Do we really need to sacrifice privacy for health in the fight against covid-19? The DP-3T protocol can save lives without furthering surveillance capitalism.

• Originally published at n.case.me.
• Download this comic as a .zip!
• Sources: DP-3T, TCN Protocol, Ferretti & Wymant et al

The post How Contact Tracing Apps Can Foil Both COVID-19 and Big Brother appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The leitmotif of this year’s LUMEN Conference was the practical aspects of the implementation of Law 2.0, including change management at universities. The debate featured the main stakeholders of the science and higher education system, including the representatives of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW) and other government institutions, university and academic association authorities, academic staff, management practitioners, as well as outstanding representatives of the academic community from Poland and abroad.

The Conference ended with a special session during which the nominees and winners of the 3rd edition of the Leaders in University Management Competition LUMEN 2019 and review good management practices at Polish universities based on materials submitted for the Competition was presented.

Polish OD&M Training called “Open Design & Manufacturing through event bades learning” was presented as a good practise with 5 other projects in Special prize section for projects which are exceeding main categories. Those projects include three main aspects – Management, Development and Cooperation.

Video presenting thePolish OD&M Training:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mR7KYo48ksed1zmOveTmRNdE58X8mOMu

The post Lumen Prize for Polish OD&M Training appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Meet people who are doing it. Learn how to do it. Build it together.

Internet of Humans is a track within our annual Edgeryders festival. It is dedicated to bringing together existing projects into a demo of a Next Generation Internet that supports values of openness, cooperation across borders, decentralisation, inclusiveness and protection of privacy.

Edgeryders is a company living in symbiosis with an online community of thousands of hackers, activists, radical thinkers and doers, and others who want to make a difference. We believe that a smart community outperforms any of its members; this is the result of people working together, improving on each other’s work.

We are on a journey to help one another navigate the changes that are happening in different parts of the world.

• How are we building good lives against a backdrop of massive social, economic, ecological and political challenges?
• How are we creating opportunities for ourselves and where can we support one another better? In work, health, family, community life?
• How are we building the evolution of the Internet and our digital technologies so that they support these efforts?

We are interested in what participants already are doing in different parts of the world, and what we can do together.

Are you our next Fellow? Tell us what you would like to build, explore or learn about building a Human-Centric Internet!

Fellows will receive bursaries of up to 10,000 EUR, a travel budget of up to 1,000 EUR, and the opportunity to learn from and connect the next generation of working solutions in building a human-centric internet.

Internet of Humans is a gathering of contributors to the Next Generation Internet, a 3 year research project that engages hundreds of original initiatives. The fellowship program offers participants an opportunity to explore, learn from and connect with people building working solutions for an Internet that supports our ability to thrive as individuals, communities and societies.

As an Internet of Humans Fellow, you commit to :

1. Read what other participants are working on and share your own experiences/work.
2. Arranging and documenting a series of online calls to which you invite people from whom you wish to learn or collaborate.
3. Engage the people you invite to join us at activities for project matchmaking, partnership building and fundraising.
4. Articulate a burning question to move everyone’s work forward, and turn it into a proposal for a research theme and track of a distributed festival.

We are looking for Fellows who are passionate, curious and driven, as well as willing to collaborate using online platforms and community building methodologies. If this is you, we want to hear from you!

Questions or nominations? Create an account on edgeryders and post them in a comment below.

About the program, process and selection criteria

Internet of Humans is a track in a highly participatory, distributed festival showcasing working solutions and demos produced by community members, as well as pathways for working together towards their sustainability and scaling. It will take place in November, 2019 in a number of cities and brings together the broader Edgeryders scene that involves hundreds of original initiatives.

Aiming to deepen community collaboration, during May – November 2019, Edgeryders will appoint 3 “students” to support research, community building and content curation for the Internet of Humans community. We use “students” in the Latin sense, of people that will apply themselves to the subject, as fellows of a Internet of Humans Alliance, and not in any sense as an indication of career status.

