The world is becoming increasingly urban, with over half of the world’s total population now residing in cities. While urban areas offer many economic and livelihood opportunities, they are increasingly characterised by growing inequality. In South Africa, both former homelands and peri-urban areas have been severely neglected in terms of health care and services, resulting in very poor-quality care and extreme discrepancies between rural and urban health statistics. Yet, there is recognition of the need to address peri-urban sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in South Africa.
South African adolescents experience very high levels of pregnancy, due to uneven gender relations, limited comprehensive sexuality education, and poor access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services, including quality contraception options. Poverty and place of residence strongly affect outcomes of adolescent sexual health in South Africa. While it is recognised that women and girls living in low-income residential areas are negatively affected in relation to many aspects of health, including SRHR, very little information is available on health within peri-urban cities and on the interconnections between poverty, place and health. Given this, we set out to understand how ICTs in general, and mHealth in particular, might provide new ways of addressing adolescent sexuality, reproductive health and place in South Africa.
Mobile phones are ubiquitous in South Africa, including in rural, peri-urban and slum contexts. However, investment in infrastructure tends to be in middle class areas where those inhabiting the spaces pay for use, and South Africa is renowned for its high data costs. By contrast, peri-urban and township areas suffer from inadequate access to services, including poor network coverage, weak satellite signals, insufficient bandwidth and limited voice capacity due to congestion and demand. As high unemployment causes a lack of security, women do not carry mobile phones for fear of being attacked and robbed. In some instances women share mobile phones. Rural areas are plagued by uneven conditions of access: female-headed households have poor access to mobile phones, poor satellite reception, no broadband, high data costs, lack of infrastructure as well as health, education and transport inequalities. In general, women and adolescent girls also have less time to access ICTs due to the gendered division of labour and additional domestic burdens. It is also difficult, and often unsafe, to access internet cafes and other public places where ICTs might be freely available. Inequality in ICT access thus maps the pattern of apartheid inequality.
There are also constraints in terms of electricity, language, cost and design - as one responded said, ‘Space is not an issue, rather it is cost’. Patterns of inequality cannot be addressed simply through access. Special policy measures are needed to support infrastructural and other developments in rural areas, inner-city slums and peri-urban areas, but if left to market forces, these areas will remain under-resourced. Yet, as no such policy prescriptions exist, most technical interventions make no attempt to deal with this. For example, although the National Department of Health (NDOH) is aware of the challenges of rural and peri-urban health for women and adolescent girls, MomConnect – its new national Maternal and Child Health programme – does not address high-risk HIV-pregnancies in peri-urban areas, or offer ways of ensuring transport and places for safe delivery in rural areas. It was, as one member of the task force informed us, ‘too complicated to add any nuance at this stage’. Thus MomConnect deals with questions of space only in terms of connectivity. Implementers working with the NDOH argue that ‘technically on paper, there is no area [in South Africa] without connectivity’. While recognising that connectivity may sometimes mean climbing a hill to receive a signal – and putting aside the mental image of pregnant women climbing hills to read their pregnancy-related SMS messages – ‘MomConnect will deal with it by hoping that there is a facility to receive a signal and that women may have to try different sim cards and perhaps change their service providers’.
As technology improves and programmes expand, the challenges of addressing place-related health issues change. Increasingly, content is being dispersed to mobile phones throughout Africa, so it is not always possible to link subscribers to particular countries or places. As many SRHR topics – abortion, diverse sexual orientations and gender identity, sex work, adolescent sexuality, condoms – are highly politicised and possibly banned, implementers focus on neutral, uncontentious topics and health-related facts. As one implementer, running an Africa-wide, sexual health social networking forum for young people, commented: ‘What I did as a better-than-nothing solution is I hired an international sexual health advisor to produce information as neutrally as possible’. Yet, implementers still come up against place-related challenges: ‘I wrote a manual about being tested for sexual diseases, but found that the tests were not offered… Place is the biggest missing puzzle piece in our service’.
