Notes Table Hosts Critical Talks Session
Notes Table Hosts Critical Talks Session
Friday 15th of September / 09:00 – 11:00 / Plenary Session with Critical Talks & Group Discussion
Table hosts who sent in notes:
Isabel Lema Blanco
Linda Zuijderwijk
Jens Dorland
Michael Søgaard Jørgensen, AAU
René Kemp
Tim Strasser
Carla Cipolla
Paul Weaver
Iris Kunze (BOKU; TRANSIT)
Alex Haxeltine
Tom Bauler
Bonno Pel
Saskia Ruijsink
For each round of discussion, table hosts were asked to note down the main points discussed at the table and the main questions/ remarks in response to the speakers.
Round 1: Edina Vadovics: Ecological Sustainability and its Urgency for TSI today.
Question: How strong is the connection between social and ecological aspects in your work and how can you make it stronger?
What were the main points discussed at your table regarding Edina’s talk?
Isabel Lema Blanco
There a kind of selection for being an associate component of a social innovation initiative. So, when the speaker refers to ‘sustainable for whom?’ we need to provide context. As an example, an ecovillage can be sustainable, but this is not a representative society and ecovillages are not for anyone.
Being green or sustainable is great but we can’t lose the focus on the social. A bridge between both social and ecological sides is needed in sustainability approaches, which sometimes are conceptually separated.
Building sustainable communities and drawing transitions towards green societies involves training politicians to work with researchers, in order to apply research and scientific knowledge on the ground. And vice-versa. Researchers and professionals should be skilled over how to interact with policy-makers and social society as well as how to disseminate better their research results.
There are different research agendas on the regional, national and EU scale. Thus we need to be clear as to what are the real issues to be handled (in terms of sustainability and social issues), and the common challenges to our response.
Linda Zuijderwijk
Salvatore from Ripess mentioned a specific example in which recycling and jobs for the poor people go hand in hand. They work via participatory democracy, in which they educate the participants on the environment, but they are also paid to attend meetings on operational and managerial work.
Where is the knowledge we are looking for? We need a database of all projects. Plus, education and policy needs to be cross-sectoral, allowing linkage between climate change and refugee crisis all in one. It is also about living in another way: it is a cultural change that is required.
Jens Dorland
Practitioners presented their background and practice. (This takes most of the time allotted for discussing the first question). Most are already trying to connect social and ecological issues, but saying they are not doing enough.
Michael Søgaard Jørgensen, AAU
SI does not automatically ensure environmental sustainability
We do not give the citizens the tools to make changes – they are not told for example about the CO2 impact from eating 1 kg of chicken meat
The social dimension is nowadays a small part of sustainability
Transition network: we do not say that we want to change the environment, we say we want to offer to society – focusing on local social and cultural changes and fresh relationships to nature
We need integrated solutions – not enough to reduce, we need to have positive impact
Regenerative solutions: permaculture, fish farms. But they are still small ‘in pockets’
Permaculture is not enough to feed the planet…TU Delft: need for genetic modification of crops and use of robots for harvesting…..at the existing huge farms
Transition Network: I disagree. Permaculture and organic farming are more productive per square meter than conventional farming
René Kemp
Ecological issues considered? If so, which ones, with what success? There is a need for a more comprehensive ecological ethos
Tim Strasser
Sweden, there’s a strong engineering culture: this often misses the social / behavioral part
Can be easier to integrate both when starting a new initiative (ecovillage), rather than trying to change those which do not integrate very much yet.
Green Offices at universities often focus more on the ecological aspect of sustainability, partly because many people have a more superficial understanding of sustainability and are not so aware of the social dimension.
Carla Cipolla
Focus is always in one of the two aspects. Discussion and work always in technology /funding.
Social aspects are hard to integrate and require lots of work, while the ecological environmental aspects are more appreciated than the social aspects.
Paul Weaver
The connections for the represented SI initiatives at this table were already strong albeit it was discussed they could be stronger. Most of the represented social innovations at this table have motivations and aspirations directed toward changing modes of production and consumption, including cultural and lifestyle shifts that favour local production of food, energy and material goods.
