Food, Environment and the InterWeb

Status Update - Revealing my secret research project - On the Experience of Living More Sustainabily

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 03:37:00 +0000

- On the Experience of Living in a More Sustainable Manner -

Well, life over the past 6 months has seemed like a whirlwind, not unlike the 6 months before it.

As I come to my senses, and the mental fog clears, I find myself feeling as if my family and I have been abused - sucked dry. In part, the past year or so has been the result of our own choices, and partly the results of external forces outside our immediate control. And no, I have yet to complete the dissertation, and up until the last 4 weeks everything has been pretty much on hold. However, with a little reprieve and some time for personal reflection, I realize how much hardship can teach each one of us.

For one, I think Maslow was correct in his assessment of human fulfillment. In my case, when one's life is reduced primarily to dealing with the basic necessity of survival, higher level pursuits tend to suffer. The capacity for reflection is not necessarily diminished, but the depth of importance or relevance to one's immediate survival needs seems ancillary.

It is almost embarrassing to publicly admit this, but I know what it means to feel hunger. I know the fear (uncertaintity ) and shame (poor choices) that comes with the threat of homelessness. I know the sense of uncertaintity that comes with poverty, as well as the loss of "freedom" that comes with poverty. Instead of having the ability of choosing between a series of positive pursuits, the experience of poverty is one where the opportunities one has are severely limited in terms of the number of options one has available, as well as the quality of those options. Often times my wife and I would find ourselves having to choose between phones, power and food. Most days, we could only choose one.

(Side note: the connection between choice and the "experience" of poverty seem to resonate with Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum's conceptions of justice - where the capabilities one is afforded correspond to the freedom to act, the freedom to enjoy life)

Unfortunately, I am already familiar with the experience of being a young father, and a husband struggling to take care of a new family. At the age of 19, I woke to a foreign reality - Somehow I navigated through teenage homelessness, and all of the things that come with being 16, and living life on the streets. Somehow I was employed, working just above minimum wage, and a roof over my head. Still I was a high school drop out who barely completed the 9th grade, and who was suffering from a deficit of purpose and vision - suffering from a deep existential angst. However, with the reality of fatherhood and the level of responsibility that being a parent entailed, compelled - demanded a cosmic shift. I committed to finding a purpose, that ideal vision - where I could live in line with my passions and beliefs. The trick was finding out what that meant...

Fast forward 13 years, and I find that those earlier years seem like a faded dream of another person, living another life. But whether one is a homeless teen, a nervous parent to be, or a respected scholar - a convergence of events can land anyone in peril, and at any moment the feeling of powerlessness in the storm of life can overwhelm and debilitate.

On the other hand, not all is "negative" and it often seems that through the hardships we encounter in life, are the times when we are challenged and . For one, as someone who pays lip service to the ideals of "voluntary simplicity," it wasn't until I was confronted with "forced simplicity" that I learned how to watch my habitual patterns towards consumption, accumulation and the never-ending pursuit of comfort. Thinking for a moment about the "Fulfillment Curve" articulated in the book, "Your Money or Your Life," I can't help but see the parallels with my own life experience. We sought out a degree of comfort to offset the overwhelming discomfort through coffee, food, alcohol, etc. But the more we sought out these small comforts the more we perpetuated the problems of scaricity, and ultimately the problem of choice. The time, energy and worry that went into balancing the immediate needs, and immediate wants became a greater stresser than the relief we derived from fulfilling those wants. Like a drug addict, I was habituated to the satisficing of my desire for comfort, even when both my apparent obsession and compulsion had become key factors in my mental and material poverty.

Overall, I learned that although I possess the skills and experiences to start and run an organic, sustainable farm - write software, do research, run a non-profit, etc., etc. - my obsession with those more immediate comforts made it impossible to forgo these things -- despite our dreams, and our cause. After all, one of the very basis for the move was my own desire to extend beyond my "objective" research work on sustainable living and agriculture, and delve into the phenomenological dimension of what it means to live in greater ecological balance.

Sure you can read books, and study the science but to immerse oneself in the practice and process reveals a type of knowledge that is hidden through more positivist approaches to developing knowledge and insight. While one might seem to be discursive in nature, the other would seem more heuristic, and born out of immediate experience. I just never anticipated this little detour, and yet it was the act of purposeful struggle that highlighted the material, social and psychological barriers that invariably shape the character and extent of our abilities to live more balanced, or at least more coherently with our ideals.

