localism

Access to Technology

Pattern number within this pattern set: 
1
Group Name: 
Urban Gardening
Peter Lyle
Queensland University of Technology
Marcus Foth
Queensland University of Technology
Jaz Hee-jeong Choi
Queensland University of Technology
Problem: 

Gardeners can come from any background, and as such have a wide variety of access to existing technology. Access to technology refers to whether an audience has a particular gadget or service, and their ability or willingness to use it as part of gardening practice.

Context: 

This problem applies to individuals and communities, whenever the intent is to design interactive technology. The context varies depending on the available resources of a community, and the target demographic of design.

Discussion: 

When designing for a known person or group, infrastructure and access to technology may be prescribed. Typically the context must be understood in order to know what is suitable. For example Australia has a high level of smartphone market penetration, and if targeting residential gardens, there are a likelihood of highcspeed Internet access. This would allow for the use of rich media and high levels of interconnectivity.

Communities on the other hand, such as Northey Street City Farm or Permablitz Brisbane, are limited in time and money to invest in additional technology or infrastructure. In these instances it is important to understand what technology community members already use or what infrastructure is already in place, and how is it currently used. With this understanding, the ability to repurpose, or make use of technology as part of a design, will become clear. Understanding the role technology plays in the lives of gardeners, and when they have access to technology, will result in a more inclusive design (Heitlinger et al., 2013).

Solution: 

Designers need to consider: the existing infrastructure; time and money to invest in new technology; and attitudes of gardeners to different technologies, and incorporate these preferences accordingly.

Mock Public Space

Pattern number within this pattern set: 
22
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

Mock public space is generaly physical or virtual "community" space that people perceive as "public" but in reality disallow many aspects of "public-ness" that are important to democracies; free speech for one.  A privately owned social-media website, or a mall would both be examples of this pattern.

Environmental Degradation

Pattern number within this pattern set: 
3
Version: 
3
Verbiage for pattern card: 

The natural environment; including but not limited to soil, water, air, flora, and fauna, has a natural balance. Through pollution, over usage, and lack of stewardship, the balance is broken causing the natural networks that sustain life on this planet to suffer.

Civic Ignorance

Pattern ID: 
666
Pattern number within this pattern set: 
1
Social Imagination and Civic Intelligence Program
The Evergreen State College
Version: 
3
Discussion: 

We place civic ignorance at the top of our anti-patterns collection because civic ignorance is at the core of everything that human beings do to each other that is harmful.

Civic ignorance takes different forms; it is their sum total and the perfidious interaction among the various forms that creates the Agnosphere, the ubiquitous shroud that fights civic intelligence on all fronts.

It is often quite “natural” and occurs in all of us to some degree. It is most menacing in its professional varieties, when well-resourced and self-serving elites intentionally cultivate ignorance. Historically, in the United States, the tobacco companies were the most treacherous and whose campaigns can be credited with thousands if not millions of unnecessary deaths. Currently the climate change denial campaign is the most prominent and much of the intentionally spread misinformation can be traced back to a handful of dedicated billionaires.

How it Works

Civic ignorance is assured in many ways — in general, that's what we're trying to show with our project. Fixating on certain hard-and-fast "truisms" is important. Blaming the other person is important. On an individual level, not even listening to a argument that runs counter to your own is effective since that avoids any real consideration of the issue. From an institutional level, access to information and communication should be controlled by elites. The items on the public agenda should be restricted — but it should not seem like this is the case. Finally, critics of the system should be marginalized or ignored.

Evidence

Links

All of the anti-patterns are related to this!

References

Agnotology book

Verbiage for pattern card: 

Civic ignorance describes how well a group or person ignores the civic ideas, problems, or solutions of those surrounding them. The need to solve problems intelligently and taking account of all solutions is cast away in favor of the quick, the easy, and the brutal. Maybe the problem will just go away? Critics of this should be marginalized, ignored or otherwise disabled or destroyed.

Neighborhood based Community Health Workers

Pattern ID: 
913
Michael O'Neill
Healthy Living Collaborative
Version: 
1
Problem: 

Fragmented systems of service delivery that are intended to deliver health, social wellbeing, and safety are in need of course correction to address severe disparities in health and welbeing that exist.  The mandate of health care reform from the Affordable Care Act is to improve care, improve population health outcomes, and lower costs. In Washington State the timeline to accomplish this is five years.

 

How can organizations that have traditionally delivered units of care shift towards providing access to wellness for a population which creates health equity, increases local capacity, and transforms payment and delivery systems?

Solution: 

Community Health Workers are an emerging solution to this problem as shown by a case study of the Healthy Living Collaborative project in Southwest Washington and other similar projects which it is modeled after.  Community Health Workers (CHWs) are trusted community members among the people they serve who can fill a variety of culturally appropriate roles.  These roles increase access for the CHWs friends, family, neighbors, and peers to resources, knowledge, and skills that promote wellness.  CHWs are a credible voice for the lived experience of local needs and play a critical role in translating this information across cultural, social, and organizational boundaries.

