You Help Me, He Helps You: Dispute Systems Design in the Sharing Economy

Kulp and Kool discuss the potential for dispute resolution schemes in a sharing economy, one they argue involves a more efficient use of resources. The sharing economy is at the nexus of fast-paced technology that connects people to previously inaccessible resources to increase local consumption. Kulp and Kool argue that such sharing economies maximize the benefits of ownership by leveraging goods and services into a resource generator allowing increased access to goods and services at a lower-than-market rate. This unique market structure requires a distinct set of laws to address the unique relationships involved, and this Article explores how attorneys can best assist in managing conflicts in a sharing economy

Timebanking in New Zealand as a prefigurative strategy within a wider degrowth movement

Abstract A movement is gaining traction in New Zealand around timebanks, networks of support in which members exchange favors such as gardening, lifts to the supermarket, pet care, language lessons, career advice, or smartphone tutorials. An online currency is used to track these exchanges, with one hour of work earning one time credit. While each transaction may seem commonplace, when timebanks flourish they work to reshape motivations and opportunities for engaging in labor, and relocalize networks of solidarity, friendship, and resources. Participants reported examples of developing unexpected friendships and renewed enthusiasm for a larger collective project of building alternatives to the currently dominant growth-addicted economic model. These processes contribute to the establishment of foundational, mostly small-scale networks that are enjoyable to use in the here and now, while also creating the potential for these systems to be scaled up or linked together in response to greater economic, ecological, and social changes. Timebank developers in New Zealand are negotiating several structural challenges in their attempts to bring these networks to fruition. This article shares results of ethnographic research amongst seven North Island timebanks, and offers suggestions for future research in this area. Keywords: timebank, community currency, activism, degrowth, New Zealan

Beyond waged work: The everyday politics of alternative socio-economic practices

Within geography and beyond there has been much discussion about how to best respond to the mounting inequalities, pressing environmental concerns and socio-economic precarity that appear to characterise current neoliberal capitalist societies. Kathi Weeks (2011) suggests that contemporary forms of precarity are linked to dominant discourses around waged labour which she terms the ‘work society’. This work society is characterised by three inter-related expectations that frame waged work as morally necessary, as the primary right to citizenship, and as the main way to participate in wider society. Weeks argues that these expectations have increased since the global financial crisis, yet paradoxically there are fewer secure and meaningful waged jobs available. In response to these socio-economic and environmental concerns, feminist autonomous geographers like J-K Gibson-Graham (2006) argue that the best way to respond is to ‘take back the economy’ at local scales. Rather than ‘overthrowing’ global neoliberal capitalism, Gibson-Graham and groups such as the Community Economies Collective have been engaged in ongoing projects which foster and enact alternative practices and subjectivities. In this thesis I draw on the work of J-K Gibson-Graham, the Community Economies Collective and others to explore two examples of collective social action in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. These two examples are the relational arts platform, Letting Space, and the Wellington Timebank. I employ a post-structural approach drawing on ethnographic methods to explore how these collectives foster and enact alternative forms of exchange and community in response to the dominant discourses of the work society. I draw on the ideas of Jacques Rancière (2001; 2004) to show how the practices associated with Letting Space and the Wellington Timebank create political moments which disrupt the work society. I complement these discussions about political moments by drawing on the work of Judith Butler (2006b) and Jean-Luc Nancy (1991; 2000) to show how subjects enact forms of community that are not based on fixed identities. In this thesis I provide an important contribution to geographic literature by illustrating the potential of relational art and Timebanking practices to move beyond the melancholy affects associated with leftist politics over the last 30 years. I argue that the forms of social action explored in this research provide one practical way for subjects to partially negotiate the contradictions of the work society while simultaneously fostering forms of community that are more open and not premised on exclusionary identity categories

Community economic development: understanding the New Zealand context

This report examines social enterprise and community economic development in New Zealand. Executive Summary This report is the outcome of a comprehensive research process that includes interviews with 97 social enterprise and community economic development (CED) practitioners and five focus groups. The interviewed practitioners operate in cities, small towns and rural areas from around New Zealand and are involved in a diverse range of trading activities. The report integrates these findings with a comprehensive review of New Zealand and international literature about CED and social enterprise. The report also includes a library of seven case studies that respond to the research hypothesis (proposition) that was developed through the data analysis process. The case studies exemplify best practice in CED and social enterprise in New Zealand at this time. The author has a background in community development, social enterprise and the creative sector, and the research report draws on her knowledge and experience gained from working in these areas within New Zealand and in Scotland. We live in extremely challenging times. New Zealand, like the rest of the world, is suffering the effects of complex and intractable social problems, growing inequalities in health, wealth and opportunity, resource depletion and environmental degradation. The 2008 Global Financial Crisis has led to widespread uncertainty, social unrest and a reduced funding pool from grant makers and government. The expectation that governments will fix these urgent problems for the rest of us is increasingly unrealistic. We must face the issues together, across sectors and cultures, and find new paradigms to respond to the challenging issues of our time. A growing localism agenda is emerging that involves devolution of power and resources to communities. Civic participation in traditional political structures and processes is decreasing - but citizen participation at a local level is growing in many communities. There is increasing evidence that there are better health and wellbeing outcomes when people have more control and local access to services. New Zealand is one of the most centralised countries in the OECD, and the concepts of localism and devolution have gained less policy traction here than in many overseas countries, but nevertheless the localism movement is happening on the ground. Traditional commerce is inherently expansionist and centralist, and has led to unsustainable growth — one of the main drivers of inequity and resource depletion. In response, a “new economics” is emerging — based on shared values of protecting the environment for future generations and reducing the gap between rich and poor. This new economics seeks to empower local people and to support local economies