What you will get if selected:

• A bursary appointment: Up to 10,000 Euro to reimburse your working time, distributed on the basis of winners’ financial needs
• A travel budget: Up to 1,000 Euro, to be authorized in advance by due justification.

Process and timeline:

• April 12 Mar – May 30. We collect submissions in the form of published proposals for Human Internet Festival.
  • Review of submissions
  • Announcement of winners
• May 30 – June 30. Fellows host online calls and invite
• June 30 – November 30. T.b.d with each fellow so as to not disrupt their other activities.

Who can participate?

Anyone with a story relevant to building working solutions for an Internet that supports our ability to thrive as individuals, communities and societies. You need to be interested in learning and collaborating with others online and offline.

Selection Criteria

We will consider individuals who have demonstrated an interest in and alignment with building a Human Centric Internet in the folllowing ways (each item will receive a score from 0 the minimum, to 5 the maximum, which will be summed to define the final score used to choose the winners):

• are registered on edgeryders.eu 8 and have introduced themselves in the Internet of Humans online community workspace: Tell Your Story! 6
• are operating at the grassroots level or are heavily interacting with such groups
• Are open in their work, use of methodology, technology, results (public and transparent communication, open processes for participation, commons licensing, open source code etc.)
• their contribution is validated in positive responses by their peers in the Internet of Humans community (as seen from the Comments section)
• have storytelling and content production skills for presenting the initiatives they come across to various community groups and audiences
• demonstrate willingness to collaborate with others and use online environments for communication, engagement, documentation of work and social media

What happens if I am selected?

You will be working closely with the Edgeryders team to build the Internet of Humans community conversation and together with it’s members, put together the program for it’s track of sessions and events within the Edgeryders Festival which convenes our global community.

What happens if I am not selected?

You eligible to get a symbolic 200€ reward for your contribution if it meets the selection criteria. More information about this here: http://bit.ly/2LbQvyD 1

How to get started?

Join the process of building the Internet of Humans sections of our festival program

1. Interview a person relevant to your burning question.
2. Transcribe interview and have the interviewee post it here 7. You will need to create an edgeryders.eu 8 account to do this.
3. Comment in depth on at least one other transcribed interview.

Once you are done use #internetofhumans and #edgeryders to draw our attention to your comments, story and proposal for the program. This will encourage others to get in touch and build support for your work!

The deadline for applications is May 30th 2019 , but the sooner you start and complete your application, the higher your chances!

For more information come to our weekly online community gatherings every Wednesday in May at 16:00 GMT+2 (CST Brussels time) or sign up on the Edgeryders platform and leave a comment below.

Partner organisations

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825652

Reposted from Edgeryders

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Let’s just consider concert production as a commons. 

In western Massachuetts, where I live, Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares represents a creative mashup of the CSA farm model (community-supported agriculture) with concert production. Instead of paying upfront for a season’s supply of vegetables, people pay for a September-June season of ten jazz concerts. It’s like a subscription model but it’s more of a community investment in supporting a jazz ecosystem. Talented musicians get to perform, fans get to experience some cutting-edge jazz, the prices are entirely reasonable for everyone, and a community spirit flourishes.

As the group explains:

Our members purchase jazz shares to provide the capital needed to produce concerts with minimal institutional support. A grassroots, all-volunteer organization, we are a community of music lovers in Western Massachusetts dedicated to the continued vitality of jazz music. By pooling resources, energy and know-how, members create an infrastructure that is able to bring world-class improvisers to our region.

Cofounders Glenn Siegel and Priscilla Page decided to launch Jazz Shares after realizing that there were many more jazz musicians in the region than there were commercial venues to support them. As a longtime concert producer at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Siegal lamented, “Each season I would receive many more worthy gig requests than I could honor. With a limit on how many University concerts I could produce each year (six), and without the personal resources to just write checks, I got tired of saying ‘Sorry, no’ to some of my musical heroes. I knew there must be another way to bring these great musicians to town.”

