On care and communities: Situations, Relationships, Contexts
Hi everyone,
I have been thinking and trying to make sense of @Ezio, @LuceChiodelliUB , @Costantino and @Alberto 's points above. Firstly I think it is a phase in which we do need to have a few more calls to find a common direcition and this early phase in the project. At th consortium meeting we did the first part of setting the foundations, but that is only the first step. We now need to tackle the actual content of the research, how we will weave this all in together...and think together really :) Last week we did have the first of the open calls and it was very helpful. We tested a software that was not really up to the job, se we will stick to google hangout from now on. Now for the "meat" in the comment:
Yesterday Ezio and I met in London to think together around how to proceed with our part of the research. I had been struggling to understand the distinction Ezio was making the sense in which we are exploring "Openness" in the context of care. I think I understand better now, and think I am algined with Ezio, and away from Alberto, that it is the first which is more fruitful/interesting. For me the openness has to do with more porous interface between what is inside a cateogry or institution or practice, a place..etc and what is outside. And what happens in those situations where there is a fuzzy, or een decomposing boundary between them. Professional caregivers, vs others. Between insiders and outsiders of a community. Between users and builders of technologies.
Less so the collaborative, participatory nature of our research project. Which for me is given. The very fact that we are having this conversation like this, in the open, with all the difficulties of comprehension that it involves mean that we are already doing this. Seen from here, the conversation we are really trying to have is one of research curation, where to direct our gaze and why. As well as the filter through which we look at it.
During yesterday's conversation Ezio and I reflected on how Europe had reacted to the Paris attacks. How a small number of individuals could shut down two countries for a two days. Similarly it is remarkable that in the world's wealthiest continent, a relatively small number of refugees can destabilise the entire system. Can this be tied to people's sense of being vulnerable, even with nice jobs etc? Can it be there is a sense of lack of social protection because of not being firmly anchored in caring communities?
But what does this term community actually mean in a contemporary, urban situation? Ezio's work at Central Saint Martins has been exploring this. His students have been looking at weaving together people and places in situations where connections are fleeting and ephemeral (not like in villages where you are stuck with one another in the same place for better or worse). Noemi, Alberto and myself have been working with related things with Edgeryders, creating a sense of place and community that remains even though the relationships which make it (who is there, who interacts with whom, what people connect over etc) are constantly changing. John, before us with other settings and constellations of people. It seems Ezio and I have arrived at the same intuition and this is where his interest in Opencare lies:
How can we use design to reconcile this need for the individual to be free to choose their level of engagement in care, with the need for the care recipient to feel continuity, local anchoring and coherence design these factors into existing or new initiatives?
Can having an option to spread the care over more people nudge more people to engage in caring activities? And if so, under which conditions does this happen or not (which are the critical factors)?
There are three situations within which it may be especially generative to focus our research attention:
- Social and or health care of refugees in Germany/Europe
- Prevention of Suicide in the hacker community
- Helping both caregivers and care receivers in dealing with dementia in urban environments
These three areas we choose because they are situations in which the crisis of care in modernity is very visible. I think (please forgive my fumbling approach to articulate intuition into words with my limited understanding of your areas of expertise and interest):
- All three involve people in vulnerable situations where dynamics in community connections, or lack of, play a significant role. Can Guy/Alberto's network science perspective help us to make visible and understand these social flows?
- All three also involve some interaction with the formal health and social care system, conditions as well as norms/behaviors in society at large. Can Erik and Tino's approach help us make sense of this and translating it into institutionally comprehensible language?
- All three also involve and require a deep understanding of healing and medical practice, especially the ethical considerations for both caregivers and care recipients. Can Marco, Massimo's and other's work in the field and in the lab help us to identify and understand how to deal with these issues? In the research as well as in the intiatives themselves?
- The city as a place and institutions is where all of these interactions and relationships live (or do not). Can Lucia and Rossana and others in the city of Milano help us understand how a city can make visible and enable promising approaches and nurturing the people who drive them?
- Can we design interventions offer workarounds to the obstacles these intiatives, and the indivuals they attempt to support (caregivers and care recipients)? What forms could these interventions take in order to unlock more care in the different situations (artefacts, communication, services, processes, upskilling, administrative and legal hacks, policy changes and or something else? Here I think the ingenuity and very particular skillset of Costantino, Zoe and others in the weMake constellation could make a very important contribution.
Thoughts?