suggestion@
Hi @Noemi, and all, this is a first contribution moving from your proposal.
But a premise is needed: I am interested to participate to the making of this paper, and if useful, I can take some responsibilities in it. But, given that my background is not ethnography as you and @melancon asked (but it is design theory and practice), and given that my presence and role in, and knowledge of, Opencare is marginal, I don’t know if it is possible for me to propose myself as team leader or co-leader.
Given that, and starting form practicalities and moving to contens:
1. Roadmap. Given that the deadline is at the end of February and that we have to write only a 500 words abstract, I think that we can spend 2 weeks for a conversation, via mail and, at a given point via skype, aiming to clarify what we want to do and who is going to really contribute to the writing.
2. Track and theme. @Noemi proposed to go for the “Doing together” track, and “to use the preliminary data we have to say something about how collective capacity can be sustained, indeed with a vehicle like opencare and digital networks”. @melancon openly agreed with Noemi. I agree with Noemi too and my present contribution intends to move in this same direction.
3. My way of dealing with this theme. In my understanding and moving from my background, the question “how collective capacity -in the field of care- can be sustained” can be situated in a thread of studies and experiences grounded on the three notions: infrastructuring and designing coalitions. I don’t know if you are familiar with these terms (the space of knowledge is so large!), in any case, shortly:
- Infrastructuring is a term introduced by Leigh Star* and taken up by Pelle Ehn and his school in Malmö University” ** it refers to a process of open collaborative design, aiming at creating an environment in which new matters of concern may emerge, designing coalitions may be started and specific projects may be enhanced.
* S. L. Star and K. Ruhleder, “Steps toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces,” Information System Research 7 (1996), 111–134; S. L. Star and G. C. Bowker, “How to Infrastructure,” in L. A. Lievrouw and S. L. Livingstone, eds., The Handbook of New Media (London: Sage, 2006).
- Pelle Ehn, “Participation in Design Things,” Participatory Design Conference Proceedings, 30 September–4 October 2008, Bloomington, Indiana.
- Designing coalitions: networks whose members collaborate to achieve shared results***. They aggregate around a matter of concern, and promote and enhance coherent design initiatives. Coalition actors come together with the potential to articulate, negotiate and collaborate (or not) in address to issues of concern to them. *** Ezio Manzini, design when everybody designs, MIT press 2015
- NB.Bruno Latour and then others, use the term Thing ****. I prefer to refer to the notion of ‘designing coalitions’ for reasons that are discussable, but that are to long to be explained in these initial notes). **** Pelle Ehn, Thomas Binder, Per Linde et al, What is the object of design? (2012)
It comes that the infrastructuring activity can be seen as an open-ended ‘horizontal’ project, where different coalitions that aggregate around specific matters of concern may start and enhance a diversity of specific ‘vertical’ projects. (in realty, things are more complex than this, but, for the moment, let’s keep it simple, adopting this dualistic, horizontal/vertical, duality).
Using this background and this language, the original Noemi’s question, “how can collective capacity be sustained?”, could become, and be articulated in, something like that:
- How, up to now, the infrastructuring activity done by OpenCare succeeded in creating a favourable environment where different matters of concern have had the possibility to emerge, designing coalitions to be created and specific vertical’ projects to be started and enhanced?
- Which are the lectures we can learn from what has been done until now? How could limits be overcome? How could opportunities be better understood? How this experience could be improved and relicated in different contexts, and in realtion to different themes?
To answer these general questions, some first steps should be done, considering and analysing the nature of both the Opencare’s infrastructuring activity and the specific conversations and activities that happened thanks it.
- Opnecare’s infrastructuring activity: what has been done to start the process and to day-by-day manage it? Which are the affordances embedded in it?... etc.
- Conversations and activities which matters of concern emerged? Which designing coalitions have been formed? Which projects have been started?
3. My personal interest in this theme. One of the topic I am presently working on relates to the design contribution to (1) “the politics of everyday” and, consequently, to (2) a democracy where individual and collaborative projects of life can exist and thrive.
Given that, I think that me motivation of my interest on if and how an infrastructuring activity as the Opencare one can become a favorable environment for different kinds of projects, is self-evident.
Of course, this motivation would be the core of the paper if I had to do it alone. I am curious to read what are you yours. And to start a conversation on them …