Dissertation Complete!

Once again I took a very long break from writing on this blog. And I believe this is going to be my last post on this blog. I have officially completed the dissertation and submitted it for defense! The title of the dissertation is "Sustainable Food Consumption: Opportunities and Limits to Ethical Consumerism."

This essentially marks the closing of an important era in my life, and the blossoming of a new beginning. So I'd like to start something a little different, something more focused, and something new. This blog has essentially been everything in my head, along with the kitchen sink. It is pretty frenetic and all over the place. I want to separate some of this stuff. There are a lot of gems in this blog and I don't want to lose them. But this blog lacks coherence, and doesn't adequately reflect the direction of my research, or my overall intellectual pursuits.

With that said, I'm launching a new site called The Phenomena of Sustainability - the purpose of the new blog is to explore some of the ideas developed here. I'm really interested in the personal experience of living sustainability, people's efforts to live more ethically, and capture some of the beauties and difficulties of promoting new lifestyles. I'm specifically interested in this experience as it relates to living and working in urban environments. And I will be exploring some themes regarding urban agriculture, voluntary simplicity, resource conservation, and other topics related to my general purpose.

With the dissertation out of the way, I think I will have some time to write, generate some ideas that I have, and do some more creative exploration. 

Cheers,

Justin

Jared Diamond Speaks - On Why Societies Collapse

Repost - Louie Schwartzberg: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.

Thoughts on a sustainable food future - Part I

The path towards creating a sustainable food system is not simply about influencing a class of conscious consumers, but lies in transforming those consumers into producers. The path will require a reconnection with place to include the land and people of particular location - that include the limits imposed by the natural rhythm of place.

* * * * * 

In recent years there has been increased concern over the safety and sustainability of our food and farming systems. People are becoming worried about the environmental impacts of how food is grown, where food is grown, how farm labor is treated, and whether the foods we purchase are safe for our families. These sentiments have been reflected throughout the media, through surveys, and in scholarly research. With these concerns, the market for sustainably produced foods has increased dramatically.  More and more, people are looking for alternatives, such as local organic foods that are not a part of the mainstream food system.

Consumers are venturing to farmer's markets, purchasing more produce and preserved foods directly from farmers via roadside stands, community supported agriculture (CSAs), and u-pick farms. According to the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service, there has been a boom in the growth of Farmer's Markets across the country. In fact, according to the Farmer's Market Directory Listing, we have seen an exponential increase in the number of markets over the past 18 years.

Along side these trends, there is also a movement among urban residents to grow more of their own food through backyard and community gardens. In addition to cultivating fresh fruits and vegetables, urban residents are also beginning to raise animals in their backyards for eggs and dairy. This is an interesting trend, indicating that citizens are increasingly moving beyond being consumers to become producers.

According to Bill Mollison, a co-originator or the permaculture movement,

"...the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter." 

Indeed, a true revolution towards a sustainable society is one where people are producers, not simply consuming to satisfy every conceivable need. Together, these efforts are creating new opportunities and alternative forms of relating within communities of place. In essence, small-scale agriculture and home-scale urban farming go against the grain, by asking people to participate more directly in the fulfillment of their living needs. And although not explicit, these new forms of consumption challenge people to think more deeply about the amount of things they consume, as well as the quality.

* * * * *

Yet, mainstream thinking contends that consumers simply need to make more informed purchasing decisions, and producers will naturally adopt more sustainable production practices. (See - World Economic Forum report "More with less"). This assumes we can modernize by increasing efficiencies, and consume our way to a new and more sustainable society. In this way, a more sustainable agriculture is one that is characterized by precision irrigation, GPS guided farm equipment, and GMOs to reduce the needs for fertilizer and pesticide inputs.This technological intensification is believed to help minimize the resource demands of growing populations, and spreading affluence.

However, studies suggest that increasing rates of consumption tend to offset any gains made through the adoption of more efficient forms of production. Foster, Clark and York (2010), note that such patterns are common - referring to the Jevon's Paradox, named after the economist, William Stanely Jevons (The Coal Question, 1906). The Jevon's Paradox suggests (in the case of coal) for every unit increase in the efficient use of coal, there is a corresponding increase in the consumption of that energy resource. This increase results from the reduced cost of using that resource and the economic expansion that occurs as a consequence. The problem is that aggregate use increases. As in the case of efficiency gains in the U.S. automobile industry. With greater fuel economies for vehicles, it becomes cheaper for consumers to purchase a car or truck. However, with increased purchases, there are greater numbers of vehicles on the road, leading to increased use of petroleum, and CO2 emissions, offsetting efficiency gains.

This phenomena contradicts efforts to promote sustainability, because the system of production and exchange are still bound to the organizing force of capital accumulation. And with each increase of efficiency in a particular technology, we often find greater complexity in the design, manufacture and distribution of that technology. Increasing complexity also appears to require more sources for the material inputs needed in the process of production. The resulting expansion of the economic system is detrimental in a world where definite limits exists.

