’s culture if and when there are conflicts. Often times this is because we are holding assumptions about how the world works deep inside us, and we aren’t making these known. There was a recent study of negotiations between Palestine and Israel that showed how what one believed to be the sticking point in the negotiations was not the case at all. The researchers showed how a ‘reframing’ of values could allow negotiations to proceed by articulating what could be exchanged for material compensation and which values were beyond material compensation–even though it was assumed they were not—because of cultural assumptions.
Are there any specific steps you take to understand the culture of your audience?
Absolutely! I think first it makes sense to assess exactly what you mean when you say ‘culture’ I like Atran et al’s (2005; the cultural mind) discussion of culture:
“it is important to note that the question of how culture should be defined is separable from the question of how best to study it. Although we think a definition of a culture in terms of history, proximity, language, and identification is useful and (if not too rigidly applied) perhaps even necessary as a beginning point, it does not follow that the cultural content of interest must be shared ideas and beliefs.”
They go on further to describe some of the many ways culture is looked at by different fields and people with different interests, and they determine that cultural definitions are based on utility on one hand and the scope of interest (e.g. scale or subject) on the other. In the end they see culture as that which allows the uptake of processes, of procedures, information, beliefs values and so on. So culture then is not the nouns (belief, behavior, value, etc) that we commonly associate with culture–rather it is the means by which we acquire those nouns.
table
Cross-cultural comparison of the number and distribution of words used to describe container-like objects.
Another step beyond this definition would be to lay one’s own cultural assumptions bare. I’ve attached an image from Malt et al. (1999; knowing versus naming) that shows a comparison of the number of items or objects that words across three different languages. You can see quite clearly that are quite different distributions of words for these items when you compare. Now ask what this means for different locations, use patterns, numbers of items and how these items interact with language!!! The most important point here is to assume nothing!!!
Ask what the starting points of culture are and move on from there. Design is an appropriate place to do that since so many aspects of what we use to create culture are DESIGNED! Nature is another, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to disentangle nature and the social. I think objects and artifacts are great because they tell us some much when we fail to use them “correctly”. The workplace is yet another spot where different cultural artifacts and practices converge.
Please give examples. Describe a specific project. How/why did the culture of your audience influence your choice of the following design elements:
The project I am thinking of is one I recently submitted a proposal for. The goal is to identify culturally appropriate ways of communicating climate change and risks associated with it for disaster preparedness. Here is how the audience(s) I think would influence the following elements:
Shapes: How are names associated? What do they reference? Are there assumptions or associations that people have with them?
Colors: What level communicates versus disturbs? Are there associations or not (e.g. red = hot)?
Images/photographs: How does framing, angle, & focus matter? And how does the semeiotic relationships between the elements in the images narrate and structure our engagement with it and with other things (see van leeween and kress for more on that one)?
Symbols: In what context does the symbol make sense? In everyday life? In an abstracted work setting?
Layouts: What is the flow of information and meaning? Where do/should narrative elements appear?
Other? Time, the temporal view, how do we access the future? the past? the present? On what terms and with what detail and agency?
Are there any specific steps you took to verify you were using the above elements in a culturally appropriate way? Please give examples.
No not yet with that one, but all of the above considerations were based on prior field research that identified some of these as core concerns in their engagement with the design of these information systems. So going back to question 4: do field research. Talk to people and ask them questions…about what makes them upset..about what they don’t understand…about what seems ‘alien’.
What advice would you give to other designers working on a similar project?
It it a similar cross-cultural project or a similar guide?
Either way: GO SOMEWHERE WHERE THE CULTURE IS NOT YOURS. PAY ATTENTION. DOCUMENT YOUR FRUSTRATION. THEN YOU WILL BETTER UNDERSTAND WHAT MUCH OF THE WORLD IS EXPERIENCING RIGHT NOW.
Anthropogenic Biomes as a Region for Research in Evolutionary Design Ecology
Many systems of classification for regions ignore the integration of human influence and ecosystem form, process, and diversity. This situation was common when I was in school and we learned about different ecological regions that were described largely by vegetation type and the weather patterns. A definition of region that is based on many interactions between society and nature, including perspectives on global patterns of sustained direct human interaction with ecosystems, may be appropriate for weighing studies of human health, its interactions, and driving factors. Anthropogenic biome describes a recent and perhaps better system of regional classification than have previous definitions (Ellis and Ramankutty, 2008) which have tended towards pure forms of nature or the separation of nature and society.
Anthropogenic Biomes: Definition
Anthropogenic biomes are similar to ecological biomes: they describe patterns of vegetation, climate, and ecosystem processes. However, they also take into account the anthropogenic influences of land use and population density on ecosystem processes. Ellis and Ramankutty characterize anthropogenic biomes as heterogeneous landscape mosaics, combining a variety of different land uses and land covers. Some of this heterogeneity is driven by natural landscape variation, as well as human enhancement of natural landscape (e.g. intensive agriculture) and human created landscape (e.g. construction of settlements and transportation systems).
The Regional Classification System they developed is as Follows (Ellis and Ramankutty, 2008): Dense Settlements: Urban, Dense Settlements
Of Earth’s 6.4 billion human inhabitants:
40% live in dense settlements biomes (82% urban population),
40% live in village biomes (38% urban),
15% live in cropland biomes (7% urban), and
5% live in rangeland biomes (5% urban)
0.6% live in forested biomes.
Asia and Oceania have the most diversity in the distribution of these regions around the world.
Global Anthropogenic Biomes
Further refinement is possible (Alessa and Chapin, 2008) by resolving distributions of social values, dietary patterns, movement patterns, resource use and between local and regional scales, inter alia.