It was acknowledged however, that there may be differences between intention and actual impact and that too little attention is paid by initiatives to measuring ecological impact. Citizen Science has ecological foundations and aspirations and these, arguably, are stronger than the social aspects. Urban gardening and some of the food initiatives may also deliver greater social impact than environmental impact. For FabLabs, inspiring people to be producers and makers in situ rather than passive consumers is part of the motivation and aspiration, but this doesn’t automatically reduce the environmental footprint and could even have perverse environmental impacts by inadvertently contributing to a widening and spreading of material consumption. Conversely, time banks, where the narratives focus mostly on community strengthening, can have quite significant positive environmental impacts, since activities focus around delivering services (e.g. transport, gardening, home repairs) that reduce the need for individuals to own equipment.
It was agreed that more attention needs to be paid to measuring actual ecological impacts.
Iris Kunze
Social issues (e.g. drugs+ pain killers: overdoses kill people at home
Young graduates miss orientation as to how/ where to find work
Alex Haxeltine
Co-design of SI progress, how to address questions
Burn out ... Impact Hub
Recognize power dynamics in commons
Bonno Pel
SI quite naturally tends to address both these 2 aspects, as it crosses/transcends policy fields.
One project mentioned by panel participants is explicitly working towards/guided by the UN sustainable development goals; another, on the solidarity-based economy Chamber of Commerce in Geneva, has established; a Charter through which (aspiring) members commit to principles of production that comprise social and ecological issues.
Sustainability transitions are an increasingly prominent normative orientation/vision for SI initiatives.
Transportation impacts tend to be overlooked in small-scale and locally embedded SI initiatives.
Socio-ecological impacts of SI should be measured better.
Saskia Ruijsink
In some cases ecological urgency pushes away the social dimension of sustainability innovations, social inclusiveness takes time
Paradox: People with low incomes have lower carbon footprints, but ecologically sustainable solutions for e.g. (private) transport, housing and energy production are more expensive
In practice social and ecological dimensions are silos
The ecological dimension (its challenges and solutions) are typically easier to define, measure and manage (more technical) than the social one
Tom Bauler
Prioritizing environment vs social goals; i.e. consensus at table that environmental objectives/goals should be evaluated in the light of the improvements for human kind (anthropocentric)
Refocusing on the social question of environmental endeavours, e.g. Energiewende should be evaluated in light of what it means for the poorest in German society
Wider call to engage deeper into discussing the consumers’ perspectives, i.e. re-focus TSI-practice on class-questions
What was the main question/ critical remark/ response to Edina’s talk?
Isabel Lema Blanco
Ecological perspectives involve being coherent with your own principles at both local and global levels. Being involved in local/regional projects/initiatives sometimes loses the global focus and avoid international relations and how systems operates worldwide.
In order to make stronger social and ecological aspects of our work, a cultural change is needed. We all need to be responsible planetary citizens!
Jens Dorland
We all agree on her assessment that we need to be more radical
Balint - The system moves, so the SIs need to move as well, what was radical when they started may not be radical anymore. They lack system-thinking, they need to move together with the system and re-radicalise. Is it another application?
Also need to consider everything, when you are buying coffee or shoes, you don’t just get coffee or shoes, you buy into a whole system. Another dimension of system thinking.
In the Netherlands, it is important to be more radical.
Carla Cipolla
Ecological: distanced, top-down
Primary urgency: social stability
René Kemp
Total harmony with nature is not possible. Nature is not harmonious itself. Rather than being resourceful we should be more ecologically minded. Accept responsibility and care as aspects of meaning are more important than being resourceful/innovative.
Tim Strasser
How do you measure the integration of social and ecological aspects (navigating the doughnut)? How to set priorities and evaluate this? Universities can have a key role here in assessing this. For instance, researchers visiting and studying ecovillages. Can be seen as “testbeds” (pushed by the EU!)
ecological: distanced, top-down
primary urgency: social stability
Paul Weaver
Much depends on the perspective from which the SII originates. SII have different foci. If the SII originates from an ecological perspective the connection between social and ecological aspects will be relatively strong, at least in terms of sustainability motivations and aspirations.
It was noted, also, that many local manifestations are small. They can easily be overloaded by being requested to focus on multiple issues.
Iris Kunze
Separating social and ecological issues is not helpful for conceptualising transformative change as stated in the presentation.
It is neither true nor helpful to blame ecovillages that they do not meet their CO2 aims – they are anyway much better than national average – not by chance, but through cultural change, there is still lots of potential.