These patterns suggest that technological advancement does not necessarily lead to more sustainable use of resources; and that economic growth enabled by increasing technological efficiencies creates a sort of Faustian bargain. This occurs in the transition towards more efficient tools, as much as through the expansion of production to meet a newly created need. More resources are required to bootstrap onto existing systems to make them more efficient, or scrap those tools entirely in order to create new ones. Further the emphasis on individual consumption reveal different realities when looking at aggregate consumption.

In the context of recent food trends, and in particular, the "grow-your-own" movement, there is an emphasis on low-tech solutions, that implies a contraction of the social relations required to produce the foods required for one's household. That doesn't necessarily mean that social interaction is lessened, in fact they might be deepened and intensified. However, sustainability through backyard and community gardening represents a conscious reduction of one's dependence upon the larger system of social production that modern consumers rely on to fulfill their needs.

The shift from consumers to producers opens up opportunities for more direct social relations where gardeners exchange knowledge, resources and the fruits of their labor. This is in contrast to the distancing of relations that currently exist within our food system. Today, conventional agri-food systems are characterized by a massive infrastructure of cultivation, processing, storage and distribution. This includes support industries from chemical companies, manufacturing of farm equipment, to agricultural marketing organizations.

In a truly localized agri-food system there would ideally be a mix of full-time and part-time farmers who fulfill the food needs of the community. The members of the community come to fulfill the roles of the larger social system of productions, but on a much smaller scale. This could also include exchanges between different regions as a means to minimize food insecurity and support dietary diversity resulting from differing ecosystem characteristics. However, this doesn't assume that people will be able to live high-consumption lifestyles. Rather, this approach imposes natural limits on the "rate," and "what" of consumption, re-linking food to the people and place of cultivation, and the variance of landscapes.

Overall, an ecologically coherent human society will be one in which each person is reconnected to the landscape of place, bound in part to the limits of place - this not only requires a more conscious form of consumer, but a form of citizenship that recognizes when one's cup is already full. And from time to time, choosing to fill it on one's own.

Eursafe 2013: “The Ethics of Consumption: The Citizen, The Market, and The Law”

This is worth mentioning. There is an upcoming conference on the ethics of consumption. Eursafe 2013: “The Ethics of Consumption: The Citizen, The Market, and The Law.” This is for the 11th Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics, Uppsala, Sweden, September 11-14, 2013! There is currently an open call for abstract submissions, with a due date of January 1st 2013.

Check out the details on the International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) website.

Yes, I've been in hiding, but for good reason...

Yes, I have been hiding out for some time now. For the past year I have been writing exclusively on the dissertation. And guess what, it is nearly complete! After all this time, I finally have something of substantial quality and relevance to the issues facing the future sustainability of our food systems.

Over the course of the process I have had my share of hiccups and redirects, but with focus and perseverance, I have put together a series of solid research articles. These articles represent the basis of the dissertation; each article is unique, but related, and each one addresses issues related to sustainable consumption, sustainability discourse, and equity in our agri-food systems.

One article in particular looks at people's 'affective connection' with nature as defined in Mayer et al. (2004), and their Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS). Following Aldo Leopold's concept of the 'Land Ethic,' the CNS aims to measure the degree to which people feel a sense of connectedness to nature as part of their broader community. Leopold suggested that this connection was essential to changing human relationships with the land, away from a form of destructive dominance over nature, and towards one of respectful cooperation with nature. 

Using a much abbreviated version of the CNS - 4 items versus 14 items - I looked at the association between peoples sense of nature connectedness and behavior vis-a-vie, ethical consumption. The study looked specifically at sustainable food provisioning in the form of attitudes and behaviors around local food purchasing. Even with the smaller sized scale, the 4 items retained from Mayer et al. original CNS proved to be an important indicator of both interest in ethical consumption and actual behavior through local food provisioning. 

This is very exciting as it further verifies the CNS, while also giving additional evidence to the importance of Leopold's 'Land Ethic' perspective. Of course, more research is needed, and it would be particularly necessary to employ the entire scale in a study of actual behavior. However, the little bit of evidence that this study provides is important. It also has sparked additional thinking about what influences a person's connection to nature. Perhaps the answer is being worked on the University of Virginia, through an exploration of a concept called, The Nature Pyramid. It is argued that humans require a range of interactions with their natural environment. The Pyramid defines various forms of interactions in terms of scale. 

I wonder which forms will prove to have the most impact, if any, on cultivating a person's connection to nature... I wonder if, and how the structure and character of human-built environments will influence this connectedness. Perhaps Christopher Alexander's concept of 'degrees of life' in a place will prove useful in future inquiry.

Anyway, all ideas for future work. In the meantime, I will post some of the research, probably around the end of September. And now that this project is finally coming to an end, I will have more time to start using this blog as a means to "think out loud" again. Plus, I will have time to get this little webcrawler software project ready for public use!

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

- 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)

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

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

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 -

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..

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!!!

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:

1. 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?


2. 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.


3. 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...

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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

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