As an economist might put it, there was a market failure (demand did not induce an adequate supply). So commoning came to the rescue! 

Approximately 95 fans pay $125 to underwrite ten local jazz concerts a year in a variety of regional venues – colleges, clubs, performance spaces. Business sponsors and single-ticket sales augment these revenues. But it’s not just about the money. It’s about building a community through mutual aid and money-lite commoning. As reported by New England Public Radio, Siegal and Page have been known to cook for visiting performers. Sometimes Jazz Share members pick up musicians at the train station and make food for the artist receptions following each performance. 

The share-model is arguably the secret to presenting sometimes-challenging music. The shares enable performers to be artistically authentic and venturesome. They can improvise in bolder ways than would be possible in conventional commercial venues, and fans can enjoy the results. For example, one quartet included a bassoonist, which is not usually heard in jazz performances. Other artists report that they feel free to explore their artistic frontiers.

The whole setup also changes the audience. As Siegel explains, “Although many of our shareholders do not know who Karl Berger is, most have an open mind and an adventurous attitude. Because our audience expects to be surprised, we can expose them to new experiences. Although we attempt to have balance in our programming, the dilemma facing most presenters of not wanting to offend or get too far ahead of audience tastes does not affect us.”

Now in its seventh season, Jazz Shares has built a sociable community of jazz fans who might otherwise remain isolated at home. Local saxophonist and composer Jason Robinson credits Jazz Shares for creating a very special musical culture in the region: “Jazz Shares does special things for our local community that [don’t] exist in Boston. It barely exists in New York. It’s something that’s quite unique across the country.”

Glenn Siegal explained how Jazz Shares has engendered a very special cultural ecosystem: “Just as plants are dependent on the sun, clean water and healthy soil to thrive, the music needs paying gigs and an appreciative audience to reach full flower. Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares is helping to build that rich inch of topsoil that stands between us and a barren cultural landscape.”

Sounds a lot like commoning to me!

The post Using the CSA Model for Jazz Performance appeared first on P2P Foundation.

She oversees all of the program’s scaling initiatives, and has been supporting Up & Go’s development, its overall strategy and cooperative member engagement. In this interview we talk about the Up&Go platform, the history, the challenges and their ambitions.

More info: https://www.upandgo.coop

Reposted from Crowd Expedition

The post Up&Go: Facilitating local worker cleaning coops with a shared platform appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Makers and the related  activities are more often observed in vibrant cities, encapsulating diverse communities of designers, engineers and innovators. They flourish around luscious spaces and events, where talent and ideas are abound. Pioneer cities, like Barcelona, Madrid, London, Copenhagen and Amsterdam, have gradually evolved to prominent centres of the maker culture.

But what about places where these elements are less eminent? It is often said that some of the most advanced technologies are needed in the least developed places. And here the word “technology” conveys a broader meaning than mere technical solutions and enhancements of human capacities. Etymologically, technology derives from the ancient Greek words “techne”, i.e. art or craft, and “logos”, which refers to a form of systematic treatment. In this sense, technology is practically inseparable from the human elements of craftsmanship, ingenuity and knowledge. Elements that are as embedded in our very existence, as the practice of sharing with our neighbours. Especially in situations of physical shortage and scantness, solidarity and cooperation are the most effective survival strategies.

This is the case of a small mountainous village in North-Western Greece called Kalentzi. It is situated in the village cluster of Tzoumerka, a place abundant in natural and cultural wealth, yet scarce in the economic means of welfare. The local population mostly depends on low-intensity and small-scale activities combining arboreal cultivation, husbandry and beekeeping. Investment was never overflowing in the region, let alone in today’s Greek economy in life support.

A local community of farmers assembled around a practical problem: finding appropriate tools for their everyday activities. Established market channels mostly provide with tools and machinery that are apt for the flatlands. Acquisition and maintenance costs are unsustainably high, while people often have to adapt their techniques to the logic of the machines. They begun with simple meetups where they created a favourable environment to share, reflect and ideate on their common challenges and aspirations, facilitated by a group of researchers from the P2P Lab, a local research collective focused on the commons.