The problem is political – rural, peri-urban, and inner-city areas are underserviced because of past historical injustice, because the poor live in these areas, because there are no policy prescriptions forcing cell phone operators to provide technology and services to these areas, and because the poor have no purchasing power. Poor women’s and adolescents’ health as experienced in these areas is not eye-catching – gender-based violence, abortion, adolescent rape – and their rights to challenge these experiences are difficult, politically-sensitive topics which do not buy votes. Nor are they easily addressed through the sale of m-health products. The challenge of adolescents’ and women’s SRHRs in rural, peri-urban, and inner-city areas is political. Yet, for many, the solution proposed is often technical.
Showing posts with label science and technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science and technology. Show all posts
Wednesday, 5 November 2014
Thursday, 30 October 2014
STEPS América Latina at the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network
Between 13 and 15 October the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network held its first workshop in Nairobi. The objective of the workshop, organized and funded by the Canadian International Development Research Centre, and supported by the University of Toronto and Kenya iHUB, was to kick-start the construction of a research network to promote 'open science' for the Global South.
This initiative arises in a context where open science has become a buzzword for large foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and development institutions internationally. In the midst of so much interest, the inevitable question is whether open science can live up to its promises. In this spirit we went to Kenya to learn about and discuss the issue.
STEPS América Latina was privileged to be amongst 14 other institutions whose proposals had been pre-selected (from over 90 applications) by OCSDnet. Participants came from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Canada, India, Kenya, South Africa, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan and Thailand. Co-ordinated by Leslie Chan, from the University of Toronto the workshop also included a set of international advisors including Lidia Brito, Hebe Vessuri, Cameron Neylon, Apiwat Ratanawaraha, Matthew Todd and Kaitlin Thaney, representing the Science Lab of the Mozilla Foundation.
If, before the event, a number of elements – the meeting venue, the novelty of the subject, and the excellent background paper – suggested a rewarding and challenging encounter, it rapidly became clear that the event would exceed our expectations. In part this was because the workshop brought together a truly interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, chemists, biologists, lawyers, geographers, ecologists, engineers, experts in social development, forest conservation and sociologists who all shared an interest in the production of open and collaborative knowledge.
In most cases, the participants also had practical experience of the development and use of participatory tools for the collection, management and dissemination of scientific evidence in relation to social or environmental issues. As such, we discussed projects that sought to expand access to scientific databases on botany, foster public control over the emission of gaseous pollutants in urban areas, study the asymmetries of power in cases of indigenous intellectual property, and support the construction of laboratories of open hardware in order to study water contamination, amongst other examples.
Creating dialogue amongst such a heterogeneous set of disciplines, development issues and geographical situations sometimes proved challenging. Of course, there were several moments “lost in translation” (especially between scientists and the few sociologists who participated in the meeting). And yet, the workshop enabled us to explore a rich variety of definitions and interpretations of what it means to do open science (and open innovation).
We cannot summarize here the different points of view aired within the workshop, and interpretations of the event. But if it is interesting to note that it became clear, during the three days, that the notion of open science is intertwined with the collaborative and iconoclastic spirit of the communities of open software and open hardware (along with the hacker and maker movements), the history of grassroots innovation movements, the experiences of Science Shops in Europe and North America and, closer to Latin America, the tradition of participatory action research. All these movements not only share some history with open science, but they also help to form a central aspect of its definition: the search for the democratization of knowledge.
A second issue highlighted during the discussions in Nairobi is the importance of information technology tools for data collection, visualization and communication for the practice of open science. Incorporating these tools is a challenge and a necessity in order to establish ways to collaborate that are open and accessible to the largest number of participants possible.
In the context of increasing interest and discussion of the potential and uses of open science to address major development challenges – for example in research initiatives for orphan diseases – an analysis of the history, diversity and uses of open science practices is more than welcome. It’s also likely that reflection on the notion of open science and citizen participation in the production of knowledge allows us to shed some light on other current topics of innovation and development, as in the cases of research into innovation for social inclusion, and of the tensions between public research and policies for the private commercialization of knowledge.
