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Experimentation with radically open and collaborative ways of producing knowledge and material artefacts can be found everywhere – from the free/libre and open-source software movement to citizen science initiatives, and from community-based fabrication labs and makerspaces to the production of open-source scientific hardware. Spurred on by the widespread availability of networked digital infrastructure, what such initiatives share in common is the (re)creation of knowledge commons, and an attempt to redistribute innovative agency across a much broader array of actors.

In this working paper we reflect on what these emerging practices might mean for helping to cultivate more equitable and sustainable patterns of global development. For many commentators and activists such initiatives promise to radically alter the ways in which we produce knowledge and material artefacts – in ways that are far more efficient, creative, distributed, decentralized, and democratic. Such possibilities are intriguing, but not without critical challenges too.

We argue that key to appreciating if and how collaborative, commons-based production can fulfil such promises, and contribute to more equitable and sustainable patterns of development, are a series of challenges concerning the knowledge politics and political economy of the new practices. We ask: what depths and forms of participation are being enabled through the new practices? In what senses does openness translate to the ability to use knowledge? Who is able to allocate resources to, and to capture benefits from, the new initiatives? And will open and collaborative forms of production create new relations with, or even transform, markets, states, and civil society or will they be captured by sectional interests?

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Reposted from The Steps Centre

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How did we do that? The possibility of Rapid Transition, by Andrew Simms and Peter Newell, STEPS Centre & New Weather Institute, 2017 shows what we can learn about rapid change through examples from history and the present day. The publication comes at a time of great uncertainty about the shape of liberal democracy in Europe and North America – with potential repercussions for other parts of the world too.

From when modern day volcanoes ground international airlines, to the New Deal in 1930s America and today’s renewable energy revolution, How did we do that? collects stories of rapid transitions and different kinds of transformations to show what we can learn from history and the present day about how people adapt to rapid change, often in the face of crisis and difficulty.

The booklet follow a series of Transformations events during 2016 and 2017, organised by the New Weather Institute and the STEPS Centre. The events looked at different examples of transition and transformations around the world – from economic, cultural and financial transitions, to the radical transformation of many people’s lives by digital technology.

The authors of the new booklet argue that although radical change is needed, it faces key obstacles. Much of human society is locked into a high-consumption culture, energy-intensive infrastructure, unequal power relations, and an economic system dominated by finance that fails the poorest and takes infinite growth for granted.

Other barriers are more in people’s mindsets and attitudes towards change. Opponents of radical change argue that it is impossible because of powerful incumbent interests, high costs, the lack of a detailed blueprint, or the unwillingness of governments or citizens to act. Others pin their hopes on a smart, technological fix to environmental problems.

Despite these barriers, there are examples of change that might give us hope. History is full of examples of rapid transition in the face of new challenges. Society shows a brilliantly adaptive ability to change and still meet its needs.

The examples in the book suggest that these barriers can be, and have been, overcome in the past through grassroots movements, through leadership from governments, or a combination of the two.

Not all of the transitions and transformations we studied have been positive for everyone, or been carried out in a democratic or fair manner. And others have taken place at times of great stress – during war, or severe economic crisis – where rapid and radical changes were easier to implement or force through.

In this video playlist, we asked speakers to share their views on rapid transitions, including Caroline Lucas, Rob Hopkins, Richard Murphy, Andrew Simms, Andy Stirling, Pete Newell, Paul Allen and Molly Conisbee.

What can we learn from transitions and transformations?

Some of the lessons drawn from the book include:

• Fairness matters: to be accepted, rapid change must be seen to be fair. This is especially true if and where there is any perceived sacrifice to be made for the greater good.

• We’re actually good at change: New social norms can quickly take root in everything from working patterns, to transport use, attitudes surrounding prejudice, and patterns of consumption.

• Public leadership is needed: Initial public investment in a sector or activity can leverage larger levels of investment from other sources.

• There’s no one path: Rapid transitions can result from bottom up and top down approaches, but ensuring that top down approaches are equitable and inclusive is a key challenge.

• Inaction costs: It matters always to be clear about both the costs of inaction and the benefits of action.