Soon the discussion was already saturated and they started building together a tool for hammering fencing-poles into the ground. Several tools and methods have been used for this task for ages, though each one with its associated difficulties and dangers. Some farmers climb on ladders to hammer the poles, while others use barrels. However, it’s the combined effort of hammering while maintaining one’s balance that is particularly challenging, whereas there are often two people required for the job.

Interesting ideas were already in place to solve this problem. Designs were drafted on a flipchart with a couple of markers and the ones more available brought some of their own tools, like a cut saw and an electric welder, to build a prototype.

That has been the birth of Tzoumakers: a community-driven agricultural makerspace in Tzoumerka, Greece. Tzoumakers is more than an unfortunate wordplay of “Tzoumerka” and the maker culture; it is about a unique confluence of the groundbreaking elements of the latter, with the rich traditional heritage of the former. A distinctive synthesis that transcends both into a notion that seeks to create solutions that are on-demand and locally embedded, yet conceived and shareable on a global cognitive level.

It is important to emphasise that Tzoumakers is not a place that develops new tools ‘in house’. Rather it builds upon the individual ingenuity of its community and remains open for everyone to participate in this process. Through collective work, field testing and representation new tools may be released and further shared to benefit others with similar problems. Many of the necessary innovations are already there; the role of Tzoumakers is to collect, formalize and disseminate them.

But it’s also important to understand that Tzoumakers, much like its tools and solutions, cannot provide ready-made blueprints for solutions to be simply copy-pasted elsewhere. The same applies to the projects that have been its inspiration, such as L’ Atelier Paysan and Farm Hack, which cannot convey one unified cosmopolitan vision for the agricultural sector. The same process of connection, collaboration and reflection has to be followed on every different context, whether rich or poor, vibrant or desolate, in abundance or scarcity. But it is this combination of human creativity, craftsmanship, meaningful work and sharing that arguably embodies a true, pervasive and “cosmolocal” spirit for the maker culture.

Notes:

Tzoumakers and the P2P Lab are supported by the project “Phygital: Catalysing innovation and entrepreneurship unlocking the potential of emerging production and business models”, implemented under the Transnational Cooperation Programme Interreg V-B “Balkan – Mediterranean 2014-2020”, co-funded by the European Union and the National Funds of the participating countries.

The post The Birth of an Open Source Agricultural Community: The Story of Tzoumakers appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Let me make the theory more palpable by relating it to aspects of the long-term project to promote transformative innovation and the transition towards a regenerative culture on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, where I live.

Clearly, even at the relatively small scale and within the defined boundaries of the island, I cannot predict — much less control — all the possible parameters that will affect whether the transition towards increased resilience, sustainability and a regenerative culture will be successful, nor can I force the speed of the transition. Yet I firmly believe that systemic interventions through processes that involve diverse stakeholders will contribute to this deeper culture change.

One useful entry point is the issue of local food production and the link between food and wellbeing, as well as food production and ecosystems health and societal resilience. I can’t control to what extent the transition towards increased local organic food production will result from the systems interventions I engage in. Yet working with unpredictability and emergence rather than against it, I can facilitate the interconnections between certain parts of the system that were previously not talking to each other. The degree of interconnection and the quality of connections (what kind of relationships are established) do affect the behaviour of complex systems and the emergent properties they exhibit.

For example, facilitating meetings between the island’s agricultural cooperatives and a large commercial kitchen that supplies hospitals, schools, business canteens and some hotels helped to initiate a dialogue about how this kitchen could include more local produce in its meal plans. This offered the kitchen and its clients an opportunity to support the local economy and will help to increase sales and eventually even the production of local foods. Since the kitchen has multiple customers, the project initiated a cascade of conversations that in many cases are the first step towards educating the people responsible for procurement about the systemic benefits of choosing regionally produced products.