Of course, there are still more questions than answers. For example: Is it possible to use methodologies of open science for research on issues that are neglected or rejected by dominant institutions of science and technology? In what ways can citizen participation contribute to the collection and validation of evidence on climate change and/or biodiversity loss? In what ways might mechanisms of participatory design and innovation accelerate the development of technologies for social inclusion?
It is difficult to know even if experimentation with forms of open science will be able to help address the growing problems of access and democratization of knowledge about the challenges of inclusive and sustainable development. The OCSDnet initiative certainly contributes to broaden the discussion, and connect the different visions, methods and tools in different regions of the global South. For now, it has given us an excellent reason to investigate the issue, and try to understand different experiences of open and collaborative knowledge production in Argentina and the region.
Find our more about STEPS America Latina Media coverage of the most recent seminar in the STEPS America Latina’s series: Los nuevos senderos que se abren, Pagina 12
By Mariano Fressoli, STEPS America Latina
This initiative arises in a context where open science has become a buzzword for large foundations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and development institutions internationally. In the midst of so much interest, the inevitable question is whether open science can live up to its promises. In this spirit we went to Kenya to learn about and discuss the issue.
STEPS América Latina was privileged to be amongst 14 other institutions whose proposals had been pre-selected (from over 90 applications) by OCSDnet. Participants came from Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Canada, India, Kenya, South Africa, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan and Thailand. Co-ordinated by Leslie Chan, from the University of Toronto the workshop also included a set of international advisors including Lidia Brito, Hebe Vessuri, Cameron Neylon, Apiwat Ratanawaraha, Matthew Todd and Kaitlin Thaney, representing the Science Lab of the Mozilla Foundation.
If, before the event, a number of elements – the meeting venue, the novelty of the subject, and the excellent background paper – suggested a rewarding and challenging encounter, it rapidly became clear that the event would exceed our expectations. In part this was because the workshop brought together a truly interdisciplinary group of anthropologists, chemists, biologists, lawyers, geographers, ecologists, engineers, experts in social development, forest conservation and sociologists who all shared an interest in the production of open and collaborative knowledge.
In most cases, the participants also had practical experience of the development and use of participatory tools for the collection, management and dissemination of scientific evidence in relation to social or environmental issues. As such, we discussed projects that sought to expand access to scientific databases on botany, foster public control over the emission of gaseous pollutants in urban areas, study the asymmetries of power in cases of indigenous intellectual property, and support the construction of laboratories of open hardware in order to study water contamination, amongst other examples.
Creating dialogue amongst such a heterogeneous set of disciplines, development issues and geographical situations sometimes proved challenging. Of course, there were several moments “lost in translation” (especially between scientists and the few sociologists who participated in the meeting). And yet, the workshop enabled us to explore a rich variety of definitions and interpretations of what it means to do open science (and open innovation).
We cannot summarize here the different points of view aired within the workshop, and interpretations of the event. But if it is interesting to note that it became clear, during the three days, that the notion of open science is intertwined with the collaborative and iconoclastic spirit of the communities of open software and open hardware (along with the hacker and maker movements), the history of grassroots innovation movements, the experiences of Science Shops in Europe and North America and, closer to Latin America, the tradition of participatory action research. All these movements not only share some history with open science, but they also help to form a central aspect of its definition: the search for the democratization of knowledge.
A second issue highlighted during the discussions in Nairobi is the importance of information technology tools for data collection, visualization and communication for the practice of open science. Incorporating these tools is a challenge and a necessity in order to establish ways to collaborate that are open and accessible to the largest number of participants possible.
In the context of increasing interest and discussion of the potential and uses of open science to address major development challenges – for example in research initiatives for orphan diseases – an analysis of the history, diversity and uses of open science practices is more than welcome. It’s also likely that reflection on the notion of open science and citizen participation in the production of knowledge allows us to shed some light on other current topics of innovation and development, as in the cases of research into innovation for social inclusion, and of the tensions between public research and policies for the private commercialization of knowledge.
