Museum of Contemporary Commodities: a research performance

The materialities and injustices of the 'prolific present' are overwhelming, making attention to the production, consumption and disposal of 'stuff' an urgent matter of concern. Presenting as automatic and only partially visible, creatively constructive acts of ‘dataveillance’ are integral to this explosion of stuff; conditioning our daily lives as milieus of consumption that channel profit to the propertied classes, often with socially and environmentally damaging consequences (Gabrys 2016, van Dijck, 2014, Tsing, 2013). Constructing the agency to intervene in these socio-technical valuing practices and cultural performances, requires us to consider our roles in those performances, as much as theorising the constituting structures, strategies, and (in)justices of their production. The Museum of Contemporary Commodities is an art geography research performance that is both a collaboratively produced dramaturgy of valuing, and an experiment in public curation as transformative process (Heathfield 2016, Graeber, 2013, Richter 2017). The project manifests as a series of digitally networked hacks, prototypes and events that attempt to configure new alignments between the social, material and digital that are localised and mobile, stable and reconfigurable, familiar and new (Suchman et al., 2002). These are art geographies as collectively produced critical making and social practices, which encourage audience-as-participant move from 'automatic' taking part in the unfolding immanence of the world, to feeling it more deeply. By extension attending to and caring for the ethical and political implications, and the material things that participation produces (Cull, 2011, Puig de la Bellacasa 2012)

Digital ethnography, or 'deep hanging out' in the age of big data

The main argument of this chapter is that digital ethnography is neither new nor consisting of one single approach. It’s a set of methods that studies the use of digital technology both on- and offline, while at the same time using affordances of these very same digital technologies for studying the impact of the digital on cultural practice and social relations. The chapter addresses some of the definitional issues of an ethnography of the digital: How is it defined as a form of inquiry? And do we need a separate sub-discipline in order to study the digital ethnographically? Secondly, and in a next section, it refers to some of the foundational moments of digital ethnography, explaining how these have triggered new approaches and novel ways of understanding the digital. The fourth section particularly focuses on the methodological consequences of such shifts, looking at some of the classical methods and techniques used in doing digital ethnography whilst similarly exploring new frontiers where the ‘fireworks’ are expected to happen. After a brief section delving into some of the emergent ethical issues in this field, I will conclude this contribution with recommendations on how to teach (ourselves) digital ethnography.Global Challenges (FSW

Walking through the abstract(ed) city and co-creating urban space.

This paper explores how co-designing urban walkability can be augmented by an innovative hybrid approach, whereby virtual records and visualisations of the walking experience can enhance the awareness, perceptions and immersion of the participant in both real and virtual spaces. From one side of that model, the research explores how people might be intrigued enough to discover the real context, based on their experience informed and enriched by parallel images of the city. On the other side, the study aimed to develop a critical understanding of urban walking through the lens of 3D high-definition LIDAR scanning technology, where visualisation techniques were used to support studies to explore how the rich experience of walking could be captured and represented. The paper presents a theoretical framework to propose how walking could be promoted, and positively influenced by the urban environment, by regarding the city from the abstract perspective of the virtual point cloud. The research has investigated how and whether a place – real and abstracted - could act as a trigger to produce novel ideas and unfold thoughts in a participatory way. The interlinkages between motion and (visual) perception of the environment as an aesthetic experience were critical to informing how digital technology can be utilised as a virtual space within which the richness of real interactions and experiences with urban space can be represented, refined, interacted with and used within a rich(er) process of co-design

Social labs as good practice for transdisciplinary engagement processes in research and innovation

This article discusses a ‘Social Lab process’ applied in the field of research and innovation as good practice for transdisciplinary processes, and elaborates upon the structure and dynamics of these processes. It sheds light on how engagement processes could be set up for a more inclusive and participant-friendly atmosphere, allowing for meaningful and sustainable outcomes. Supported by data from a qualitative analysis of 19 Social Lab experiences according to the thematic programmes of the European Commission Horizon 2020 research framework programme, this article outlines requirements that need to be taken into account when implementing a transdisciplinary process in a Social Lab. Based on the concept of transdisciplinary research and the experience of this one-and-a-half-year process, the elements of participatory approaches required for successful implementation of a Social Lab, starting with inviting participants to develop small implementation projects (pilot activities) are described. The qualitative analysis of the process documentations highlights the importance of a clear definition of the framework and purpose of the process. Concrete assignments of the lab teams and roles, and the implementation of pilot activities, further proved crucial for successful and sustainable results. On this basis, recommendations for a fruitful participatory process are formulated

Conversations About Responsible Nanoresearch

There is currently a strong focus on responsible research in relation to the development of nanoscience and nanotechnology. This study presents a series of conversations with nanoresearchers, with the ‘European Commission recommendation on a code of conduct for responsible nanosciences and nanotechnologies research’ (EC-CoC) as its point of departure. Six types of reactions to the document are developed, illustrating the diversity existing within the scientific community in responses towards this kind of new approaches to governance. Three broad notions of responsible nanoresearch are presented. The article concludes by arguing that while the suggestion put forward in the EC-CoC brings the concept of responsible nanoresearch a long way, one crucial element is to be wanted, namely responsible nanoresearch as increased awareness of moral choices

New HoRRIzon: D2.5 Actions and Activities to Realize RRI in Excellent Science

This Deliverable tells about the journey of the Social Labs from their very beginning, in which we struggled to first get an understanding of the particular Funding Line of H2020 and tried to “diagnose” its uptake of RRI, continuing with the identification of our stakeholders and our attempt to incentivize them to participate in the Social Labs. In this Deliverable, we explain which methods we used in our Social Lab Workshops to raise and discuss the question of responsibility in research and innovation and to generate ideas for Pilot Actions, which experiences we made with these group methods and, most importantly, which Pilot Actions the Social Lab participants created, developed, changed and implemented in order to realize their ambitions of RRI and a responsible research and innovation system

Reframing data ethics in research methods education: a pathway to critical data literacy

This paper presents an ethical framework designed to support the development of critical data literacy for research methods courses and data training programmes in higher education. The framework we present draws upon our reviews of literature, course syllabi and existing frameworks on data ethics. For this research we reviewed 250 research methods syllabi from across the disciplines, as well as 80 syllabi from data science programmes to understand how or if data ethics was taught. We also reviewed 12 data ethics frameworks drawn from different sectors. Finally, we reviewed an extensive and diverse body of literature about data practices, research ethics, data ethics and critical data literacy, in order to develop a transversal model that can be adopted across higher education. To promote and support ethical approaches to the collection and use of data, ethics training must go beyond securing informed consent to enable a critical understanding of the techno-centric environment and the intersecting hierarchies of power embedded in technology and data. By fostering ethics as a method, educators can enable research that protects vulnerable groups and empower communities