A relatively small intervention can thereby affect the information flow in the wider system, via the newly facilitated connections and relationships and through the existing networks of the different stakeholders. What kind of information the system relies on crucially affects emergent behaviour. So, to stay with the example, educating farmers, hotel owners, local government, permanent residents and multipliers (like educators, academics, activists and journalists) about the potential impact of rapid increases in transport costs and food price — due to spiking oil proces, climate chaos, terrorist scenarios, food price speculation or economic crisis — will make the system as a whole more aware of its vulnerability to anything that affects cheap imports. Once these possible scenarios are — even only hypothetically — accepted, it will be easier to spread memes like the need for increased local food production and the advantages of an increased level of ‘food sovereignty’ as a risk management strategy.

Different actors in the system might pick this information up in different ways and for different reasons. Some might favour the idea of increased local self-reliance, while others might want to protect the profitability of their local tourism operations from being overly dependent on the availability of cheap imported food. Yet others might become motivated by the overall reduction in environmental impact that comes with increased local production of organic food, including the positive impact with regard to the protection of the beauty of the Majorcan countryside (which tourism also depends on). Local politicians and economists might see the multiple opportunities for generating more jobs through such a shift towards local production.

Entrepreneurial opportunities, protection of cultural heritage, local resilience building, and the link between local organic food, health and education are all additional reasons why the memes ‘let’s decrease dependence on cheap and low quality food imports’ and ‘let’s increase the production of locally generated organic food’ could spread through Majorcan society.

I cannot control exactly how people will respond to my systems interventions — or those of many others like me, but I can aim to work as a ‘bridge builder’ between different factions who previously thought that they had nothing to do and explore with each other. I can illustrate to them the potential for win-win-win solutions and systemic synergy. Once they understand this principle based on the easy ‘entry issue’ of food quality, food security and health, I can expand the learning and this ‘whole-systems thinking approach’ to other aspects of the island system.

For example, this can be done by exploring the benefits of decreased dependence on the importation of fossil and nuclear energy and the shift towards regionally produced, decentralized renewable energy. Apart from keeping the money spent on energy in the local economy and enabling Majorca to become an international example of a renewable energy and transport system, such a shift would help to diversify the local economy away from its almost exclusive dependence on tourism and generate new jobs, while protecting the beauty of the island and the integrity of its ecosystems.

In many ways, the most powerful act of transition design was simply to plant and distribute the seeds of a conversation by asking the following questions: What would a sustainable Majorca look like? How could Majorca become an internationally respected example for regional (island) transition towards a regenerative culture? Why is the current system deeply unsustainable, lacking resilience, and in danger of collapse? How can we co-create a better future for everyone living on Majorca and visiting the island?

By spreading these questions, I begin to work for positive emergence through connecting previously isolated parts of the system and affecting the quality of information in the system. Clearly, I am only one expression of an emerging culture. Some people before and many around me are also spreading their visions of a sustainable Majorca. As these people start to collaborate, we begin to live the questions together.

Education and communication are vital in any attempt to design for positive emergence. Outdated education systems and a media increasingly subservient to corporate interests propagate limited and biased perspectives of the complexity we participate in. The narrative of separation and specialization without integration engender narrow perspectives that can’t do justice to the complexity we are faced with. These valid, yet severely limited, perspectives are influencing the solutions we implement and how our behaviour changes, thereby driving what systemic properties emerge. Regenerative design solutions are informed by a participatory systems view of life that is capable of integrating multiple perspectives. One of the design interventions with the highest leverage potential for the transition towards regenerative cultures is widespread education in eco-social and systems literacy.

Another important influence on the behaviour of complex systems is the way ‘initial conditions’ (like the dominant worldview, value systems or economic system) and ‘iterations’ (the unquestioned repetition of certain systemic patterns of organization and interactions) affect the system. It is important that as ‘transition designers’ or ‘facilitators of positive emergences’ we also take a closer look at the dominant patterns that impede positive systemic change and the emergence of systemic health.

