Field_Notes

Subjects: Mapping / Information Sharing / License / Access

Within the open discussions related to Environmental Computing on Wednesday 28.9, The theme of Foraging & Knowledge Commons was proposed by Andrew Paterson, and he was joined by Melissa Grant, Brian Degger, Corrie Van Sice, Oron Catts, Benjamin Pothier, Terike Haapoja.

The starting point being the small patch of berries at the corner of the biological station. Next to us are blueberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and mountain crowberry (Empetrum hermaphroditum) bushes. However after briefly pointing at them, we moved indoors to discuss.  Discussion began with Andrew showing two books as a way to enter a discussion about knowledge commons that take a different approach on cultural heritage: One reconstructs a past practice for awareness and edutainment, while the other raises living (but ‘endangered’) practices for awareness and practice-based learning. The following question was raised for consideration in general: Do publishing platforms enable or not, allow or not; consideration of how information/knowledge/data about foraging and wild food is appropriately shared.

The first book, Wild Food was published by BBC and authored by Ray Mears, the well-known English bushcraft TV show host and archaeobotanist Gordon Hillman (2007). As an innovative cross-disciplinary book it makes connections between anthropological research bushcraft practice, inspired by Australian Aboriginals, and mesolithic research into what hunter-gathering ancestors of the British Isles might have eaten from the wild resources. Ray Mears’s knowledge is a popular franchise and copyrighted. According to the inside cover notary, “Our wildlife is, quite rightly, protected by various pieces of legislation (in the UK by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981)”, and that “All the photographs and samples for analysis.. were taken for the purposes of scientific evaluation of the practices of our hunter-gatherer ancestors”. Their aim was to “increase the enjoyment, appreciation and awareness of our flora and fauna” although “readers should not assume they are allowed to follow any of the practices described”.

The other book was one which Andrew was involved in producing within the Herbologies/Foraging Networks project, in collaboration with Signe Pucena of SERDE Interdisciplinary Arts Group, and her collaborators Una Smilgaine and Martins Laizans. It’s production was funded by a Nordic Culture Point Art & Culture grant . It was made following an expedition to the Latvian countryside to learn about how locals in the village-towns of Aizpute and Alsunga use wild plants and foraged produce within the context of intangible cultural heritage and emerging art/activist cultural production. This expedition consisted of about 16 international artists, designers, heritage workers and herbal/wild-plant experts from Finland, Sweden, Lithuania, Belgium, Spain and Poland. The bilingual Latvian-English edited book of interviews and texts were printed and redistributed locally to the interviewed persons and others, as well as published as extended texts online under a Creative Commons license. It was not obvious to Andrew and his Latvian collaborators (of whom several were folklorists and heritage workers) how to publish heritage materials, in particular in their case, the foraging practices of mostly elder Latvian ladies on the internet. Was it public domain knowlege? At least we thought we shouldnt release the information where it could be exploited, but maybe we should have considered a different license (such as Peer-production license which allows those who are commons-orientated to use the info to sustain themselves). Questions for the editors continued: Was it special or published knowledge already? There exists many encyclopediac info about wild plant use, but not much in descriptions about the persons behind cultural practice. The range of questions to the interviewees addressed this. If they learned this knowledge from family members, books, in some cases internet, how reputable is it? Can it be verified? What responsibility does the publisher have to the reader? Unlike the Ray Mears book we did not include a disclaimer.

We continued the discussion also on another track, related to mapping of food that may be foraged, considering the differences in different contexts. In the urban environment there have been several art-activist projects locating and mapping surplus overhanging from private property or available unpicked fruit-bearing plants planted by municipality, such the Fallen Fruit project from Los Angeles, Joel Rosenberg’s Satokartta in Helsinki or irrational.org’s Bristol Food for Free maps. It was noted that in many urban environments such projects operated on the basis that there is not common access, but private control of land, and margins which blur it. However, some municipalities and organisations in negotiation with them are discussing planting more/new fruit or nut -bearing trees in publically-accessible spaces as a common-good. How about in the forests and countrysides? Especially in Nordic countries (for example in Finland) or Scotland where everymans rights apply, allowing people access to the land, and ability to pick wild produce when it is not endangered? Would one be willing to share the location of their good mushroom or berry locations? If so, who would you share it with? Your closest friends or family (as inherited knowledge)? Ten to thirty trusted friends? What earns that trust? In relation to indigenous access and rights to knowledge, if something is designated as sacred (for example as Maori say Tapu), then it is forbidden to use or touch it. For example one map for those who have earned respect and access to the information/knowledge due to respect with the subject, and another version to share with outsiders. Social network computing metaphors such as groups, circles and lists come to mind. How reciprocal might it be? Communication networks would be necessary to encourage and developed socially or community beneficial foraging, such as group orchard-picking or juice-making. How should it be done appropriately?

Book References:
Mears R., Hillman, G. (2007). Wild Food. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd./BBC

Pucena, S., Smilgaine, U., Laizāns, M. (2010).  Tradīciju Burtnīca: Vācēju kultūra Viduskurzemē / Exercise Book of Traditions: Foraging in Central Kurzeme. Talsu: SERDE.

Citizen Sensing (Jennifer Gabrys & Anne Lehtelä)

(Attending: Luis, Sarah, Melissa M., Tiina, Jurate, Paz, Rosanne)

Moth Monitoring to study environmental change

In our collective evening ‘Open Discussion’ of environmental data issues, our sub-group considered the topic of citizen sensing. We began our conversation by asking who or what is a citizen, and how different notions of ‘citizen’ might inform the types of sensing that take place. Could more-than-humans be considered to be distinct contributors to citizen sensing, thereby making this activity a less human-centric practice?

We discussed examples of citizen sensing projects from Beatriz da Costa’s Pigeon Blog, where pigeons carry air pollution sensors and create more-than-human maps of urban air pollution, to the dontflush.me project, which uses proximity sensors to inform New Yorkers when to avoid flushing the loo when the sewer system may be at capacity and in danger of dispersing waste into the harbour.

While we had initially hoped to develop speculative practices around what other forms of citizen sensing practices might look like if new ideas about ‘citizens’ were introduced into citizen sensing practices, many participants were concerned about the use of the term ‘citizen’ to describe more-than-humans. Don’t citizens have free will and rights? Aren’t animals simply the props for human experiments into sensing? Are these sensing practices perhaps even exploitative?

Other examples of citizen sensing emerged, however, that began to test the idea of new arrangements of citizenship. One project reference, the Million Trees NYC project in New York, was cited as an example of a practice where crowd sourcing was used to identify where trees may be planted in the city. Once planted, the trees may be monitored and reported about in order to ensure their longevity. Such a practice of urban tree stewardship implies a relationship with the trees, and environmental ‘citizenship’ might be practiced through ‘sensing’—with or without computational devices—the trees and their local environment.

New arrangements of citizen sensing—and environmental practice and politics—might emerge at this intersection where citizens are no longer conceived of as exclusively human subjects endowed with rights, but rather through citizen relationships that make us responsive to changes in our environments.