Unlike a survey, or an in-person interview - the active engagement in attempting to create coherence between one's ideals and one's actions, a disciplined and methodical inquiry into the nature, or experience of sustainability reveals a different dimension. The process of reflection in the wake of all that has transpired highlights to me, one of the missing elements in my research. What has been missing is the personal story - the personal struggles, failures and successes.

While I have spent a great deal of time working on developing a web crawler to support my social network and discourse analysis, I realized that one critical element was missing. For me, it is not enough to merely study a particular phenomenon. In a sense, one must enter into it in order to more fully comprehend the nuanced nature of the phenomenon. This embrace and engagement is in a sense a response to the more starchy, antiseptic research endevours that speaks to a highly academic audience. While this is important in the context of research and policy, our intellectual engagement must delve beyond the specific research question and dig deeper. We must begin to consider more fully what it means to be a human living in modernity and simultaneously seeking to follow a post-modern - ecologically oriented worldview.

So far, the revelation of living (or attempting to) illuminates the contradictions of choice that emerge - contradictions that are made apparent through the limitations of time and space - contradictions that appear in light of scarcity. As I move forward in this line of inquiry, I hope to give more context to the growth in local food systems, and especially the growing movement of people seeking opportunities to grow their own food and reassert more control over their food supply. Yet, just as this project aims to reveal the opportunities and intelligence of human communities (and individuals), it is meant to show the limits that confront us. By seeing both, it is possible to create more intelligent solutions and opportunities for making it easier for people to begin living more consciously, more voluntarily, and ultimately more sustainably...

(More to Come)

Update on the Webbot/CA/SNA Software... (CyberMapper)

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:21:00 +0000

Ok, so I came up with a name for the webbot project - "CyberMapper." Not sure if this is already in use, or whether it will stick, but for ease I had to come up with something. So there it is, and the CyberMapper project is getting closer to a beta release. For now, it is being restricted to academic use only, there are already plenty of solutions that cater to

To recap from previous posts, this is an application being developed to assist my research efforts here at WSU. CyberMapper is a web application written in PHP, and backed by a MySQL DB. It currently runs locally on my computer, and lacks a suitable UI, so all command line. But, I'm planning to get it running live, and with a slick UI (maybe pseudo-slick).

OK, so what does CyberMapper do? -

The application is designed to retrieve a Google, or Google Blog search query-set (News to be added soon). The software then extracts the links, descriptions and site-title information. This is uploaded into a db. The initial search provides up to 1000 urls that serve to seed a more in-depth web crawl. CyberMapper then initiates the crawl collecting all text/images/multimedia data contained within the site, parses and extracts all outbound links, and saves to the db.

The user can define the search depth to conduct, meaning I can run a "search and save" crawl that goes one step away from the seed site or more. For example, if you set the distance of the search to 4, the search will collect pages 4 links away from the seed site. The user can also define the number of seed sites (provided via the google search results) to use when conducting a crawl. I suggest keeping these numbers small because this could be disastrous unless you are capable of handling terabytes of data.

In addition to what the software does, I'm also trying to develop a text analysis tool to then process the parsed content of the sites. Of course, there are software tools already available, but this simple tool could be useful in choosing the data collection to upload in a package like Atlas.ti. Of course the data collected from each of the crawls can be exported to an Excel workbook, and in my case, I'm using Stata 10.

But, will I meet my own July 15th deadline? Probably not, we are in the middle of moving, and other work responsibilities are calling. But I'm close to begin sharing this project with others, yeah!

Great Tutorial - PHP and cURL

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:49:00 +0000

Since I'm making heavy use of PHP and cURL, I thought I'd share a great tutorial, "PHP and cURL Functions Tutorial," for those interested in working with these technologies to implement their own scraping/crawling web service.

As you should know, PHP is a multi-purpose web scripting language. It is relatively simple to use, fast and uniquely designed to work with the web!

cURL is a set of libraries that enables a user to access web resources remotely, meaning you never have to go to a web page to get the page contents, or fill out a form. In theory, you could process all your online banking requests via PHP and cURL without ever having to manually login and navigate the bank's website.

Basically, with these two technologies, coupled with Google Search, you can do a whole lot of very cool, very good (or very bad) things on the web. These technologies are especially useful for data-mining through the web.

Continuing along with the food discourse in cyberspace project

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:27:00 +0000

It has been super hectic these past couple of months. In fact, it has been so stressful I have had little time to perfect my code. Or finish up my drafts for the dissertation for that matter! And this is due like last week!