Many of these patterns have to do with established power elites, insufficient education and the dominance of the ‘narrative of separation’. Working with culture change in this way requires patience. One effect of the narrative of separation is to make individuals believe they do not have the power and influence to change the system, but the narrative of interbeing reminds us that every change at the individual level and every conversation does in fact change the system as we are not separate from it.

In my own work on Majorca, I have chosen a place to make a stand and do what I can do to contribute to positive emergence in a well-defined bioregion. Islands everywhere offer special case study opportunities for the regional transition towards a regenerative culture. Many share similar problems, for example their economies tend to be heavily dependent on tourism and their consumption tends to be largely based on imports. While there are limits to the possibilities of localizing production and consumption on an island, these limits can act as enabling constraints that challenge our imagination and drive transformative innovation. They also challenge us to think in a scale-linking, locally adapted and globally collaborative way.

Since local self-sufficiency in an interconnected world is a mirage not worth chasing, these island case studies can serve as experiments that show us how to find a balance between local production for local consumption promoting increased self-reliance and resilience, and local production of goods, services and know-how that forms an economic basis for trade, which in turn allows the import of goods that cannot be produced locally or regionally.

Before moving to the island, I spent four years living at the internationally acclaimed Findhorn Foundation ecovillage in Northern Scotland. I also worked with various transition town initiatives to understand how we can create increased sustainability and resilience as well as a deeper culture change at the community scale. In doing so, I realized that while local communities, whether rural or urban, are the scale at which the change towards a regenerative culture will be implemented most immediately, many of the systemic changes necessary require a larger (regional) scale and regional collaboration between communities.

I moved to Majorca to explore how to facilitate a scale-linked approach to transition design, by linking local communities within a regional context, and by connecting them with the support of an international network of sustainability experts and green entrepreneurs. I firmly believe that islands can serve as excellent case studies for the kind of regional transformation towards circular bio-economies that will be necessary everywhere.

…

[This is an excerpt of a subchapter from Designing Regenerative Cultures, published by Triarchy Press, 2016.]

Here is a report of a recent SDG Implementation workshop I organized and co-facilitated on Majorca.

This article reports on the recent conference on circular economy and entrepreneurship I spoke at.

The post Designing for positive emergence (Majorca as a case study) appeared first on P2P Foundation.

What if, in going out to meet real people, you decided to keep travelling?

The Decentralized Society Research Project demonstrates this philosophy. Included on the website is a link to “offices” (hackerbases) throughout the world.

Extracted from: http://dsrp.eu/about

I am Mathijs de Bruin from The Netherlands. Having been frustrated for a long time about living as part of ‘the system’ (the economic and social structures that dominate our lives) I decided to exchange my house in Amsterdam for a more sustainable and humane form of life.

Within several (3-4) years my plan is to either join or found a sustainable community, being largely independent of dominating power structures forcing the exploitation of our planet and one another.

However, I do not know yet what this would look like.

• What would be the best way to organize, how can we make sure all participants are fully represented?
• How can we allow sustainable forms of living to scale, allowing more people to live in harmony with their environment?
• What can be done to lower (economic) barriers for people to escape ‘the system’?

These and other questions I am trying to answer, while I am travelling around Europe visiting several sustainable communities or eco-villages but also hackerspaces and related events. Taking part in communnity life, contributing and talking to founders, philosophers, researchers and fellow travelers.

Extracted from: https://decentralize.hackpad.com/Decentralized-Society-Research-Project-T0zwOQD4JaS

http://dsrp.eu

Open Source

This project, as well as the communities in focus, work along an Open Source or ‘libre’ principles where:

• Sharing is the default: unless privacy prohibits there should be full transparency at all times.
• Leaders have no (formal) authority of any kind.
• ‘Forking’ allows for fragmentation without degradation, allowing (fundamental) disagreements to persist while maintaining the strength of collaboration.