Sarah Rach
Organisations need to be sustainable in their core
The framing needs a system view
Alex Haxeltine
How to frame the ecological/social as co-essential rather than as trade-offs?
Bonno Pel
There are some SI initiatives targeting particular sets of new social relations that are quite transformative, yet are not equally addressing social and ecological aspects. Why would they have to broaden their orientation? Why raise the bar? Why expect them to be scoring on all counts?
Saskia Ruijsink
The social dimension is extremely important, but seems more difficult to work with than the ecological dimension: time consuming, complex, its success is very subjective, etc.
Tom Bauler
Generally very positive response. Main questions on the level of “how to”.
Round 2: Ariel Gordon: Exclusion/Inclusion Dynamics of SI: Perspective from the South
Question: What are the exclusion dynamics in you work and what could you do to make it more inclusive?
What were the main points discussed at your table regarding Ariel’s talk?
Isabel Lema Blanco
Participants discussed in what extend the organizations they belong to Universities, Administration, Social Innovations, are inclusive or not, identifying some pitfalls and exclusion dynamics:
Are universities as inclusive as they should be? If universities have high taxes and make different treatment between EU and non-EU students, they are eventually unequal and unfair.
Also, concerning research agendas, more research is needed on social issues and social organizations should be involved, not only the high-level actors and stakeholders, but civil society should be listened to.
How much SI actors care about social inclusion? As example, credit cooperatives are meant to give loans to social organizations and social enterprises and they do so. However, cooperatives’ members do not talk about coping with the risk of exclusions.
Linda Zuijderwijk
Exclusion takes place when it comes to 1. Decision-making (in public planning), 2. Who is addressed and how are people addressed (communication), 3. Who has access to which knowledge, 4. Whose knowledge is involved. An example from public housing, Oslo, showed that people living in this public housing were tapping in a source of knowledge not often used: a grassroots activist who advised the municipality in their policy for public housing. Another example came from Ripess, indicating that the trade-unions are quite exclusionary when it comes to workers taking their own decisions for the enterprise. What if the workers become the bosses and owners? The participatory enterprise (cooperative) is the enemy of the trade-union.
What needs to happen is that awareness needs to be spread, for example when it comes to the emission rates of production/consumption of clothes. Make it personal.
A critical remark was made when it comes to the connection to SDGs. The translation of these universal goals to the local levels was missed.
Jens Dorland
Several problems:
Researchers and academics go to the usual suspects, people who are already active, i.e. preaching for the converted.
Many initiatives are passive, people need to actively apply for funds or approach, which again means that it is the usual suspects or people who are already convinced that are reached
It is a naïve/unrealistic question– there is always inclusion and exclusion in every decision.
Michael Søgaard Jørgensen, AAU
Transition Network: There are exclusion dynamics in TSI – but maybe less than ‘normally’ in society
The high energy prices: perception and reality – agree that something is broken
Exclusion in some types of action
Transition Network: some activists aim at being inclusive; some could be better at channeling it. Traditional perspective: transfer from North to South
Should be building more on local innovation capacity
India: Honey bee initiative by Gupta. Interesting. Walks for 100 km from village to village. Gandhi tradition: talk with local citizens. See what people do. Try to support them.
Not a good idea trying simply to replicate SI from place to place
What do we call SI? Impact Hub Rotterdam is losing their space, because
Squatting movement is not seen as social innovation.
Numbers do not say something without knowledge about local culture
NL: different potential in different places with respect to natural resources. These should explicitly be acknowledged
Children of the poor experience the worst environmental conditions
H2020 project: green infrastructure that try to improve the living conditions….empowerment within the local community
Social housing companies have put up a lot of solar panels / cells which enable lower electricity prices in ‘poor’ communities
René Kemp
Cultural divides as an endemic phenomenon.
Tim Strasser
Green Offices can be encouraged to do more on the social inclusion topic, e.g. with regards to refugee integration or making university knowledge more accessible to the wider community and engaging more with the local community (going outside of the ivory tower), as well as promoting and adapting the model more in Southern contexts.
Ecovillages, like many SI initiatives, are often more middle-class, especially since it often requires a lot of capital to set up these projects.
University of Uruguay was mentioned as having made an attempt to transform themselves to become more inclusive: making inclusivity part of the curriculum and knowledge production.
Should emphasize more critical pedagogy: encourage students to contribute more to inclusivity, organize internships for students not just with big companies but with those organisations who really need them the most.