Fortunately, the code works though, but only partially. I still need to enable the "crawl" function, at least provide a better implementation. Plus, I want to provide an interface to make usability a lot easier. With those two things on the current wish list, I went a head and began an implementation of the project using the CodeIgniter framework for PHP. It is very slick, easy to use and if you have experience with the Model-View-Controller approach to software development then you will be up in no-time writing cool software.

I'm planning to have this newest iteration completed by July 15th. I'm making a public commitment! I'm not promising I'm going to release the project for download just yet, I need to analyze the data and finish writing my paper first, but I will post some returned results from the software.

Fortunately, things are starting to settle down, well the end is in sight! So, I anticipate being able to actually finish this in the time I have allotted.

But first I have a move to tackle! I just got a job with the Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network, acting as their web developer and online operations manager. I guess I'll be acting kind of like a Swiss Army Knife, not only will I be managing the web operations, I will also be doing some policy work for supporting local food economies in Washington State. The other plus is that its part-time, which means I'll have time for other endeavors, like finishing the dissertation!

A Learning Experience -

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:55:00 +0000

I haven't talked about this at all on this blog, but a little known fact is that back in January I moved my family out of Pullman to Ebey Island right outside of Everett. We found a place with 35 acres, a house, barn and water rights. The plan: to start a small organic market garden and catering service. I even started a brand new blog to document this process and hopefully provide a resource for other wanna-be farmers/foodies. We paid a lot of money up front for the land, seed, and equipment. About 3 weeks before planting, the landlord shows his true colors. It would appear that giving him a large sum of money up front was a bad thing because he seemed to expect that on a regular basis.

Now, I'm not going to go into every detail, I think everyone I know has heard the story a dozen times. But basically he freaks out that we aren't paying him months in advance. His attitude and actions scared me into second guessing whether we wanted to establish this business here. I mean once you plant, you are vested unless you want to loose everything. It's not like I can dig up a 2 acre vegetable garden and move it!

Despite the anger and resentment over his behavior, I learned a valuable lesson in all this (maybe more than one). The first thing is:

Follow your gut! While the economics might point you in one direction, that should be tempered with an honest assessment of the person you are doing business with.
The second lesson is: Do not agree to a month-to-month situation! It might work for some, but legally the landlord can give you 20 days notice, without cause, to vacate the premises. Another reason I got scared...
The third lesson: I will have to be more persist-ant than ever in order to make this dream a reality.

And finally...

The fourth lesson: Never let anyone walk all over you, or think they can. To be more specific, don't be so trusting and don't be so accommodating, unless it is reciprocated.

I have a tendency to be too giving, almost to the point of it being a shortcoming. I think people who don't know me take this as a sign of weakness, when in fact it is in my nature and comes from a deep seeded belief that we have to be the change we want to see! But when values and reality collide, it is best to embrace reality!

So, with all that said, we are moving on to another community, probably to move into an apartment till we can start over. The dream isn't dead, and no asshole is going to kill it for me. Because what I lack in intelligence, I make up through perseverance!

A little self promotion - Web Creds..

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Tue, 24 May 2011 04:48:00 +0000

I was thinking it might be a good idea to archive all the websites I have worked on, developed, etc. Some of the sites still work, some were abandoned, some I'm proud of and some I would rather forget. Nevertheless, I have never claimed to be a designer, but rather a php/mysql ninja, capable of integrating different technologies, and an SEO genius.

TinyGoneBig (Newest Project) -
Hopelink -
Whitman County Democrats -
The Public Sphere Project -
The Global Plant Sciences Initiative -
Interconnection (not sure if the PHP/MySQL is still in use, but not my design) -

Of course there are a lot more projects that I have worked on in the past 7 years (Jesus, it has been that long!!!), but many of them are defunct, archived somewhere in cyberspace (hopefully never to be seen again...lol). But overall, these are some of more interesting projects. Not to mention, I think each project highlights specific expertise that I've acquired.

For example, the Hopelink site makes heavy use of (SEO) Google Analytics, AdSense, Meta-tags, etc. I worked hard to increase traffic and visibility of the site and the organization. Web traffic doubled since I was there, and it has doubled twice over since I left (4+ years ago).

The GPSI site, and more recently the TinyGoneBig project, gave me a crash course in building social networking platforms for business and community collaboration. And so on...

Almost an entire year... Research Almost Done!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Tue, 24 May 2011 02:40:00 +0000

It has been nearly a year since I have posted on this blog. Lots of things have gone on these past few months. Much of my time has been devoted to my research, finishing up my PhD and looking for gainful employment. With the PhD winding down, and the research track I have chosen, this blog space may be more relevant to my work than ever.