Of course, there are still more questions than answers. For example: Is it possible to use methodologies of open science for research on issues that are neglected or rejected by dominant institutions of science and technology? In what ways can citizen participation contribute to the collection and validation of evidence on climate change and/or biodiversity loss? In what ways might mechanisms of participatory design and innovation accelerate the development of technologies for social inclusion?
It is difficult to know even if experimentation with forms of open science will be able to help address the growing problems of access and democratization of knowledge about the challenges of inclusive and sustainable development. The OCSDnet initiative certainly contributes to broaden the discussion, and connect the different visions, methods and tools in different regions of the global South. For now, it has given us an excellent reason to investigate the issue, and try to understand different experiences of open and collaborative knowledge production in Argentina and the region.
Find our more about STEPS America Latina Media coverage of the most recent seminar in the STEPS America Latina’s series: Los nuevos senderos que se abren, Pagina 12
By Mariano Fressoli, STEPS America Latina
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
David Ockwell at UNFCCC workshop on innovation systems (live webcast)
On 13–14 October, the Technology Executive Committee (TEC) of the UNFCCC is holding a workshop on Strengthening national systems of innovation in developing countries, covering the entire technology cycle for climate technology. This workshop will be webcast (see link below).
The workshop includes a presentation by David Ockwell, convenor of the STEPS Centre's Energy and Climate Change domain, on the subject of Transferring climate technology knowledge and developing national capacity to absorb knowledge.
The TEC is organizing the workshop to facilitate the implementation of its 2014-2015 rolling workplan. The workshop will support the TEC's work on enhancing enabling environments for and addressing barriers to technology development and transfer, in accordance with its mandated functions. It will have three sessions:
Webcast and virtual participation
All stakeholders are invited to follow the workshop through the live webcast and participate in the workshop discussions via social media. By using the Twitter hashtag #climatetech, you may tweet questions for the consideration of the workshop participants.
The workshop includes a presentation by David Ockwell, convenor of the STEPS Centre's Energy and Climate Change domain, on the subject of Transferring climate technology knowledge and developing national capacity to absorb knowledge.
The TEC is organizing the workshop to facilitate the implementation of its 2014-2015 rolling workplan. The workshop will support the TEC's work on enhancing enabling environments for and addressing barriers to technology development and transfer, in accordance with its mandated functions. It will have three sessions:
- Strengthening national systems of innovation
- Issues related to knowledge transfer between national systems of innovation
- Knowledge transfer mechanisms: enhancing collaboration.
Webcast and virtual participation
All stakeholders are invited to follow the workshop through the live webcast and participate in the workshop discussions via social media. By using the Twitter hashtag #climatetech, you may tweet questions for the consideration of the workshop participants.
- View webcast
- Tweet questions using #climatetech
Monday, 15 September 2014
To improve access to seeds for African farmers, we need more than technical solutions
 |
| Inside the agro-vet by STEPS Centre (Flickr), used with kind permission |
Despite huge investment from governments and donors in seed sector development in Africa over the better half of a century, access to quality seed remains a great challenge for smallholder farmers across the continent.
Addressing this challenge is a complex task, and requires an integrated, multidisciplinary and innovation systems approach. Certain aspects of the greater challenge may be best addressed at regional level, through the collaboration of countries, experts, seed programmes, and their associated organizations and institutions in the public and private domains.
A select number of challenge areas have been prioritised for deeper exploration and intervention through an action-oriented research and learning approach during the Piloting Phase of the Comprehensive Programme on Integrated Seed Sector Development in Africa.
These include:
- Promoting entrepreneurship: ISSD Africa sees a challenge in promoting entrepreneurship in more than just the typical seed value chains, such as maize.
- Improving access: unless we improve access to those varieties developed in the public domain, they are destined to stay on the shelf.
- Impacts of global commitments: African seed sector stakeholders, in government, in development and in industry, need to be more critical in their evaluation of global commitments in terms of the implications upon national seed sector development strategies and their domestication into local realities.