Carla Cipolla
Top-down approaches change- makers (not leaders) e.g. ASOKA
Continuous dynamics of exclusion and inclusion (over time)
Paul Weaver
It was agreed across the table that there are some groups and individuals that are difficult to reach and that even SII that proclaim inclusivity are not really inclusive. There are mechanisms at play that exclude especially the poor, albeit unintentionally. Educational and other barriers (background, experience, available time for participation, priorities of individuals, etc.) can stand in the way of participation. Also, the capacity of local manifestations of initiatives to absorb those who are more difficult to assimilate can be a limitation.
Citizen Science appeals to articulate, educated middle class people. People from that background are likely to feel more comfortable in Citizen Science projects than those who are less well educated or from minority or marginalised groups. Eco-villages are mostly white, middle class affairs. The experience of food cooperatives and projects is different, these being more open, but there is still the problem that people who would benefit most, such as the poorest, operate in ‘survival mode’ most of the time and therefore lack the time and energy and opportunity to participate fully.
Time banks seek to be inclusive and there are many that work to support assimilation and integration of migrants, benefits claimants, the elderly, those with mental health or other health issues, etc. but there are limits to the number and size of time banks (owing to funding constraints) and this limits absorptive capacities and inclusion opportunities. Some modes of working are administratively barred; for example, in the UK legislation prohibits asylum seekers even from undertaking service exchanges within time banks until their claims for asylum are settled and they have achieved refugee status.
Recognising the problem and the needed reaching out by the SII is therefore only one half of the challenge here. The other half of the challenge is to provide a more facilitating context of incentives and supports to enable those hard to engage with to join initiatives and participate actively.
Iris Kunze
Common interests/ values are needed
Higher level of ownership intrinsic motivation à more empowerment and stake government workers, policy makers
Sarah Rach
Education and building skills for ‘marginalized ‘ to become part of change dynamics
Transforming research
Alex Haxeltine
Exclusion due to lack of resources...need to be addressed
But ... need for policy... redesign, access to services.
Tom Bauler
Changing systems vs focusing on small-scale SI solutions
Improve understanding of the multiple specificities in the different sectors (typical example taken here: agriculture vs energy sectors)
Seek to get health issues more into the focus of the TSI-thinking (as one further example of going towards a system-wide discussion).
Current focus on what happens w/r to TSI in the Global South is often idealized from the North
Improve the understanding of the constraints flowing from the institutional/political/administrative difficulties present in the global south; account better for the contexts in the global south.
Bonno Pel
The two researchers at the table agree that inclusiveness typically is expressed/effectuated in research through the respondents selected, and the diversity of views shown in the knowledge produced.
In SI practice there is the recurring challenge of being inclusive whilst maintaining effectiveness and manageable size of the groups/networks collaborated with.
Working with ‘frontrunners’ tends to increase effectiveness of SI initiatives, helping in turn to reach out to broader segments of communities. This preferential focus on certain change agents is of course exclusionary, but can be justified by the change it helps to bring about that favours broader groups.
SI continues to be ‘a middle class conversation’. That is a manifestation of certain exclusion mechanisms. On the other hand, various SI activities, as opposed to the discourse on it, are surely including a broader diversity of individuals and communities – for whom it often does not matter that much whether that’s called SI.
Saskia Ruijsink
Innovation and transition also means disruption and this is often the big elephant in the room
The cosmopolitan class benefits from innovation; it is fashionable and sexy and hence there is more focus on innovative and hip approaches than there is on urgent issues such as reducing poverty
We have a culture of picking winners and forget the hard simple work that needs to be done to address important issues
There are very limited accountability mechanism and it is often not clear who has responsibility for what in innovation
We need to develop increased sensitivity for others, search for dialogue in which we disagree (be challenged, do not stick to your own circle of believers) and have the courage to look in the mirror and challenge yourself
What was the main question/critical remark/ response to the Ariel’s talk?
Isabel Lema Blanco
SIs need to strength their networks to tackle with this issue. Poor people do not need loans, but they need investors and partners. New relations are needed in economy and public policies in order to give disadvantage groups real opportunities to prosperity.
Evidences of exclusion dynamics exists in starting new social projects, which have not open doors for anyone to come. Social innovations should also make an effort on increasing their social diversity, assume and be aware of existing unintended exclusion dynamics.