For one, I'm working on a software project that is being used to conduct content and social network analysis of food bloggers in cyberspace. The idea behind the project is to gain a better understanding of food discourse in cyberspace. In particular, I'm looking at dominant themes among alternative agri-food movements (AAFMs). Basically, the software is a webcrawler and screenscraper that searches, indexes and records data from publicly available blogs that publish content about: Local Food, Food Sovereignty, Slow Food, Organic Food, Community Food Security, Sustainable Cooking, Sustainable Agriculture, etc. Currently, the code is pretty crude, but it works! I'm developing the project in PHP/MYSQL and will be adding a slick UI the employs some cool AJAX stuff.

Aside from geeking out on building the software, several research questions are directing this inquiry:

Does the blogosphere reflect current trends among food shoppers? In other words, are the main themes expressed by food bloggers, the same themes that are influencing shifting consumer choice with respect to local and organic foods?

Does food discourse in cyberspace reflect the social and geographical context of place? For instance, I suggest that CSAs and Slowfood might be more relevant themes in say, Berkeley CA. Whereas, food sovereignty might be more relevant theme in say, inner-city Detroit.

And finally, I want to ask the question as to whether there are multiple food movements, or one food movement with variations depending on social and geographic context.

Using consumer survey data collected this last fall (2010), together with US Census data and the information gathered through the software, I anticipate being able to offer a new perspective on some of interesting debates in current agri-food scholarship. Anyway, things are moving fast and I hope to have all data analyzed, papers written and dissertation completed by October of this year!

So much for the re-committing...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:14:00 +0000

Well, as you can see it has been tough for me to post regularly here. Just haven't had the time, although there are plenty of very exciting things going on. First, I'm nearing completion of my PhD and finally working on a number of very interesting projects related to sustainable agri-food systems and civic intelligence.

In my work, I'm combining Doug Schuler's civic intelligence model and Anthony Giddens's theory of structuration. While Schuler's model looks at how collectives perceive, process and utilize information in responding to issues of common concern, structuration provides a way to see the ways in which action (of individuals and collectives) interacts with social structures. From this perspective Giddens asserts that structure and agency are bound in a feedback process, where agency influences structure, but where structure ultimately influences agency.

Three of the key features of my research is to:

1.) Extend the civic intelligence model by incorporating Giddens structuration that include the elements of space and time, while also speaking to the agency-structure dualism.

2.) Bring the theory of civic intelligence into the discourse on sustainable food and civic agriculture as a means to understand the evolution of the various associate movements.

3.) Bring civic intelligence in as means to help movement actors begin thinking about ways to improve practice through information, collective cognition, learning and adaptation.

To address these three areas, I'm working on a number of projects in this domain. The first one is an analysis of the evolution of food movements, that brings civic intelligence in as a way to describe this evolution, as well as provide ideas for movement participants to improve practice. This is sort of the conceptual basis for all else that follows. This project is also connected to another project that looks to link the concept of "community capitals" as latent capabilities (eg human capital, social capital, natural capital, etc) with civic intelligence, which I see as the active utilization and expression of these capitals. Again, these are more conceptual pieces that seek to begin a conversation in the sociology of agriculture, and community development literature that has yet be considered.

Some of the more empirical projects are looking sustainable consumption with respect to food and self-provisioning of food through urban gardening. This looks at how individuals learn about and share information with respect to sustainable food provisioning. The second study is looking at how the structural constraints/opportunities that enable and suppress the emergence of civic intelligence in promoting community food security. The third project is looking at how a loosely aligned group of people with divergent perspectives, beliefs and attitudes about development, sustainability, and poverty collaborate to create garden and food networks to provide fresh foods to undeserved families in their community.

These of course aren't the only projects, I have few more that I'm trying to develop. The first is looking to develop a pattern language for civic agriculture and sustainable community development, the second is a social network analysis of online discourse to better understand the ways in which local context and placeless knowledge on food and the environment, intersect to create locally specific manifestations of sustainable food initiatives....

***

When considering the issues we face with respect to climate change, loss of natural resources and transformation of agriculture on a global scale, identifying the ways in which collective action is enabled and constrained in exerting local autonomy and self-defined development is a critical area of research worth exploring. Furthermore, I find that in the face of all of these looming catastrophes, globalization, bank failures, individuals and communities are desperately seeking a way to exert some sense of control over their lives.

I hope that by look at some of the ways that communities are addressing food sustainability that I might be able to offer some hope/strategies and ideas for affecting positive change at the local level. Not to mention, some theoretical basis for understanding these changes...