- Coherence and strategy: last on the agenda of the Piloting Phase is addressing the challenge of keeping national investments in the seed sector coherent, cohesive and strategic in meeting the ambitious targets of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and the African Seed and Biotechnology Programme (ASBP).
For this we require integration of technical and social systems, technologies and institutions, knowledge and good will, if we are to be successful in addressing such a complex challenge in a changing environment.
By Gareth Borman, Centre for Development Innovation, Wageningen UR
Tuesday, 19 August 2014
Why STEPS is creating a new research hub in Latin America
| I am in Buenos Aires for the ESOCITE/4S
conference, which is bringing together Latin American scholars in Science
& Technology Studies and visitors from the USA, Europe and other regions
of the world.
It is an exciting moment to convene in Argentina. The
government is mired in controversy over payment of debts, vulture funds,
nationalisations, and the future direction of development as the country's
politicians jockey for position ahead of the presidential elections next
year. In the region too, a decade or so of trying to make a neo-structural
model of development more inclusive is leading into a period of reflection
and debate about the experience.
That decidedly mixed experience has centred on attempts to
build upon natural resource-based economies, and use them as a basis to
leverage investment for developing a different productive matrix that is less
dependent upon the vicissitudes of global markets in resources, and that can
create jobs and other industrial sectors with high social inclusion.
Reflections on how this has worked, or not, and where it has struggled, and
why, must consider which groups, issues and agendas have been included, and
which excluded, and the fruits of these attempts.
Debate appears to be opening up to a questioning of this
model of development, and consideration of alternative models. Obviously, it
is extremely difficult for visitors like me to get the full picture,
especially without an appreciation of all the nuances and historical
specificities required. And, arguably, it is also challenging for people in
the region to look across the diverse communities and groups involved. Which
is one reason why the creation of the Centro
STEPS America Latina – our new research 'hub' in Latin America – is
particularly exciting, since it is committed to exploring alternative
pathways for sustainable developments in the region.
Building regional links
Right now, the nucleus of the Centro STEPS, which will
become a hub for regional reflections, is a team at Fundación
Cenit here in Buenos Aires. It consists of Valeria Arza, Anabel Marin,
Patrick van Zwanenberg, Mariano Fressoli and Antonella Perini. They are
already building upon existing links with other researchers in the region.
The Centro STEPS network provides a platform for critical
reflection on the development models currently pursued in the region; a venue
for debating alternatives; collaborations that gather evidence and analysis
of concrete experiments on the ground; as well as a vehicle for engaging with
different agencies and social and economic sectors across the region.
Centro STEPS is taking a particular interest in the roles
that science and technology, as well as other forms of knowledge production
and material creativity, can play in developments that seek social justice
and environmental sustainability. The Centro already has considerable
experience in deploying the analytical resources from Science &
Technology Studies, Innovation Studies and Development Studies.
Past projects by Centro members also have a track record
in drawing in contributions from the natural sciences, design and
engineering, as well as social science disciplines including economics,
sociology, political science and anthropology. An engaged and
interdisciplinary approach is the hallmark of past projects by this team, and
which forms the ethos for the network they are facilitating. The Centro also
builds on roundtables organised in Colombia, Venezuela, and Argentina as part
of the STEPS Centre New
Manifesto project for rethinking science and technology for development.
At the ESOCITE/4S conference the Centro have a stall and
are hosting an evening reception on Friday 22nd August for scholars
interested in contributing to this exciting initiative (organised,
appropriately, as an alternative to formal conference business). At the
reception, in a bar downtown (in the basement of 36 de billar, I hope!),
there will be scope to discuss the issues of concern, methodologies,
engagements, modes of activity for the network, and opportunities to join and
contribute.
Getting going: debates, films, conferences
The Centro already has a cycle of debates, which began
in April with agricultural biotechnology in Buenos Aires. It will be
moving soon to other cities in the region (the Centro has funds for potential
hosts to bid into). A working paper series is in preparation and a regular
network newsletter. These and other items will be hosted on a network website
(in development). Our activities, such as the seminar debate on intellectual
property, are already reported regularly in the Argentine paper Pagina
12, and syndicated in the region through blogs and other media. There are
plans for film documentaries
and other media for exploring the issues. And at ESOCITE/4S, as at other
academic fora, members of the Centro and network are convening special
sessions.