Verbiage for pattern card: 

Community Health Workers are an emerging solution to this problem as shown by a case study of the Healthy Living Collaborative project in Southwest Washington and other similar projects which it is modeled after.  Community Health Workers (CHWs) are trusted community members among the people they serve who can fill a variety of culturally appropriate roles.  These roles increase access for the CHWs friends, family, neighbors, and peers to resources, knowledge, and skills that promote wellness.  CHWs are a credible voice for the lived experience of local needs and play a critical role in translating this information across cultural, social, and organizational boundaries.

Pattern status: 
Draft

The Best of Both Worlds

Version: 
1
Problem: 

The ‘holy grail’ of the modern conservationist is undoubtably to achieve some kind of sustainable relationship whereby the human population can develop and prosper alongside nature with minimal compromise on either side. The key to this objective is efficiency, which some might argue is against our programming. As we continue to develop new technologies, this once impossible goal is increasingly within our reach.

Context: 

At the heart of achieving a mutually beneficial relationship between man and nature is the principle of multiple land use. ‘Exploitation’ can be defined as any implementation of a design that perpetuates the singularity in value. Communities should therefore objectify value in multiple-use and develop means of benefitting from this, as opposed to getting carried away with the deceptive benefits of singular use. We should promote the importance of vertical settlement and aim to preserve as much land area as possible for multiple use benefits.

Discussion: 

Economic benefit is derived cumulatively across a landscape, with distributed pockets of sustainable and environmentally-ameliorative activity, rather than highly-intensified activities in larger-scale concentrations. Sources and forms of contribution are diverse and aim to develop financial potential with a minimal footprint.

The ideal is therefore a landscape in which settlement is concentrated in efficient, strategically positioned pockets, linked by good infrastructure designed against principles that preserve and improve the environment. Areas of concentrated settlement should be designed and developed with the objective to improve the environment, for example through water conservation and re- forestation, as well as to limit the need for transport of essential goods, in that as much as possi- ble should be produced locally. As new technologies are developed and become more affordable, it becomes easier for individuals or families to become more self-sufficient, particularly given the great availability of information that the modern world allows us. Instead of focusing on big industry, we should focus on strengthening our own capabilities and limiting what we need from elsewhere.

Inteligencia Cívica

Group Name: 
Spanish translations of Liberating Voices card verbiage
Version: 
1
Verbiage for pattern card: 

Inteligencia cívica describe que tan bien grupos de personas persiguen fines cívicos a través de medios cívicos.  Inteligencia Cívica hace la pregunta crítica: Es la sociedad suficientemente inteligente para afrontar los desafíos que se le presentan?  La inteligencia cívica requiere aprendizaje y enseñanza. También requiere meta-cognición – el pensar y realmente mejorar como pensamos y trabajamos juntos.

Street Music

Douglas Schuler
The Public Sphere Project
Celebration of Public Music
Version: 
1
Problem: 

(note that the Problem Statement is still in work.....)

Music, including singing as well as the playing of instruments, has been a key element of the human condition for millennia. Unfortunately -- at least in the United States -- music has become more of a commodity, to be enjoyed passively and non-interactively. 

The rise of mass media is probably at least one of the culprits. 

Context: 

(note that the Context Statement is still in work.....)

Discussion: 

(note that the Discussion is still in work.....)

Street Music blurs the distinction between producer and consumer of music as well as the distinction between formal and informal venues for music production and consumption. 

Although street bands, including many of those found at Honk Fests, can be found at protests (including the Infernal Noise Machine (image below) that supported the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999), their actions are often political to a large degree by virtue of their publicness in an era of electronic or other formalized or mediated forms of music consumption. 

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-MLvzLlou4 for Environmental Encroachment's performance of Hashia.

 

Thanks to a member of the Bucharest Drinking Team and to Bob of Environmental Encroachment for their thoughts on the current breed of "new street bands" including their history and motivation. 

Solution: 

 

Solution in work:

something about establishing and supporting street music. More and more and more of it....

Categories: 
orientation
Categories: 
engagement
Categories: 
social
Categories: 
products
Themes: 
Social Critique
Themes: 
Community Action
Themes: 
Social Movement
Themes: 
Media Critique
Information about introductory graphic: 
Photo of Church, a marching band from Santa Rosa, California. Shot by Douglas Schuler, June 1, 2012. Georgetown (Seattle, WA)
Information about summary graphic: 

Infernal Noise Machine, Seattle Washington

Local Knowledge

Pattern ID: 
728
Pattern number within this pattern set: 
728
Douglas Schuler
Public Sphere Project (CPSR)
Version: 
1
Problem: 

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Context: 

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Discussion: 

This pattern is still in an exploratory stage. It will contain ideas  from Street Science by Jason Corburn, Local Knowledge in the Age of Globalization by Anne Fischel and Lin Nelson, and "Improving Civic Intelligence for Habitat Protection & Rehabilitation" by Prateek Trivedi.

This is from Prateek's report: 

When considering the application of any ‘modern’ or scientific environmental management, one must take into account the indigenous knowledge of the resident communities. As Alison Field-Juma wrote, “Re-examination of indigenous natural resource management systems has shown that far from being static they have embodied the responsiveness, resilience and complexity of the ecology upon which they are based.”

Solution: 

placeholder.

Pattern status: 
Released
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