Re-committing

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:41:00 +0000

So I am going to try this again. I have been off and on the whole blogging thing lately. Much of it has to do with trying to finish the PhD, finals and life in general. However, there is a lot worth saying these days. For the next few weeks I'm going to try and post something at least every other day, if not every day.

Some new directions, some not so new...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:11:00 +0000

Well, it has been months since I have posted anything on this blog and for the most part it would seem completely dead, but no it is not... Truth be told I have been finishing up classes, passing my qualifying exams for candidacy and working to develop my research program for completion of the PhD.

As some of my later posts indicated I have taken an interest in sustainable agri-food systems, but in many ways I was trying to change some of my interests to fit the literature available to me. However, with my background in IT and the social sciences coupled with my new knowledge in environmental systems it seems appropriate to find a way to integrate all of these elements into some sort of coherent program of research.

With that in mind I began looking for references in the literature on agri-food studies that discuss the role of technology and the internet in particular and their respective influences on the rise of alternative agri-food system projects. This fascinating search revealed one single source and only scant hints at the role of new information and communication technologies for informing civic agriculture.

So to complete the PhD I will be doing 3 empirical research papers with the intent of publishing them in some journals. The first two deal directly with the role that ICTs are playing in supporting the emergence and spread of civic agriculture. The third paper has yet to be approved but I intend to do an ecological footprint analysis on a hypothetical scalability of local agriculture on the Palouse.

The key to this eco-footprint analysis will be the focus on spatial variation with respect to landscape. It is my hypothesis that ecological variations across spatial dimensions will invariably lead to different outcomes with respect to the sustainability of local agri-food systems.

For instance, it cannot all be about GHG emissions and food miles. For instance, biodiversity, water consumption for food production and soil quality all relate to sustainability and therefore should be included!

One More Post Related to Pattern Mapping

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:26:00 +0000

While I have launched into this project, it is important to note the rationale... The reason for this pursuit rests in the research result from my masters work. I have attached a link to the concluding remarks from the research report that addresses some of the issues, and potential areas for new research in the direction of patterns, their use in community empowerment, and civic intelligence in general.

Some of the issues that the conclusion touches upon include: problems with pattern complexity, adaptability of the pattern language, lack of tools for retrieval and visualization, need for additional processes for collaboration, the potential for process monitoring methods for supporting adaptability of programs/projects using patterns and pattern languages.

Here is the doc: Final Conclusions from Research on LV - Research Completed May of 2007

Quick Note Regarding Previous Post...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:17:00 +0000

In the last post, "Restarting my pattern mapping project..." I reiterated my focus on further developing the methods and software tools for using patterns in planning and decision-making among community and civil society groups.

I would however, like to add that this method and the corresponding software is not directly dependent upon the use of patterns. In fact, I think it is possible that collaborative conceptualization of a problem space and set of proposed responses as semantically linked concepts could be similarly powerful for supporting deliberation, visualization and adaptive planning.

It would be interesting to see if patterns provide some greater degree of use in cultivating a group's civic intelligence, or if patterns actually hinder the process... Or it may make no difference, and the patterns may simply be a useful way of structuring group knowledge for future reuse, but without supporting the actual collaborative act of planning.

Restarting my pattern mapping project...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:45:00 +0000

So at the end of last summer I postponed my pattern mapping project. However, now that the summer is back I'm trying to jump start this project again. One of the big problems I got from my PhD committee was the lack of theory contained with my original proposal.

Well, as I have moved along in my program I have identified some theory. The two primary theories I'm drawing from is Douglas Schuler's civic intelligence and Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action. The other theory (perhaps hypothesis) is that development and planning is a complex on-going adaptive process, there is no end to the process, but a continuous becoming, representing the shared understandings, value, and interests of the community.

With these ideas in mind, the software and methods project is aimed at increasing a group or community's civic intelligence through collaborative visualization of patterns for conceptualizing community problems and potential initiatives for addressing those problems. This system will follow in line with concept maps with the addition of semantic linkages that help to clarify the relationship between community issues, and/or patterns.

In addition to the visualization aspect of the software, there is an added dimension that emphasizes process-monitoring and the evolution of problem/solution conceptualization over the life-span of a community directed initiative. This requires an ongoing process of informational feedback for adaptive planning and action. This will require a versioning system for pattern maps, annotation of maps and patterns, as well as system for attaching case examples, problems with implementation, and scoring pattern relevance. Along with these pieces, there is probable need for integration with a mapping system that will allow for placing patterns (or any proposed solution) within a geographic or spatial context.