Photo by Lyalka

Photo by Lyalka

Photo by duncan

The post Project Of The Day: Decentralized Society Research Project appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The beauty of the commons paradigm is that it can emerge and flourish in areas of life that no one suspects could possibly host it…..such as live theater. Over the years I’ve watched with pleasure and amazement as HowlRound, a project based at Emerson College in Boston, has helped artists and administrators of noncommercial theater see their work in a new light – as ventures in commoning. [The term “howlround” refers to the feedback loop that occurs when the sound from a loudspeaker is picked up by the microphone of a public-address system.]

Now the remarkable history of the organization is told in an excellent study by Alexis Frasz and Holly Sidford of Helicon Collaborative, an Oakland-based research and strategy firm that helps cultural organizations. “The Birth of a Theater Commons: HowlRound from 2009 to 2017,”released in September 2018, explains the origins and growth of HowlRound as a commons since its founding in 2009. A shorter version of the report can be read here.

HowlRound got its start when a number of theater people became alarmed at the economic and artistic pressures squeezing nonprofit, regional, and community theater in the US. Even though lots of great plays and performances were being staged by small nonprofits and community troupes across the country, most of the funding and attention were going to the large, established theaters, which of course were and are serving older, whiter, wealthier audiences. In this context, nonprofit theater was increasingly becoming a knock-off of mainstream commercial theater, with blockbuster shows, big stars, high ticket prices, and upscale theater-goers.

The founders of HowlRound – David Dower, Jamie Gahlon, Vijay Mathew, and P. Carl – realized that these problems were not a special problem of live theater alone. They are symptoms of capitalism itself. As Frasz and Sidford write: “Our current era is characterized by concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few; exploitation of workers for low wages; systemic barriers to opportunity and resources, magnified along class and racial lines; underfunded public and social goods and services; and commodification of everything for corporate profit.”

In short, noncommercial theater was/is being eclipsed if not enclosed by capitalism. It has become harder to pursue serious artistic work and cultural projects when power and attention are so relentlessly fixated on commercial success. Even excellent nonprofit theater can barely pay the bills. 

The original founders of nonprofit theater realized that theater is not really meant to be a profit-making activity. Zelda Fichandler, who cofounded the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., wrote, “The thought that propelled us was the theatre should stop serving the function of making money, for which it has never been and never will be suited, and start serving the revelation and shaping the process of living, for which it is uniquely suited, for which it, indeed, exists.”

At first, HowlRound was primarily an online journal that let innovative and geographically isolated artists be heard, and to hear each other. Discussions that once occurred in the shadows of the theater world soon had a prominent online showcase. A livestreaming TV channel was started for anyone to share content, such a conference panels and live theater.  An online map compiled a master database of all new plays being staged anywhere in the US, making exciting new creative works visible for the first time. HowlRound also convened in-person events to deepen discussions and build new relationships.

The commons became an organizing principle at HowlRound because its founders realized that theater, at its core, is a collaborative endeavor that should be widely shared. But HOW to build out a commons philosophy in practical, operational ways is a difficult challenge. Fransz and Sidford write: “HowlRound realized early on that operationalizing commons values would require intentionally rewiring organizational structures and behaviors, or else dominant values would be perpetuated by default.” 

P. Carl and Vijay Mathew said, “We had to rethink our notions of conventional branding, identity, and behavior. If we are going to become stewards and stakeholders of a collectively shared commons, along with thousands of other organizations and artists in our field, we have to start thinking of ourselves as a ‘We” and no longer as a ‘Me.’”

After seven years of working with these challenges, HowlRound officially rebranded itself as a “Theater Commons” in 2018. Its stated mission is to provide “a free and open platform for theatre-makers worldwide that amplifies progressive, disruptive ideas about the art form and facilitiates connection between diverse practitioners.”