• Pleasant surprises do happen: Change always brings with it unplanned and unexpected consequences – but it can also bring unintended benefits.

Download the booklet (PDF, 1 MB)

This booklet is part of an ongoing conversation about transitions and transformations in the UK and beyond. At Monday’s event, we’re hoping to start a discussion about what to do next. Where does the energy lie? How can activists, researchers and citizens learn from each other to create transitions that work for people and the planet?

Some examples in the booklet include:

• The Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption in Iceland in 2010, halted northern European air travel overnight. Despite losing a transport link thought indispensable, businesses and individuals adapted almost immediately.

• In Kurdish Rojava, at the heart of the Syrian conflict, experiments with direct democracy on feminist and ecological principles show that citizens can work together even in the face of violence and economic collapse.

• In response to an earlier failure of private banks, the New Deal in 1930s America invested an amount similar to that thought needed for low carbon transition today to public relief and federal works programmes. The New Deal saw a general drop in income inequality, an improvement in gender equality, a major programme of new public housing and significant environmental works.

• Dramatic changes have occurred within a short space of time in renewable energy capacity in countries from Costa Rica to Denmark and in food systems in Cuba.

About the Transformations series

When in the past have societies made rapid transitions, and what were the circumstances that drove them? What can we learn from these times, positively and negatively to enable the transition we need to make today in the face of climatic upheaval and fossil fuel dependence?

The Transformations series, co-organised by the New Weather Institute and the STEPS Centre, aim to change the conversation about transition in the UK. Through informed public discussion and engagement we will gather opinions, capture outcomes and stimulate debate about how to facilitate the speed and scale of the transition.

See the Transformations event series page for more details.

Photo by Victoria Stothard Gallery

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This book, in the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability series, looks at how six grassroots innovation movements around the world have developed and what challenges they face.

Download the Accepted Manuscript of Chapter 1 (pdf, Open Access)

Innovation is increasingly invoked by policy elites and business leaders as vital for tackling global challenges like sustainable development. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that networks of community groups, activists, and researchers have been innovating grassroots solutions for social justice and environmental sustainability for decades. Unencumbered by disciplinary boundaries, policy silos, or institutional logics, these ‘grassroots innovation movements’ identify issues and questions neglected by formal science, technology and innovation organizations. Grassroots solutions arise in unconventional settings through unusual combinations of people, ideas and tools.

Grassroots Innovation Movements examines six diverse grassroots innovation movements in India, South America and Europe, situating them in their particular dynamic historical contexts. Analysis explains why each movement frames innovation and development differently, resulting in a variety of strategies. The book explores the spaces where each of these movements have grown, or attempted to do so. It critically examines the pathways they have developed for grassroots innovation and the challenges and limitations confronting their approaches.

With mounting pressure for social justice in an increasingly unequal world, policy makers are exploring how to foster more inclusive innovation. In this context grassroots experiences take on added significance. This book provides timely and relevant ideas, analysis and recommendations for activists, policy-makers, students and scholars interested in encounters between innovation, development and social movements.

This book is part of the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability book series.

CONTENTS

Part 1: Overview
1. Introduction
2. A Conceptual Framework for Studying GIMs
Part 2: The Cases 
3. Movement for Socially Useful Production
4. Appropriate Technology Movement
5. Peoples’ Science Movements
6. Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and Fablabs
7. Social Technologies Network
8. Honey Bee Network
Part 3: Lessons
9. Grassroots Innovation Movements: Lessons for Theory and Practice
10. Conclusions: Constructing Pathways for Sustainability with the Grassroots

Order the book from Routledge (you can get a 20% discount by using the order code FLR40)

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Experimentation with radically open and collaborative ways of producing knowledge and material artefacts can be found everywhere – from the free/libre and open-source software movement to citizen science initiatives, and from community-based fabrication labs and makerspaces to the production of open-source scientific hardware. Networked digital infrastructure – including ever-faster internet access in far flung places – makes these experiments more possible.

Though diverse, these initiatives have important things in common: they create or recreate knowledge commons, and attempt to get a broader array of actors involved as ‘agents’ in innovation.