Unfortunately, there are very few tools out there that support community use of patterns for planning and collective problem-solving. Furthermore, the number of patterns for community development and planning are large enough to make use of patterns cumbersome... This is especially apparent when considering the shortcomings with pattern retrieval, and understanding how patterns are linked to support one another. Additionally, it is probable that not all relevant patterns have been articulated across the various pattern langauges that exist, this means that users may need to amend the pattern language and add their own pieces in order to fit with their specific context. In other situations, a community may need to articulate an alternate pattern language and this system should support this development. This will hopefully support the evolution and refinement of our current pattern languages, as well as spawn new ones.

As a recap of the project, here are some old posts.

This is one I wrote for the patternlanguagenetwork.org

Model for Evaluation/Analysis/Diagnostic for Community Problem Solving (Excerpt from Thesis)

Visual Pattern Mapping

Patterns and an Intelligent Web

Personal Brainstorming Session (Notes on the software)

Now, these posts don't represent everything I have written on this subject, but these I think are some of the most important elements, and reiterate the focus on: visualization, semantic links, deliberation around pattern maps, annotation and case-reports, geographic information, versioning, and the ability to search patterns, update or add patterns, and rate patterns... Now, a lot of this has been carried out by the work of those on the patternlanguagenetwork.org, but not all. One of the things that I'm doing slightly different is the addition of geographic information, semantic cognitive mapping, versus mind-mapping, and the ability to describe a problem space as a network of reinforcing problems that generate a "wicked-problem" space, through the process of problematization we can then begin searching patterns that correspond to the various issues defined by the group, as well creating new ones. For a more detailed description of the problem space concept check out the Methodology/Analysis section of my thesis research.

New Site for the Whitman County Democrats

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:02:00 +0000

Just finished an initial re-design for the Whitman County Democrats website. Looks pretty good....

The Public Sphere Project

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:49:00 +0000

I just wanted to let everyone know that the Public Sphere Project is now officially a federally recognized non-profit in the US! After 5-plus years of work we finally got this thing official.

Check out the site, a couple of great people at the Evergreen State College are working to develop the site and a set of web applications to help build civic intelligence and promote the use of the Liberating Voices pattern language.

To check out the patterns please go to: Liberating Voices Online.

Yeah!

Thinking out loud - notes on Civic Intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:06:00 +0000

Well the semester is over and I'm moving forward with putting together my qualifying exams, and finalizing my research proposal. I'm moving forward with the civic intelligence model, but in the context of development practice. I spoke with my chair today and gave him my little rap, and for the first time since I have been working with him I got a thumbs up.

Using Schuler's civic intelligence model, my work is going to look at how civic intelligence functions along with the factors that limit its successful utilization in development practice. I'm going to be doing four case studies focused on urban and peri-urban agriculture as a politically and environmentally sensitive food security strategy and the ways in which community groups and civil society perceive, interpret, deliberate and act to develop and protect these efforts.

The case studies will be using Johnathan Barker's political settings method, with a slight modification that emphasizes the networked nature of these settings as spaces in which participants actively perceive, deliberate and act. It is my thinking that through a focus on these settings and the activities that occur in specific spaces and time, it will give us an insight into the ways in which civic intelligence emerges, is used and how it is ultimately successful or not in the context of urban development activities.

In many ways this work represents a full-circle from where I started my program with patterns. To me civic intelligence and patterns are in many ways related and the Liberating Voices patterns themselves are an example of civic intelligence.

The overarching argument here is that development, if it is to be sustainable must consider the political dimensions of decision making. All too often development schemes are left up to the experts whos knowledge excludes those people in which development is focused on helping. Although great work has been done in the area of participation, practices that promote participation do so only in the context of specific programs and the capacity for self-defined development is often not included, and the ability of peoples to adapt and protect their interests in the face of more powerful actors is left lacking. This is believed to be a central problem in the durability of development interventions where marginalized peoples are supported as long as funds are available, but once an NGO actor withdraws, people become vulnerable once again.

It is my assumption that at its core development theory and praxis at the community level is fundamentally about self-reliance and building autonomy that promotes social equity, environmental sustainability, and economic freedom. Yet, as Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze note, the capability for adversarial politics is often central to all of these. I would go further and suggest that merely possessing the capability is not enough (India - Economic Development and Social Opportunity, 1999). This is where civic intelligence comes into play... Civic intelligence is about both the capability to act, as well as the action itself that seeks to promote emancipatory transformation.