The group sees itself as an infrastructure and support system for enabling users to engage in acts of commoning.  HowlRound staff see themselves as community organizers, facilitators and system designers.

In the broad sweep, the organization has had significant impact in:

1) “making the whole more visible,” so that previously neglected artists, theater practices, aesthetics, venues, and cultural contexts could be made visible; 

2) “providing a structure for organizing,” so that, for example, efforts to increase diversity in theater could challenge the standing hierarchies and norms;

3) “democratizing access to knowledge,” so that HowlRound’s large archive of theater-related materials (essays, videos, documentation about convenings, etc.) could be available to anyone via the internet; and

4) “spreading the commons philosophy and practice,” so that the logic and ethos of HowlRound can be made more explicit an understandable.

Frasz and Sidford introduce their report with a quote from Ursula Le Guin that has inspiration for many areas well beyond theater: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Check out the report, an excellent read!

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(e.g., open knowledge and design) with local manufacturing and automation technologies (from 3D printing and CNC machines to low-tech tools and crafts). This convergence could catalyze the transition to new inclusive and circular production models, such as the “design global, manufacture local” (DGML) model. DGML describes the processes through which design is developed as a global digital commons, whereas the manufacturing takes place locally, through shared infrastructures and with local biophysical conditions in check. COSMOLOCALISM is a pilot-driven investigation of the DGML phenomenon that seeks to understand relevant organizational models, their evolution, and their broader political economy/ecology and policy implications. Through the lens of diverse case studies and participatory action research, the conditions under which the DGML model thrives will be explored.

COSMOLOCALISM has three concurrent streams: democratization; innovation; and sustainability. First, DGML governance practices will be studied, patterns will be recognized, and their form, function, cultural values, and structure will be determined. Second, the relevant open innovation ecosystems and their potential to reorient design and manufacturing practices will be examined. Third, selected DGML products will be evaluated from an environmental sustainability perspective, involving both qualitative and quantitative methods. The interdisciplinary nature of COSMOLOCALISM will explore new horizons to improve our understanding of how to create sustainable economies through the commons.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

The candidate is expected to focus on the sustainability stream of the COSMOLOCALISM project. The objective is to assess the environmental sustainability of DGML artifacts empirically. What is the ecological footprint of a product (e.g., a 3D printer, a digitally fabricated beehive) that has been globally designed and locally manufactured? How well does it fit into the existing natural and cultural environment of its application?

The candidate will conduct life-cycle assessments (LCA) of at least two DGML technological solutions. The candidate should have a strong background in the field of LCA with relevant technical skills and practical knowledge. Master students with practical experience in LCA will also be considered. The position is an excellent opportunity for engineers looking to expand their expertise in social science research given the interdisciplinary nature of the project. Feel free to contact Prof. Vasilis Kostakis for any inquiries: vasileios.kostakis at taltech.ee.

The ultimate goal is to contribute to sustainable transitions research, formulating a groundbreaking research and action agenda which will identify techno-economic opportunities and challenges that are often fundamentally different from any our society has experienced before. COSMOLOCALISM attempts to advance our understanding of the political ecology of alternative technological trajectories; and of the future of the organization in the age of automation and beyond.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

The primary responsibility of the doctoral candidate is to conduct an LCA of at least two technological solutions that have been globally designed and locally manufactured, vis-a-vis similar products of conventional industrial production. This also includes primary data gathering and analysis, as well as involvement in the respective scientific publications and reports.

SALARY AND BENEFITS

The successful candidate will receive a three-year contract, renewable for six months after positive evaluation (so 3,5 years in total). Depending on qualifications and previous experience, the net salary will range between 1,100 to 1,300 euros per month (including Ph.D. scholarship and salary). Thus, a Ph.D. from TalTech will be acquired, for which residency in Estonia would be required.

APPLICATION
The position will only be filled when a potential candidate fully meets the project’s requirements, but not later than 1 June 2019. The application procedure can be found here. Should you have any question, feel free to contact Prof. Kostakis before application.

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