For example, Mariano Fressoli and I have convened a
two-part session at ESOCITE/4S around the question, What is
innovation for social inclusion? We have a fantastic set of contributions
in Spanish, Portuguese and English. I will also be contributing the following
week to a Centro
seminar debate dedicated to the topic of digital fabrication, most
emblematically in 3D printing, and what this means for development. I'll be
asking questions about grassroots experimentation in new socio-technical
possibilities being explored in makerspaces, FabLabs, and hackerspaces.
All this is incredibly exciting. I think this initiative
is not only important for the region, vital as that is, but also for people
considering alternative developments in other regions of the world, whether
in Europe like me, Asia, Africa, and North America. The STEPS Centre is
collaborating with partners to establish network hubs in all these regions.
We plan for these networks to intersect, and provide dynamic and diverse
platforms for exchange of experiences and analysis.
We want to cultivate a reflexive attitude sensitive to the
differences in histories, cultures, economies, societies, epistemologies and
so forth, and which we believe can lead to deeper insights and stronger
solidarities through appreciation of located and interconnected development
alternatives. And hopefully the encounters involved, sparking criticism and
argument as well as identifying common ground, will contribute creative insights
for those already engaged in experimentation and building diverse pathways
towards varied forms of social justice and environmental sustainability. The
situation in Latin America now suggests Centro STEPS will provide an
important component for that platform; a platform that can help more people
become protagonists in the building of caminos (pathways) by asking
questions.
|
Thursday, 14 August 2014
Recordando el Plan de Lucas: que nos puede decir el movimiento para producción social útil sobre la innovación inclusiva hoy?
Foto: Workers at Lucas Industries, Shaftmoor Lane branch, Birmingham, 1970. Lucas Memories website, lucasmemories.co.uk
En enero de 1976 los trabajadores de Lucas Aerospace publicaron un plan alternativo para el futuro de su empresa manufacturera. Fue una respuesta novedosa a los anuncios que miles de despidos porrazones de reestructuración industrial, la competencia internacional y el cambio tecnológico (especialmente la automatización).
En lugar de elegir el paro, los trabajadores argumentaron su derecho a la producción socialmente útil.
Alrededor de la mitad de la producción de Lucas era financiada por contratos militares. Dado que este dependía de los fondos públicos, al igual que muchos de las inversiones de reestructuración civil también recibían fondos públicos, los trabajadores argumentaron que era mejor utilizar el gasto estatal con el fin de desarrollar productos socialmente más útiles.
El Plan fue rechazado por la administración y el gobierno. Sin embargo, sus ideas catalizaron un movimiento para la democratización del desarrollo tecnológico en la sociedad. En la promoción de sus argumentos, los sindicalistas en Lucas enrolaron el interés de trabajadores de otros sectores, militantes sociales y para paz, científicos radicales, los ambientalistas y la izquierda. El Plan se convirtió en el símbolo de un movimiento comprometido con la innovación con fines sociales por sobre el beneficio privado.
La elaboración del Plan incluyó una perspectiva participativa en la cual los sindicalistas consultaron a sus propios miembros. En el transcurso de un año construyeron su plan sobre la base de los conocimientos, las habilidades, la experiencia y necesidades de los trabajadores y las comunidades en las que vivían. Como resultado recolectaron los diseños y prototipos de más de 150 productos alternativos. El Plan incluyó un análisis de mercado y argumento económicos; propuestas para mejoras en la formación de los empleados y ampliación de las competencias. Asimismo, el Plan sugirió que el trabajo se reorganiza en base a equipos menos jerárquicos y con menos barreras entre el conocimiento tácito del taller y el conocimiento teórico de los ingenieros y la oficina de diseño.