Civic intelligence is iterative and additive in that as it is employed, people become more effective at its utilization for solving problems of common concern. Yet, the outcomes of civic intelligence that promotes autonomy as well as interdependence among actors seeking a just and sustainable society, suggests that it should represent a central focus in all development schemes.

The problem here is, "how does it emerge?" How does it function and what limits its utilization? By understanding these dimensions we become better able at pursuing civic intelligence as both a means to development, and as an outcome itself.

It is also my feeling that as the work is pursued, the Liberating Voices pattern language will be further validated. Patterns such as Social Dominance Attenuation, Citizen Science, Grassroots Public Policy Development, Shared Vision and Opportunity Spaces will come to represent both the pathways and outcomes of effective development practice and ultimately an increased civic intelligence among a community and its supporters.

Thinking Out Loud...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:18:00 +0000

It has been way too long since I last posted and one of the reasons behind this blog was to map my own learning and thinking in relation to my dissertation research. But in a funny way I was discouraged because there have been so many changes that I didn't want to look like some wacko... but the truth is, when everyone gets wind of my work as it stands today, I don't think I will be able to get around that.

So anyway, I was told by my PhD committee that I need to get theoretical and stop focusing on just solving problems. So I got theoretical...lol! I'm currently taking a class in Sociology of Agriculture and Food Systems and one of the final projects for the course is to write a full research proposal. Well, tomorrow we are supposed to turn in a short synopsis of the topic we are pursuing and so here is my tentative synopsis... Some of the language might need to change but here it is in its current form.

The Collective Brain of the Global Local Food Movement: Descriptions and Prescriptions for Recursive Intelligent Action

For the final semester project assigned for the Sociology of Agriculture and Food Systems, I propose to develop a thorough research proposal that will form the foundation for my formal dissertation proposal. The topic of focus will be interdisciplinary to the extreme in that I propose to integrate concepts and theories from sociology, cybernetics, cognitive neuroscience, information theory and ecology. The proposal will set forth a theoretical interpretation of social movements as an emergent “collective brain” which exhibits recursive thought and intelligence across a network where information, knowledge and action exist both in physical as well as virtual space.

The conception of social movement as collective brain is embedded in a larger theoretical discussion on society as supraorganism, collective intelligence and global consciousness. We can trace the roots of such conceptions from Herbert Spencer (1969, original publication 1876-96), in his "Principles of Sociology" in which he first proposed the thesis that "society is an organism." In addition to Spencer, James Miller’s Living Systems Theory (1978), Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, and now most recently Francis Heylighen’s work on the 'Global Brain' have all made critical contributions to this growing, yet still contested field of inquiry.

Although there exists a modest number of works on social networks, autopsies and collective intelligence, none of the past, nor present discussions have yet to consider the role of social movements within this supraorganism, nor has their been a thorough discussion on the potential for numerous ‘collective brains’ functioning as constituents within this larger “world-brain.” As a result, this research will attempt to address the absence of an articulate conception on the role of social movements by focusing on the global local food movement as a type of collective or distributive brain, which exhibits intelligence and a form of active-reflective consciousness within the larger world-brain.

In addition to engaging in the debates on social cyborgs, collective intelligence and world-brain, this work will put forth a modified methodology drawn from the foundations of actor-network theory. This will not only serve to help map the networked organization of people-machine-information interactions across geographic physical space and placeless cyberspace, but will also serve to identify the quality of actions, as the distributed collective attempts to remake our world for the better.

Overall, the goals of this research are multifaceted in that it attempts to build both on the theoretical and empirical investigations for the potential of a collective brain(s), distributed intelligence and the larger world-brain as suggested by H.G. Wells (1981), Douglas Schuler (2001) and Francis Heylighen (1997). However, in addition to addressing ‘grand theory’ the research seeks to identify specific ways in which to support ameliorative social and environmental change efforts based upon the conceptions of nerves, neurons, synaptic learning, neural networks, neural memory and higher order consciousness that lead to a recursive process of collective knowledge creation, meaning creation, and intelligent action.

Anyway, I have already had been some pretty heated discussion on this topic and I find them way more receptive than I anticipated... In fact they considered it one of the most coherent ideas I have put forth yet! Scary!

Interesting Discussion on The Low-Carbon Economy

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:31:00 +0000

National Clean Energy Summit
Monday

The Center for American Progress Action Fund held a forum on “National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy.” Fmr. Pres. Clinton, Fmr. V.P. Gore and Congressional leaders Sen. Reid (D-NV) & Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-CA) participated in discussions on integrating new resources for an energy-efficient society.