After the educational turn: alternatives to the alternative art school

This research problematises the contemporary phenomenon of alternative arts education after art’s ‘Educational Turn’, encompassed by evidence of a critical discourse between 2006 and 2016. The thesis addresses the questions: what are the alternatives to models of the alternative art school having emerged through the Educational Turn? And, how might dialogic engagement with organisations outside of the Turn propose something other for the future of alternative arts education? Contemporary art’s capacity to instrumentalise education, through its reimagining by artists and the co-option of ‘the alternative’ by arts institutions, must be countered by considering organisational models that sit outside of the Educational Turn. The field is contextualised by a ‘crisis in education’ in the UK, contributing to an abundant manifestation of ‘alternative’ art schools. An often-overlooked plurality exists to ‘the alternative’ that, in its co-option by contemporary art, is rendered homogenised. Existing discourse considers artistic, self-organised and curatorial practices, framed by institutional and infrastructural critique, but neglects to step outside of the Turn to imagine other models for alternative arts education. ‘Knowledge mobility’, ‘the dialogic’ and ‘(trans)formation’ form a framework for the thesis, functioning according to a methodology of critique and proposition. The research derives ‘knowledge mobility’ to critique the Turn’s instrumentalisation of education, by examining existing discourse and practice that problematise the paradoxes of the Turn and frame knowledge as a form of social organisation. The research aligns ‘the dialogic’ from Mikhail Bakhtin and Paulo Freire, with Julia Kristeva and Roland Barthes’ ‘intertextuality’ and Maurice Blanchot’s ‘infinite conversation’. The function of ‘the dialogic’ is twofold: as a structural metaphor and conversational research practice. Four dialogues with organisations operating outside of the remit of the Turn consider the productive and transformative capacities of models not framed as alternative art schools. These are with: Leeds Creative Timebank, IF Project, THECUBE and Syllabus programme. Negotiating critical and applied interpretations of ‘knowledge mobility’, findings from these are reconciled with the research through a process of ‘(trans)formation’, resulting in the proposition of speculative principles to contribute to the field of alternative arts education. The research has been produced as part of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) Creative Exchange knowledge exchange hub, providing the context for stepping outside of the domain of contemporary art. The value of this approach for the field of alternative arts education is in its capacity to have drawn together thinking from each organisation. This research makes its contribution to the field of alternative arts education by working dialogically with organisations where the practice of knowledge is central, establishing a connection between organisations outside of the Turn, which would otherwise be excluded from its discourse, with contemporary art. The research formulates and puts into practice methods of critique, conversation and proposition: producing a critical vocabulary, lens and through deriving speculative propositions towards a possible future for alternative arts educatio

Technology for Inclusion and Participation

This paper introduces to “Technology for Inclusion and Participation” and an STS of the “15th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs” (ICCHP), 13th – 15th July 2016. It threads contributions of the STS topics along two strands: addressing technological developments and the embeddedness of technology in social settings, underpinning the need to address discriminating environments by social means. The paper reveals the insight, that both perspectives can’t be seen without the other and blends both strands into the discourse on social innovation – the co-creation of innovative solutions for better tackling social needs

Regional resilience and collective action: the response of local state actors to the needs of rural enterprise in crisis

The lack of integration between policies and organisations is exacerbated in rural regions while there are inherent dangers of interventions imposed from above that lack sensitivity to local social networks and the norms of behaviour that typify small rural businesses. A succession of crisis conditions has been experienced by businesses in Cumbria over the past decade or so. These include the impacts of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in 2001, the floods that affected Carlisle in 2005 and the episode of flooding in the County during 2009. On each of these occasions, local authorities working in partnership with local business support agencies, voluntary sector organisations and regional agencies in NW England have implemented emergency plans that have included consideration of business continuity and the threats posed to communities by business failure. This paper examines the response of the public and private sectors to these periodic business crises and concludes by considering the relevance of the concept of regional resilience at the micro-economic level

A moral householding perspective on the sharing economy

In this paper, we scrutinise the sharing economy from a moral householding perspective and evaluate the moral justifications for a sustainable form of the sharing economy. We consider the emergence of normative moral justifications through householding practices that rest on local mobilisation of people in defence of communities and commitments against the adverse impacts of neoliberal market capitalism. Our perspective draws on Karl Polanyi's conceptualisation of householding, that is, autarchic, communistic provision in a closed community. Using timebanking as an example, we illustrate how a moral sharing economy can be mobilised in collective battles against the current neoliberal system of economic crisis. We contribute to the amassing sharing economy literature emphasising a central, yet missing element of the current discourse: householding as practices creating self-sufficiency and autonomy as well as combining both kin and stranger