El diario conservador inglés, The Financial Times describió el Plan de Lucas como “uno de los planes alternativos más radicales jamás elaborados por los trabajadores para su empresa ‘(Financial Times, 23 de enero de 1976). El Plan fue nominado para el Premio Nobel de la Paz en 1979.La revista El New Statesman afirmó que ‘Las implicaciones … del plan ahora se están discutiendo unas veinte y cinco veces a la semana en promedio en los medios internacionales “.
A pesar de esta atención, los delegados sindicales sospecharon (correctamente) que de forma aislada el Plan no convencería a la administración ni al gobierno. Al mismo tiempo, los líderes nacionales de los sindicatos también se mostraron reacios a aceptar esta iniciativa de base; estaban preocupados por que asentara un precedente que podría haber desafiado su lugar de privilegio en la jerarquía de poder.
Mientras tanto, y como palanca para ejercer presión, los delegados sindicales se embarcaron en una campaña política más amplia para el derecho a la producción útil socialmente. Mike Cooley, uno de los líderes, dijo que quería “, inflamar la imaginación de los demás” y “demostrar de una manera muy práctica y directa el poder creativo de la gente común”.
Los trabajadores de Lucas organizaron road-shows, demostraciones didácticas, y crearon un Centro de Industria y Sistemas Tecnológicos Alternativos (CAITS) en Londres. Diseños y prototipos fueron exhibidos en eventos públicos en todo el país.Se realizaron documentales televisivos sobre el Plan. El Centro ayudó a los trabajadores de otros sectores a desarrollar sus propios planes. Los activistas se vincularon con movimientos afines en Escandinavia y Alemania.
Este movimiento social, cuestionabala perspectiva establecida que decía que la tecnología se desarrolla de manera autónoma de la sociedad, y que la gente debía adaptarse a las herramientas ofrecidas por la ciencia y el capital.
Los activistas argumentaron que el conocimiento y la tecnología eran construidos por elecciones sociales durante su desarrollo; y que esas decisiones debían ser más democráticas. Los activistas cultivaron espacios para el diseño participativo; promovieron la tecnología centrada en lo humano; y buscaron más control para los trabajadores, las comunidades y los usuarios en los procesos de innovación y producción.
Cuando los londinenses votaron a la izquierda en las elecciones municipales en 1981, surgieron posibilidades concretas de apoyo. El gobierno local de izquierda introdujó una estrategia industrial comprometida con la producción socialmente útil.
Mike Cooley, que fue despedido de Lucas por su activismo, fue nombrado Director de Tecnología de la ciudad. Se crearon una serie de Redes de Tecnología. Anticipando a los FabLabs de hoy, estos talleres se basaron en el trabajo comunitario, compartieron máquinas, herramientas, acceso aapoyo técnico, y servicios de creación de prototipos. Estaban abiertos para que cualquier persona pueda desarrollar prototipos de utilidad social.
Estas redes tenían como objetivo combinar la “habilidad, la creatividad y el entusiasmo en las comunidades locales" con el”reservorio de conocimientos científicos y de la innovación" de los institutos politécnicas de Londres.
Cientos de diseños y prototipos fueron desarrollados, incluyendo las bicicletas eléctricas, turbinas de viento de pequeña escala, dispositivos de ahorro y conservación de energía, dispositivos para atender la discapacidad, reciclaje, juegos para niños, y redes informáticas para la comunidad. Los diseños fueron registrados en un banco de productos de acceso abierto. Existieron fondos para ayudar a las cooperativas y las empresas sociales a desarrollar estos prototipos en negocios.
Recordando el movimiento ahora, lo que más nos llama la atención es la importancia que los activistas daban a las prácticas tecnológicas como parte de su activismo político. El movimiento enfatizó el desarrollo del conocimiento tácito, la habilidad artesanal, y el aprendizaje práctico a través de la colaboración cara a cara en proyectos concretos.