We also observed exclusion dynamics in politics. How to engage social initiatives in politics? How to give a voice to all? A solution can be creating new networks and federations which represent the more social initiatives as possible.
Jens Dorland
The main critical remark is that it is the wrong question. Inclusion and exclusion is inherent in any decision, it is about being brave and open about who it is in specific situations. Say it out loud, and not be “naïve” and try to say no one is excluded. Also researchers, policy makers, and communities see widely different issues and problems related to the very same challenge.
René Kemp
Social exclusion is something we don’t think about a lot. An economic price on fossil fuels and pollutants may do more for exclusion than inclusion policies. They benefit everyone and if used in a proportional way they are socially just. Revenues can be used for redistribution and for social inclusion policies. Green energy should be cheaper than non-green energy. If so, a transition to green energy will occur more or less automatically.
Tim Strasser
We should consider more the time-space relations: “we” in the North often think about the future, while the Southern countries already face sustainability related problems now.
Carla Cipolla
Inclusion based on capabilities
Where issues of inclusion and exclusion are brought to ecological issues, thus led to social innovation
Iris Kunze
Centralized energy systems are the problem right now, not the future.
A voice speaks: ”What gives us ownership to include or exclude? We do not have this position.” There is another, complementary side to inclusion: it is about protecting spaces for social innovation. Experimentation/ laboratories need special constitutions to make innovations happen. Probably needs conscious effort to make protected spaces inclusive – only via an integration process. Western people going into the Global South or expecting the Southern people should be part of our European learning transition processes can have even a neo-colonialist effect. Better let the South become more independent – this is still far to go – and then we communicate/ exchange on eye-level.
Sarah Rach
Deconstruct the world as it is
Question the logics, choice made
Transition town turns to be middle class ...
Tom Bauler
Comment at the table with regard to a particular slide where Ariel presented the “ideal” world in the renewable energy dimension (a sunflower field with some windmills on it): seed movement representatives found it hilarious to show an agricultural monoculture as being a somehow an image of an ideal world.
Paul Weaver
Supporting people who are underrepresented by deliberately reaching out to them, helping them learn how to participate more, and supporting their integration into activities are all important, but SII themselves need help in this. There are resourcing challenges here both for the SI initiatives and those we seek to integrate. External agencies could do more to support SII financially, such as covering basic operating costs, and could provide incentives and supports that are meaningful to those who are difficult to reach.
Bonno Pel
Not explicitly addressed by group. In retrospect, the discussion of inclusion/exclusion does raise the issue though that this topic is not a particularly Northern or Southern perspective. As SI is about changing relations, it is just a key dimension of any SI – in some contexts more pressing than in others.
Saskia Ruijsink
We ourselves are part of the problems that we study, discuss and try to solve and we find it hard to search for confrontation; rather we group together with other believers and this won’t be enough.
Round 3: Gilda Farrell: Looking back at 25 years of EU (social) innovation policy.
Question: When we imagine ourselves in the future looking back at our work today, what may be our blind spots regarding transformative change?
What were the main points discussed at the table regarding Gilda’s talk?
Linda Zuijderwijk
Blind spots emerge when it comes to the body, to culture and to collective feeling. It is not just the ratio of change that we need to deal with: acknowledging that we all have our limitations means that we can also ‘broaden’ our view. However, this is rather a question of ‘deep change’. Change is about the guts, about the feeling, about connection among people
Central is the focus on the ‘collective’ work: in Barcelona, people started to change the narrative around mortgages. Were they guilty to having such debts? They challenged that feeling and forged a connection among many around this topic. The ‘collective’ also becomes apparent when it comes to political meetings and lobbying: groups that are not the usual suspects. ALL groups (income groups, no distinction here) have to become politically active. There is a need for collective courageousness.
Change takes time. The example from Ripess showed that people were paid to come to meetings, and empowerment-meetings on dialogue and communication, and that it took them 5 years to become acquainted with this set up.
Jens Dorland
Balint reframed the question –what will our kids criticize us for?
We have worked with one size fits all. This is naïve, one type of solution or system does not fit all contexts. We need to have a global political project, and not think as individual states. Problems transcends boundaries, so solutions need to do so as well. Also, like CO2 emissions. Denmark is below the EU average, but we have outsourced a lot of our production to China, i.e. we are paying and causing for CO2 emission elsewhere (just an example, we do not agree that CO2 emissions is the best or correct measurement).