Why Anthropogenic Biomes Matter for Public Health and Other Forms of Research
Anthropogenic biomes are a more accurate description of broad ecological patterns than are systems that exclusively describe vegetation patterns based on variations in climate and geology. Likewise, anthropogenic biomes may be better at representing patterns of human interactions with the environment and describing the driving factors in health outcomes. There are multiple reasons for this that stem from the varied roles that ecosystem, climate, cultural, and social relationships enact in dialogue with each other.
Anthropogenic biomes differ substantially in terms of basic ecosystem processes (eg carbon emissions, reactive nitrogen) and ecosystem biodiversity. These factors in turn affect the relative availability of resources for that region, including and especially ecosystem services like clean air and water and nutrient availability for agriculture. Furthermore, they must necessarily feed back into human ways of knowing and interacting with the environment.
Anthropogenic biomes can be connected to global patterns of ecosystem processes, along with anticipated future increases in human influence on ecosystems and the associated health outcomes due to climate change-driven risk factors.
Genome by environment interactions may be particularly relevant at this scale of interaction. The region definition is appropriate to human movement patterns and thus exposure to sources of chronic and acute risk from disease and consumption patterns.
The land use type itself determines a wide variety of factors including interactions with other humans, livestock, dietary consumption, levels of hydration, energy intensity, and other factors.
Culture, ethnicity, and language are also important in response to land use and domestic patterns of consumption ranging from food use and taboos, communication of lifestyle and health options, provisioning of nutrition, water, and energy, availability, and the use of technology to process and maintain different lifestyle patterns.
In each of these regional definitions, the interactions between landscape and human activity affects affluence, access to health care, and political regulation which suggests that these are are other possible subdivisions since these regions correspond to human social, transport, technological, and social networks–especially in dense settlements versus villages and remote areas.
For these reasons, anthropogenic biomes may provide more of a mosaic-like image from which to base categorizations used by clinical and other studies of health compared to political and continental boundaries which conventionalize migration barriers and tribal relationships. Geographic and political definitions will slowly shift, leaving only historical genetic signatures. Furthermore, anthro biomes are not specific to any particular disease or health outcome. They may encompass suites of infection and disease patterning where behavior, exposure, risk, and land use are correlated. They may also be indicative of linked health outcomes at the physiological level where, for example, musculoskeletal disorders and endocrine system perturbations are bound by human-influenced ecosystem interactions. Or they may suggest psychological correlates, linking cognition and landscape to disease and health risks.
The main point to consider is that ecological relationships, including land use and human infrastructure development, script behavior and consumption in ways that drive health outcomes. Understanding human influenced ecosystem patterns helps us identify areas of positive feedback between health risks, land use, population density, and the construction of everyday life.
References
Alessa, L., & Chapin, F. S. (2008). Anthropogenic biomes: a key contribution to earth-system science. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 23(10), 529–531.
Ellis, E. C., & Ramankutty, N. (2008). Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 6(8), 439–447.
This graph represents the difference between demand and supply in Bangalore from the years 1988-2001. Blue circles are per capita supply of water in Liters per day.
We agree that the global water crisis presents a communications design challenge of urgent immensity. From where we sit, paani (water), ghats (steps), vidhushak (trixter), matkas (containers), ulat bansi (upside-down story), and melas (fairs) are the mediums of our message.
However,
Current public understanding about the use and management of water is broadly defined by embodied practice, everyday experiences, and faith. The perspective that developing regions have outmoded experiences and assumptions ignores the reality of daily practice and serves to create a hierarchy of meaning that places certain forms of water use and practice above others despite the apparent and real effectiveness of available options.
Rather than “powerful, fact-based narratives”, we believe in narratives that change and respond to their audiences and allow for multiple interpretations. Sarcasm, word play, exaggeration, juxtaposition, false-belief, humor, optimism and rebellion are tactics needed to engage and inform diverse, international audiences of varying demographics and geographies. Facts may be starting points, but because we cannot control interpretation, they are not ends in themselves.
We believe that the water crisis is a social problem that cannot only be solved by scientific or technological means or other rational approaches. Irrational responses are therefore positive, justified, and appropriate.
The water crisis is not in need of novelty or innovation. It needs relevant visual identities, mantras, mythologies and stories carried by relevant mediums that entertain, inform, and inspire audiences that are socially, politically, and economically isolated.
Because policy makers lack political will and personal motivation to implement existing, effective, small, scalable solutions, we will always lack the full scope of raw field data and the presentation tools needed to make water crisis understandable and actionable for policy makers.
We value varied groups, not select groups. We value practice beyond thought. Leaders in our opinion are those that use personal invention and creativity to affect everyday practice and demonstrate how political, social, and economic barriers to water availability can be overcome.
The crisis is a complex mix of global and local implications for matter and meaning. It therefore requires responses that connect many locations from the most broad panoramic view to the most minute, localized interaction.
Four main issues characterize the water crisis:
1. The problem is not scarcity. We have an abundance of water. The problem is access limited by changing ecological conditions, costs of technology, and social, economic and political disparities.
2. The water crisis is fundamentally complicated by outmoded ideas of rights and ownership. These concepts seek to create additional divisions and further amplify problems of access.
3. Inequitable distribution and out-of-equilibrium use cycles make available water unpotable and unsafe for living.
4. Standards do not currently represent or account for contemporary water use. These standards create incompatibilities in both meaning and matter when policy is made and when technology is developed to respond to the crisis. The existence of current standards, their role in international trade, and their high cost of acquisition and participation means that so-called developing regions are placed at a disadvantage.