Esta actividad práctica fue elegida como estrategia para la movilización de alianzas y el debate. De esta manera, durante la muestra de prototipos, los activistas trataron de atraer la más variada participación en los debates. Prototipos sociales permitían formas de debate más amplias, más prácticos que la expresión significativa a diferentes públicos, comparados a los discursos y textos y otros materiales normalmente asociado con debates políticos.
Del mismo modo hoy, Hackerspaces y FabLabs, involucran a personas que trabajan materialmente en proyectos tecnológicos compartidos. Plataformas de medios sociales en el web se abre estos procesos de maneras más distribuidos e interconectados. Plataformas de diseño y las tecnologías de fabricación digital se permiten a compartir diseños de hardware abierto y contribuyen a un patrimonio común del conocimiento.
Hay algunos que hacen reclamados excitados por la democratización de la fabricación. La fabricación digital de base social reaviva ideas acerca de la participación directa en el desarrollo y uso de la tecnología: Es necesario comparar, por ejemplo, el ambicioso plan actual de la ciudad de Barcelona para convertirse en una FabCity con las Redes Tecnologicas de Londres de la década del ochenta.
Sin embargo, al recordar el Plan de Lucas debemos hacer una pausa y considerar dos cuestiones.
En primer lugar, la importancia atribuida a los conocimientos y habilidades tácitos. Los medios nuevos de comunicación social en el web pueden ayudar a la formación de capacidades descentralizadas y democráticas, pero no van a sustituir completamente actividad cara a cara, mano-a-mano.
En segundo lugar, para la generación anterior de activistas tecnológicos, los talleres y proyectos de colaboración también tenían que ver con la elaboración de las solidaridades y no solamente prototipos. La discusión y las actividades centradas en el proyecto estaban relacionadas con el debate y la movilización en torno a cuestiones sociales más amplias. Querían construir una economía política alternativa.
En retrospectiva, el movimiento estaba nadando contra la corriente política y económica. El gobierno de Thatcher finalmente abolió la autonomía municipal de Londres en 1986. Las industrias y los trabajadores sindicalizados disminuyeron por la reestructuración económica que tuvo uno de sus epicentros en Inglaterra y se desplegó a nivel mundial; y el poder de los sindicatos se redujo a través de la legislación y flexibilización laboral.
El thatcherismo recortó intencionalmente los recursos y espacios para promover políticas alternativas. Al hacerlo, disminuyó la diversidad que resultaba importante para la innovación. Desaparecieron las alianzas que hicieron posible el movimiento de producción socialmente útil, así como también se desvanecieron muchos de los espacios y las iniciativas generadas. La configuración social de la tecnología quedó nuevamente en manos exclusivas del mercado.
Sin embargo, a pesar de que el activismo se disipó, sus ideas no desaparecieron. Algunas prácticas tuvieron influencia más amplia, como en el diseño participativo, aunque en formas apropiadas a las necesidades del capital en lugar de a los intereses previstos de los obreros.
Por tanto, esta reflexión histórica pretende formular una tercera cuestión: esta es la pregunta por la relevancia de las relaciones de poder y la necesidad de abordar dicha problemática en el desarrollo de tecnologías democráticas. Al hacer accesible las herramientas para fabricar prototipos, la gente puede ejercer un poder para crear innovaciones. Pero este todavía ejercicio todavía debe luchar para ejercer presión sobre las agendas de desarrollo tecnológico de las elites, sobre temas como qué innovaciones atraen la inversión para la producción y comercialización, y bajo qué criterios sociales se produce el cambio social y tecnológico.
Como otros antes y después, los trabajadores de Lucas insistieron en el desarrollo democrático de la tecnología. Sus iniciativas prácticas concretas momentáneamente ampliaron la variedad de ideas, debates y posibilidades – algunos de los cuales persisten hoy. Tal vez estas ideas sean el mejor legado que nos ha dejado el movimiento de producción socialmente útil…
•Leer más sobre el projecto Grassroots innovation: Historical and comparative perspectives
•Documento de trabajo: Socially Useful Production (STEPS Working Paper 58)
By Adrian Smith, STEPS Centre
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