We need more integration with knowledge on psychology in relation to sustainability and behaviour.
We cannot do cutting edge framework in the current system, the EU only wants to support research with a lot of history behind it. Comment from Desis, that any ambitious ideas have little chance of getting funding. There is a political acceptability issue.
Future kids might accuse us of being too political, why were we not out doing, living the life, showing. They might also accuse us of not being political enough.
Michael Søgaard Jørgensen, AAU
Activists: what we do today……
Rotterdam: in (local) government/administration too much focus on writing down, too little focus on doing things
Pessimistic: if we do not do something…there are tipping points…there are thresholds that are not ‘obeyed’
Transition Network Brighton: Need for more focus on inclusion……
Per O: we are on the right track
Are we underestimating the push-back – look at Trump and Putin…..
Macron: why did he win?
Brexit was supported by the rich and by hackers – mixed support
The social media is being misused – e.g. in relation to Brexit
Blind spot: capitalism
Remember Google did not start up big……
Per O: sometimes a naïve belief that big companies will change their basic business model
Question to the researchers at the table. Are there critical discussions among academia about the competition among researchers and commercialisation of research?
Transition Network: what do we identify as innovation? We do not see the innovations taking place in Africa
René Kemp
The role of resistance, the positive vision, and the world being complicated and chaotic.
Tim Strasser
That we were too exclusive!?
Not having had enough courage to face conflict and challenge regulations.
Academics only criticizing instead of being more proactive to change how universities are organized: too much agreement but not action among colleagues!
How can we as the university engage more with challenging the status quo instead of just “observing from the outside”!?
Fear to not get funding (money from the EU) or to lose legitimacy causing reluctance of academics to engage more in politics. We should stop just blaming EU laws (e.g. unfair competition, public procurement). Rather, we should start going more beyond the rules and engage more with civil society, not with party politics (can also do that more but that shouldn’t be the main way).
We need to discuss across borders more (natural and social sciences, but also beyond academia): “cross borderlines rather than meet deadlines”. This also involves profound personal change: in terms of acknowledging our co-responsibility for re-producing the rules of the game instead of challenging them. Perhaps it’s also about allowing / surfacing the shame in that.
We need to reinvent ourselves as universities in the 21st century!
Carla Cipolla
The need to have a vision where we want to go, not mapping consequences properly. Map out consequences of actions.
Personal level (personal incoherencies) taken for granted
Normative statements not reflected on move beyond experimentations
Paul Weaver
There’s a lack of an animating myth – a narrative around the need for action and the sense of responsibility to act. SII need to assert themselves as actors. There’s a need to (re-)create certain worldviews around the concepts of commons, rights and responsibilities. This needs to be built around shared value. The effort of social innovation organisations and initiatives needs to be more strategic, coordinated, values/principles driven, inclusive and vision-led. There needs to be a greater questioning over the purpose of innovation. What kinds of innovation do we need? Whose interest does innovation serve?
Iris Kunze
We invested to much energy/ effort in paper work
Can we change the system from within – or better from outside, creating alternatives?
We are caught in the system in our 9-5 jobs à and in the limits of the system
We miss time for reflection and really be able to reach a meta-perspective.
Basic income or long sabbatical before retirement should be introduced to create these free spaces.
Purpose of work should not only be increasing the GDP, but creating social meaning.
Sarah Rach
Familiarized structures do not allow for ‘humanity’, it is intellectual, masculine, not allowing ‘the heart’
Regulation is focused on the past-
Alex Haxeltine
Loss of values in the culture
Loss of a ‘myth’
Emphasis on human ... may be come back
If we had more connection to each ... we might re-... deeper values
Tom Bauler
Historical accounts are very important indeed; example form the seeds movement which excluded in their initial moments all political reading and activities (it was just about getting the seed distribution right again)
All TSI projects and initiatives have their political dimension to it; it needs often to be explicitly revealed though
Particular blind spot at the level of research with regard to the political questions.
There remain big serious difficulties to grasp the diversities of SI-actors at the level of most science/research projects
Bonno Pel
Table agreed with one participant’s point that it would be very tragic to realize afterwards that one had forgotten or failed to disseminate the successful and encouraging stories of SI bringing out about transformation (or other desirable effects). It would be tragic to see how SI had failed to break out of its communicative ‘bubble’, not encouraging people and assuring them how their activities – however marginal – could make a difference. The blind spot, in retrospect, would have been the neglect of constructing compelling and empowering stories.