National Clean Energy Summit

DC or Bust...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:46:00 +0000

So we made into Seattle on Friday evening, and now we are preparing for our flight tonight. We have a red-eye flight to DC and it is looking like it is going to be an all-nighter without a chance for any real sleep. But it is worth it to get a chance to be a part of history.

Crystal (my wife) and I are going to be doing some blogging and video recording on our trip so we'll be sure to give everyone updates over the next two days.

Wish us luck!

Oh yeah...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:16:00 +0000

I almost forgot.... I got two tickets to the Inauguration in DC.

So I will be heading out this weekend to see my new president get sworn into office and watch W. fly off in his helicopter to signify the end of this ridiculous hell!

Yeah!!!!!

Posting Break...

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Wow, this is the longest I have gone without posting anything since I started this blog. This creates a bit of a dilemma as I have been so busy doing so many cool things it is hard to go back and recap all the things.

So let's see... Since the last time I made a post I have:

Finished one of my ag models (although there is always room for improvement)

Kicked ass in my second course on System Dynamics

Started as a TA for GenEd 111 - World Civilizations 1500 to the Present

Completed a new draft of the dissertation/research funding proposal

Got a new office in the Department of Community and Rural Sociology

Won a Scholarship for Rural Community Development

And while I have been all over the place mentally about my research and professional
goals the last two months I feel as if things are all coming into place.

Anyway, there are a few things I will be posting soon, the first of which will probably be the ag model I developed over the winter break. The problem here is that it is so big I need to find a way to post it in a readable format. Maybe, I'll post an unintelligible picture and then just let people download the model and play with it, improve or whatever. Next, I will probably get my draft proposal up on here or at least a part of it. It is pretty big and not great for a blog but some of you might find it interesting to see how all my mental masturbation has paid off.

First Iteration - a system dynamics model of food vs. biomass

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:32:00 +0000

I have been doing a lot of research lately and as a result my blog has been relatively sparse on posts. However, this research has enabled me to develop a very crude model of the impact of biomass production for fuel on food yield within a finite space of land.

This model is by no means close to representing the various dimensions needed to make it worthwhile. However, this is my blog and I wanted to post what I'm working on at this moment.

Keep in mind this model does not account for:

Demand on food due to growing population
Demand on biofuel (biodiesel specifically)
Energy requirements for planting and harvesting
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Carbon Taxes (as incentives for adopting biofuel)
Rate of Land Degradation
Price Fluctuations in Petrol Markets

Now, these aren't all of the parameters that will be added to the model, but they are some of the most important ones at this stage. The idea is to provide this general model that can be adapted to fit with various farming systems, ie mainstream industrial farming represented as a mono cropping system and alternative multi-cropping systems where there a number of various crops with differing values competing for resources. Each system present different management practices and therefore different energy consumption patterns.

Over the next few months this will represent a central theme on my blog as this is what I'm working on... imagine that!

Anyway, here is the current model structure (I will post the equations in another post but this is hopefully a useful visual):

Here is the output:

Global Plant Sciences Initiative Website Update

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:29:00 +0000

The GPSI website is slated to go live in January of 2009. We at CTLT have just finished developing a new, slightly modified design of the site and wanted to share a screen shot.

I'm still not sure what the final url will be, but the current, password protected address is https://teamsite.oue.wsu.edu/gpsi.

Agro-MAPS: Global Spatial Database of Agricultural Land-use Statistics

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:39:00 +0000

For the link to Agro-Maps, click here: http://www.fao.org/landandwater/agll/agromaps/interactive/page.jspx

The Question....

noreply@blogger.com (Justin G. Smith) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:04:00 +0000

What is the question? Well, that is a great question! But, I'm thinking more specifically about the question driving my interest in alternative agricultural systems.

Are alternative agricultural systems truly more sustainable in terms of reducing GHG, promoting economic viability of farms, and producing affordable, safe food, than more industrialized (modern) farming systems?

There is a lot of rhetoric being published from those arguing for a "perfecting" of modern agricultural processes, strategies and technologies, just as there others arguing for the alternative. But, when we move past the rhetoric we are still just as confused as before regarding the sustainable path to present and future food security.

Rather than proponents of each side of the debate continuing to ignore the other, it is perhaps time to engage in some serious comparative analysis that incorporate economic, environment and social dimensions. Understanding the complexity of interdisciplinary research, "most" of these studies are glaringly absent from the dialogue. It appears that one dimension supersedes all the others in current studies. It is usually economics, with environment coming in second and social coming in a distant third.

I think this needs to be changed if we are going to start identifying appropriate policies for a sustainable future, especially one where we can eat!