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- Convenors:
-
Simone Abram
(Durham University)
Maja Hojer Bruun (Aarhus University)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Great Hall
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Experiments are often designed with a view to transforming something in the world. Some kinds of experiment are more ‘worldly’ than others, engaging people in their everyday lives or accessing areas of common property, knowledge or culture. What kind of experiments are, for example, Living Labs? Do they exploit knowledge commons, appropriate hope of change, or reproduce existing notions of user-driven innovation and/or experimental science?
Long Abstract:
Anthropology has a long history of skirting around the notion of experimenting, and long standing ambivalences about the goal of change for the better versus the risk of unwanted consequences from ‘interference’ in social life. Recently, the notion of living labs, and other 'user-centric' research methodologies for prototyping and scenario-building in so-called real life settings, have become more popular in research, product and service development and in policy contexts. This has entailed calls for more anthropological input, broader participation, and use of ethnographic methods. Such calls rely on a concept of transformation through experimentation entailing assumptions about the generation of knowledge, the value of lived experience, future imaginaries and the role of common knowledge.
What does it imply to frame a city, community or environment as a laboratory or testbed for emerging technologies and ideas? Especially where this might be among vulnerable parts of the population and/or in the Global South, after long histories of exploitation. Who takes the role of designing experiments with ambitions to be transformative, whether design sprint, living lab, hacking events, intentional communities or settlements? What role do participants have in 'citizen science' and for what or whose benefit?
On the other hand, what potential for collaborative learning and common knowledge may there be and how can such potential be unfolded? How can anthropologists, with the discipline's long standing tension between field and lab, approach these methodologies? What epistemological and ontological challenges do we encounter in such collaborations?
This panel invites conventional and unconventional contributions in a panel format.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper asks how reflections on laboratories might illuminate current debates on field research.
Paper long abstract:
Anthropological appeals to evidence usually invoke a connection between the imagined field and the argument in a text, in an appeal to authorial legitimacy that Strathern calls an 'aesthetic impasse'. The location of knowledge generation appears to play an important role in most research traditions, often defining different disciplines by their association with either laboratories or fields. This paper asks what the laboratory can tell us about the field, and what social anthropology can tell us about hybrid methods such as 'living labs'.
Paper short abstract:
The paper presents two digital solutions in the Danish healthcare sector. They serve as examples of a broader political goal to transform future healthcare through digitalization. Seeing the two cases as living labs, we discuss how ethnography can contribute in such multidisciplinary settings.
Paper long abstract:
This paper presents two research projects centered on digital solutions in the Danish healthcare sector. Digitalization is expected to contribute to overcoming the global challenges of rising health care costs, by making healthcare more efficient, while simultaneously improving patient experiences of e.g. coherence and empowerment in their patient pathway
The first project consisted of the development of animated videos that communicated health information to patients with low back pain. The second project consisted of the development of a smartphone app, which allowed users to self-track their low back pain and share this information with healthcare professionals. Both cases were multidisciplinary research projects involving e.g. clinicians, quantitative researchers, private IT-companies, and ethnographers. The task of the ethnographers was to explore how the digital solutions worked in practice for the patients.
In the way users were invited to share their perspectives and experiences of the digital solutions in more or less familiar contexts – in-between a laboratory and everyday life - the two cases can be understood as ‘living labs’
The paper discusses how the ethnographer can navigate such multidisciplinary experimental settings, where different understandings of ‘laboratory’ and 'real life' reside. By the nature of their methods, ethnographers experience the many unforeseen elements that can arise when testing new technology in the living lab. Ethnographic ’data’ are thus often messy and point in several directions. Based on our two cases, we propose how ethnography can contribute to the multidisciplinary development of digital solutions, and a meaningful digital transformation of future healthcare.
Paper short abstract:
A campus living lab is testing sustainable solutions to reduce carbon emissions to zero, but it is unclear if the circular economy is part of the agenda and university policies. Circular experiments found that reuse in the context of living labs can promote joy and encourage practices of care.
Paper long abstract:
Living labs often have technical or civic motivations and in larger research projects and centres they are used to support innovation processes. The university in Trondheim has defined its Gløshaugen campus as a living lab where sustainable solutions are being tested to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2060. As part of increasing enthusiasm for the concept of circular economy and reuse, university management services have developed a digital reuse platform for furniture and other equipment. It is however unclear in what way the circular economy is part of a zero-emission agenda and what its position is in university policies. Moreover, there is an open question of whether employees and students are willing to accept a significant increase in reuse, recycling, or the postponement of investments in new equipment. To answer these questions, in collaboration with management services, we initiated two living-lab experiments, in the form of a Christmas calendar and three temporary recycling zones. There we investigated whether existing circular practices could play a larger role on campus and if there is room for new ones. We found that reuse in the context of living labs can promote joy and encourage practices of care (Arora 2020). The experiments broke down the dominant homogeneity of university fixtures and fittings, causing a seemingly profound enthusiasm for previously unwanted objects and offered opportunities for new caring relationships. The paper considers the value and meaning-making associated with the circular economy concept in relation to the reuse of furniture and other university equipment.
Paper short abstract:
This paper critically reflects on living lab experiments conducted in three EU Knowledge Alliance projects. Despite some positive implications, it highlights the risk of uncritical pervasiveness of contemporary “third mission” concepts that endanger the social and critical mission of universities.
Paper long abstract:
The dominant discourse in the higher education strategic agendas, which also shapes calls for European projects, revolves around concepts such as innovation ecosystems, (financial) sustainability, entrepreneurship, co-creation of knowledge, technology transfer, synergies, impact, relevance to end-users, etc. Behind this is Etzkowitz's “triple” and “quadruple helix” model, which depicts academia, government, industry, and “end-users” as part of a mutually beneficial innovation ecosystem. In this context, the living lab serves as a methodological platform for collaboration to ensure that knowledge generated in EU-funded projects ends up in the marketplace, driving innovation and promoting European prosperity.
Borrowing concepts across sectors opens up new opportunities for university research and teaching. However, this process can also have negative effects if it is instrumentalized for management, audit, and evaluation purposes. The aim of this paper is therefore to critically reflect on the living lab experiments as conducted in three EU Knowledge Alliance projects, namely EURL3A, PEOPLE and Active8-Planet. In these projects, interdisciplinary teams of students, university teachers, and business professionals worked together to solve real-world business challenges using people-centered development principles. Although students reported that they better understood the relevance of their knowledge when it was applied in a non-academic setting, we argue that there is a risk if these popular “third mission” keywords are introduced uncritically into higher education. This could eventually lead to universities reorganising themselves to reflect the corporate world and respond to the needs of business, rather than being academic institutions with a strong theoretical, social, and critical dimension.