In a new working paper, ‘Open and Collaborative Developments’, researchers in STEPS America Latina, the STEPS Centre and SPRU reflect on what these emerging practices might mean for helping to cultivate more equitable and sustainable patterns of global development. For many commentators and activists such initiatives promise to radically alter the ways in which we produce knowledge and material artefacts in ways that are far more efficient, creative, distributed, decentralized, and democratic. But can open and collaborative approaches fulfil this promise?

Challenges for open and collaborative practices

The key to answering this question is a set of challenges about the knowledge politics and political economy of the new practices. What depths and forms of participation are being enabled through these new practices, for instance? In what senses does openness translate to the ability to use knowledge? Will open and collaborative forms of production create new relations with, or even transform, markets, states, and civil society, or will they be captured by sectional interests?

Sharing and sticky knowledge

To take one example, a key assumption underpinning many open and collaborative initiatives is that knowledge and information can be shared, then used, modified or further developed, among actors who are far apart from each other (either geographically or institutionally). In effect, this is a promise to radically redistribute access, power and agency over the way that knowledge and materials are produced.

For those in the global South, this is an intriguing prospect. Many developing countries are characterized by acute knowledge dependencies, very narrow production structures, and constrained scope for innovation. In many cases, global firms have control over the frontier of knowledge and technology. So sharing knowledge openly and collaboratively across nations ought to give more options for innovation and participation for people in those countries.

The problem is, though, that knowledge is ‘sticky’: it is immobile, or at least costly or difficult to move from one setting to another. There are several aspects to this; each of which complicates further the challenge of ensuring widespread, equitable internet access and digital information flows.

One aspect to knowledge stickiness is that knowledge possesses important tacit dimensions, particularly in the form of skills and competences. These are most readily shared and learnt in apprentice relationships and through social practice, they often take years to develop, and they are extremely difficult to codify or render explicit, and so are not easily shared through digital networks. Tacit knowledge and the skills to put knowledge to material effect in development are, however, critical to producing and utilizing any and all forms of knowledge. Even successfully using databases of codified information requires skills to select, interpret, and practically use what is relevant.

Some areas of open and collaborative production cope more effectively with knowledge ‘stickiness’. For instance, absolutely central to the success of the open and highly collaborative international Green Revolution in plant breeding (albeit in pre-internet days) were long and intensive international exchanges and field training of thousands of young scientists.

More recently, community-based makerspaces have managed to combine digitally shared, non-proprietary knowledge platforms, with collaborative physical spaces that enable shared learning by doing and using locally. They may, as a consequence, manage to get around many of the problems posed by the immobility of tacit knowledge and the need to re-interpret appropriately and re-embed codified knowledge in local practices.

But other practices, such as citizen science initiatives or the sharing of scientific information via open access repositories may struggle to overcome these kinds of challenges without analogous developments locally. In such circumstances, meaningful access to knowledge and the ability to participate effectively in its (re)production and use are likely to remain very limited.

The obstacles are not necessarily insurmountable, but they do require careful attention to how sharing and collaboration is practiced on the ground, and to the development and distribution more generally of capabilities in knowledge production and use.

Three challenges

Our paper as a whole highlights three sets of challenges in the emerging field of open and collaborative production.

One, as in the example above, concerns the ways in which important attributes of knowledge itself limits aspirations for a more democratic innovation culture.

A second concerns the operation of power internal to the process of producing open and collaborative knowledge. Can open and collaborative production transcend existing hierarchies, asymmetries in the distribution of resources and capabilities between collaborators, and wider patterns of social privilege and structure?

A third concerns the nature of political and economic power within the wider settings and structures in which initiatives in open and collaborative production are situated. Put somewhat crudely, will the new practices constitute ‘novel inputs for existing processes’ or ‘novel inputs for transformed processes’?

None of these three challenges is insurmountable, as we conclude in our paper. But they do imply that any promise in the open and collaborative practices will be realised through accompanying, wider developments. These must be attentive to issues of local capabilities (material and social) in diverse contexts, and include the capability to grapple with issues of relative power and autonomy.

The authors of this blog post are co-authors of the working paper ‘Open and Collaborative Developments’(STEPS Working Paper 98). You can read the abstract here and download the paper (PDF, 900KB).

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