Bridging global divides with tracking and tracing technology

Product-tracking technology is increasingly available to big players in the value chain connecting producers to consumers, giving them new competitive advantages. Such shifts in technology don't benefit small producers, especially those in developing regions, to the same degree. This article examines the practicalities of leveling the playing field by creating a generic form of tracing technology that any producer, large or small, can use. It goes beyond considering engineering solutions to look at what happens in the context of use, reporting on work with partners in Chile and India and reflecting on the potential for impact on business and community well-being

Troubling futures: can participatory design research provide a generative anthropology for the 21st century?

This essay argues there is value in considering participatory design as a form of generative anthropology at a time when we recognise that we need not only to understand cultures but to change them towards sustainable living. Holding up the democratically-oriented practices of some participatory design research to definitions of anthropology allows the essay to explore the role of intervention in social process. And, challenging definitional boundaries, the essay examines design as a participatory tool for cultural change, creating and interogating futures (and the idea of futures). In analysing how designing moves towards change in the world, the essay brings together design research and concepts from anthropology to help us better understand and operationalise our interventions and pursue them in a fair and sustainable manner

Brokering between heads and hearts: an analysis of designing for social change

This paper describes a fluid and responsive design process identified among certain practitioners involved in solving social problems or inspiring social change. Their practice is both user-centred and participative in its approach and addresses the shortcomings of many top-down initiatives. These people work tactically to weave together policy knowledge, funding opportunities, local initiative and ideas for improving social and environmental conditions, acting as connectors, activists and facilitators in different contexts at different times. Although their activities are recognisably related to more conventional designing practices, the materials they use in finding solutions are unusual in that they may include the beneficiaries themselves and other features of the social structure in which they are effecting change. We present an ethnographic study of practices in designing that focuses on social initiatives rather than the tangible products or systems that might support them. We explore the how design practices map to the process of winning local people's commitment to projects with a social flavour. To situate the discussion in a political context we draw on de Certeau’s distinction between strategic and tactical behaviour and look at how our informants occupy a space as mediators between groups with power and a sense of agency and those without. Keywords: Social Change; Ethnographic Action Research; Discourse Analysis; Designing In The Wild</p

Sharing economy vs sharing cultures? Designing for social, economic and environmental good

This paper explores the story behind a crowdfunding service as an example of sharing technology. Research in a small neighborhood of London showed how locally-developed initiatives can differ in tone, scale, ambition and practice to those getting attention in the so-called sharing economy. In local accounts, we see an emphasis on organizing together to create shared spaces for collaborative use of resources and joint ownership of projects and places. Whereas, many global business models feature significant elements of renting, leasing and hiring and focus only on resource management, sometimes at the expense of community growth. The service we discuss is based in the area we studied and has a collective model of sharing, but hopes to be part of the new global movement. We use this hybridity to problematize issues of culture, place and scalability in developing sharing resources and addressing sustainability concerns. We relate this to the motivation, rhetoric and design choices of other local sharing enterprises and other global sharing economy initiatives, arguing, in conclusion, that there is no sharing economy, but a variety of new cultures being fostered

Designing for e-Social Action An Application Taxonomy

In this paper, we present a taxonomy for understanding designs and designing of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) in the field of ‘Social Action’. We use the term ‘Social Action’ to refer to activities of individuals and organisations in civil society, which are oriented towards social (rather than primarily economic) goals. We then apply the term e-Social Action to refer to the application of ICT in these activities. This definition incorporates a wide range of initiatives, varying from: trade-unions logging safety inspections on ships, Age Concern York organising volunteers to place on-line supermarket orders on behalf of housebound elderly people; the International Red Cross using logistics software to deliver emergency aid; and Martus.org providing technology to enable victims of human-rights abuse to report their experience whilst protecting their anonymity and thus avoiding reprisals. To study designing in this broad space, it is necessary to understand key dimensions of the settings where designing takes place. The aim of this paper is to examine how information and communication technologies in social action can be understood, classified and distinguished, to allow for more refined explorations of designing in this space. Keywords: e-SocialAction, Taxonomy, design and society</p

The Panopticon and the performance arena: HCI reaches within

The impact of new technologies is hard to predict. We suggest the value of theories of performativity in understanding dynamics around the convergence of biomedical and information technology. Drawing on the ideas of Butler and Foucault, we discuss a new, internal, context for HCI and raise potentially disturbing issues with monitoring health. We argue that by adopting explicitly social framings we can see beyond the idea of medical interventions to tools for wellbeing and recognize more of the implications of looking within

On social function: new language for discussing technology for social action

Designers of technology for social action can often become embroiled in issues of platform and technical functionality at a very early stage in the development process, before the precise social value of an approach has been explored. The loyalty of designers to particular technologies and to ways of working can divide activist communities and, arguably, has weakened the social action world’s performance in exploiting technology with maximum usefulness and usability. In this paper, we present a lexicon for discussing technology and social action by reference to the intention and relationship to use, rather than to detailed functionality. In short, we offer a language to support discussions of social function, and thus to avoid premature commitment or argument about architecture or implementation details.</p

Adventures in the Not Quite Yet: using performance techniques to raise design awareness about digital networks

Technologists promise a future in which pervasive, distributed networks enable radical change to social and political geographies. Design of these abstract, intangible futures is difficult and carries a special risk of excluding people who are not equipped to appreciate the ramifications of these technological changes. The Democratising Technology (DemTech) project has been exploring how techniques from performance and live art can be used to help people engage with the potential of ubiquitous digital networks; in particular, how these techniques can be used to enfranchise people with little technical knowledge, but who nonetheless will have to live with the design consequences of technical decisions. This paper describes the iterative development of a performance workshop for use by designers and community workers. These workshops employ a series of simple exercises to emulate possible processes of technological appropriation: turning abstract digital networks into imaginable, meaningful webs. They were specifically designed to target a technologically excluded group, older people, but can also be used with other groups. We describe the process of workshop development and discuss what succeeded with our test groups and what failed. In offering our recommendations for working in this space, we consider the methodological issues of collaborating across science/art/design borders and how this impacted on evaluation. And we describe the final result: a recipe for a performance workshop, also illustrated on a DVD and associated website, which can be used to explore the dynamics of technical and social change in the context of people’s own lives and concerns. Keywords: Performance; Older People; Marginalisation; Person-Centred; Ubiquitous Digital Networks; Interdisciplinary; Technology; Future; Evaluation</p

In cyberspace, sharing doesn’t always mean caring

The “sharing economy” now enables to us to access all manner of things we might need through connecting with others online. In this season that might have included sourcing turkey from a local farm, a chauffeured car to collect the relatives, a week at a stranger’s flat somewhere warm, a few hours with an industrial-strength food mixer and a range of other physical and intellectual goods