The researchers considered that the academic world may eventually, and well after the fact, come to see how it has failed to make the contributions to society it could have made – by neglecting its potential for transdisciplinary, SI-empowering, transformation-enhancing and practice-oriented research, or alternatively by forgetting to man (M/F) the ivory towers, rebuild the towers destructed, and therewith failing to play its clarifying and interrogating role in society.
Another blind spot mentioned was the complacency and fear of failure that paralyze action: After 25 years, we might well come to see how we’ve been held back from crucial action by hurdles we exaggerated, by irrational fears, and by lack of commitment to and prioritization of urgent matters.
In 25 years we’ll probably realize how unaware we’ve been of the ongoing technological transformations of society, and their social implications. Which transformations in particular, the panel participant couldn’t tell, for lack of deep knowledge into these matters – yet that only underlines the point .
It would also be tragic to find out afterwards how people had failed to learn from each other, and especially to exchange contextualized solutions (rather than generically transferred ‘best practices’). Reinventing the wheel in isolation, current SI networks should have helped to avoid that.
What was the main question/ critical remark/ response to the speaker’s talk?
Isabel Lema Blanco
Participants discussed on the blind spots that Gilda mentions. Due to the majority of researchers in this table, the discussion approached the responsibility of science and researchers on dealing with current global challenges. However, according to the specialization each scientist, it is difficult to have a wide view of global issues and how to tackle them. Are we doing the right thing? Are we so naive of thinking that we are right and people should do the right thing?
Do not embrace what we don’t know. There are mental limitations to utopian thinking. Are we eventually recreating certain (e.g. North) worldviews?
There is a logical resistance and individual capacity to take risks. Are we prepared (as researchers, as social entrepreneurs/actors) to build new beliefs and to formulate new utopias and heterotopias?
Jens Dorland
That we need to create a global political project. And we need to be more ambitious. And our political system is not geared towards ambitious projects or experiments, there is a political acceptability issue
Carla Cipolla
The need to balance the visions and narratives with pragmatic actions (bridge the gap)
René Kemp
Every system is how we created it. The barriers we face are self-created! Systems are reproduced by our own actions. We should be willing to go for system change and accept the costs of discomfort (for instance by not eating meat, owning a car, etc.) LSD in the drinking water may make our thinking more free. We are too much focussed on difficulties and complications. On the other hand, there are no simple solutions. As humans, we need something to believe in and live for.
Paul Weaver
There are implementation challenges. There was agreement at the table over the risk of capture by existing elites and/or by leaders becoming new ‘elites’ and therefore also the risk of distortion and perverse outcomes. There is a risk of ‘leaving the people behind’. So, how do we protect against that? The grassroots and a more equitable sharing of commons must be at the heart of concern and action.
Iris Kunze
Work/ meeting amazing people is important
Reflection and reminder for practitioners was helpful
Although the content was strong, the style of the talk was not perceived as very inspiring, the acoustics had been poor at our table, people were checking their phones
Saskia Ruijsink
Underestimation of the ugliness and power of the status quo; this is true in institutions, private and corporate interests, in our personal lives
Materialism and capitalism have become the core values of society, capitalism has taken over role of religion in setting values (material wealth has become a value rather than a means; above values of e.g. care for others that are important in many religions)
Much egoism, no synergy
Not enough focus on sharing experiences with younger generations
Many change initiatives are not radical enough
There is a paper reality in many organizations, not enough focus on implementation, policy focus too much on reports
Sarah Rach
We stopped dreaming (in some part of the world) and we have no vision of the future. We need to internalize the urgency.
Change is not possible with in the current boundaries of the system. Former sphere needs changes
Blind spot: loss of value and animating myth in the culture of western civilisation
Tom Bauler
“How to” enhance the political in times where that particular level of public engagement is not sought after by actors these days
Bonno Pel
The group passionately engaged with this very important, confronting and inspiring question – the particular answers to the question -as they were suggested in Gilda’s speech- were not discussed very extensively.
Saskia Ruijsink
We should challenge ourselves to address our blind spots even if we do not (want to) see them, since the world as it is also has many conveniences for ourselves.
