Translocalism

Meg Wheatley calls the spread of Localisation globally, Translocalism

Description

Geordan Shannon and Jeremy Lauer:

"Whilst generative solutions may be designed for a certain location or community, these innovations should be translocal, i.e., rooted in place-based innovation but connected-up globally. The premise of translocalism is that insights and actions can be shaped by movement, exchange, and circulation across different geographies (Greiner & Sakdapolrak, 2013). Translocalism builds strength from plural perspectives and diversity: as opposed to attempting to control for difference, translocal learning thrives on it. Linked-up socio-spatial dynamics can facilitate knowledge exchange, critical insight formation, new identities, and actions that transcend boundaries (Shannon, Basu, et al., 2023).

Translocalism has been a powerful strategy for Indigenous resistance, providing a way for those engaged in place-based struggles to connect and create critical new spaces of agency and action, in a way that both transgresses and transcends the constraints of nation states (Banerjee, 2011). Another example of translocalism in practice is Direct Action Networks (DANs), who linked up local actions for global justice built on principles of decentralisation and emergent priority setting (Graeber, 2009)."

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Characteristics

Geordan Shannon and Jeremy Lauer:

"Banerjee highlights four features of translocalism, that align with our vision of planetary health:

• Distributed, horizontal and lateral networks, as opposed to vertical and centralised structures of national and supra-national governance;

• Multivalent and multilevel governance that facilitate interactions and sense-making at the local, regional, national and international space;

• Variety of actors including private and community actors who are engaged in building public goods;

• The juxtaposition of temporalities where the temporality of the nation state sits alongside the temporalities of Indigenous communities (Banerjee, 2011).

"Translocalism is not simply about the networked connections, it is about the process of connecting itself. Translocal assemblage has been used as a term to refer to the way that translocal actors build and sustain networks for action (McFarlane, 2009). Assemblage refers to three interlinked dynamics: the labour required to gather, cohere, and disperse in an ongoing, shape-shifting way; the pluralities of groups and distributed agencies involved in this work; and the emergent nature of outcomes (McFarlane, 2009). Emergence has been identified as an important phenomenon in social innovation (see “So how do systems change?” below). Emergent phenomena seem to crystallise rapidly, once previously isolated, localised actions become aware of each other and connect at scale."

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Discussion

Translocal Infrastructure for Planetary Health

Geordan Shannon and Jeremy Lauer:

"Translocal systems are inter-generative. Systems that connect-up diverse, complementary, socio-spatially distributed strengths can catalyse inter-generativity—the co-creation of emergent potential through synergistic exchange and aligned action across traditional boundaries. Distributed systems can facilitate inter-generativity through knowledge sharing, resource exchange, innovation diffusion, mutual skill-building, shared infrastructures, and alliance building.

Emergence for planetary health occurs from the bottom-up when enough people are made aware of the actions of others and can connect-up at scale. The question of how local generative actions become aware of each other and connect, thus facilitating emergent inter-generativity for planetary health, is one that is of most interest to us. While this may be a complex, organic process, there are facilitating factors that enable connections to occur more effectively and for the resulting actions to emerge. Instead of designing specific interventions per se, we are curious about the facilitation of processes through translocal architecture, or translocal infrastructure. Architecture in this instance refers to a design-based approach to supporting the functions of places and spaces; this naturally includes hybrid or layered social, technical, and physical containers in which translocal action occurs.

We use the term infrastructure to denote how social, technical, and physical structures can play an important facilitative role in the functioning of inter-generative translocal spaces. Translocal infrastructures are inherently “soft” in that they depend on many intangible or qualitative human factors. However, what is of particular interest to us is the way that emerging technologies and other forms of “harder” infrastructure can support translocalism. Our assertion is that the soft infrastructures for planetary health action can be better supported through wise use of technologies that are based on aligned principles of design. What works from a social mobilisation perspective in translocal networks has been tried and tested over decades if not centuries. However, we can now build more purposefully for the needs of translocalism by designing facilitative communication, knowledge, resourcing, and governance technologies.

Emerging Technologies as Translocal Infrastructure

The current technological era has advanced global connections so that we can communicate instantaneously across time, space, language, and culture. In this way, communications and web technologies can facilitate emergence through translocal communities of practice. Despite the enormous benefits of the world wide web, many of us are acutely aware of the downsides to digital advancements. For example, most widely used web technologies are based on centralised points of control: Because of this model, web servers can own your data, web-based finance services can charge large processing fees to administer your transaction, social media algorithms have been socially hacked, online censorship and surveillance is possible, and companies can gather and monetise consumer data (DWeb, 2023).

As a response to these challenges, we are witnessing the rise of technologies designed in a decentralised and non-hierarchical way, where the design negates the need for central control. These technologies currently cohere under the banner of web3, or DWeb (decentralised web): An assemblage of different tools and approaches that are based on distributed ownership and peer-to-peer collaboration (Ethereum, 2023). Notably, DWeb upholds the principles of agency, distributed benefits, mutual respect, humanity, and ecological awareness (DWeb, 2023) Central to web3 and DWeb is blockchain, or distributed ledger technology. Blockchain is a distributed form of transmitting and storing information across networks of computers. The distributed design of a blockchain means that data lives simultaneously across many different places, so it can maintain an immutable record that is both transparent and secure (Hasselgren et al., 2020; Meunier, 2018).

In particular, the decentralised nature of blockchain means that economies and sociotechnical arrangements can be reimagined (Issa et al., 2024). Blockchain-based innovations mean that many important transactions through centralised actors can now be done in an equally secure, distributed, peer-to-peer network instead. For example, blockchain innovations have facilitated peer-to-peer lending and insurance, negating the need for a centralised actor like a bank. The innovation ecosystem of blockchain is rapidly evolving and could be thought of as emergent in nature: things crystalise rapidly through linked-up thinking and resourcing outside of regular institutional channels.

The decentralised nature of blockchains combined with their alignment on common good principles has potentiated a range of systems innovations that rethink how we coordinate, act and value resources outside of our current economic paradigm (Shannon, Faddoul, et al., 2023). Of note, blockchain enables us to collectively embed and encode particular values into decentralised economic systems, thus helping us redefine how value is represented and shared (Gitcoin, 2022). For example, blockchain economies have been designed to reward conservation through nature-based currencies, to promote community solidarity and circular economies, and to facilitate decentralised science research and development (Owocki & Borda, 2022). The spectrum of “positive externality” projects span material, cultural, social experiential, intellectual, financial, and living systems, and can be thought of as a collaborative, modular ecosystem that is rapidly expanding (Gitcoin, 2022).

A common principle of many innovations in this space is that they are open source; the design and components are publicly accessible and open to inspection, adoption, or modification (Opensource.com, 2023). Open-source principles reflect a different type of knowledge economy based on collaboration rather than control, and include “open exchange, collaborative participation, rapid prototyping, transparency, meritocracy, and community-oriented development” (Opensource.com, 2023). Other core components of common-good web3 projects include: smart contracts that help secure peer-to-peer agreements and exchanges; token-based economies that reflect the underlying value of forms of living capital; impact certification to more accurately trace and attribute contributions made towards a particular outcome; governance innovations that de-monopolise and redistribute power; and, non-hierarchical decision-making and coordination structures (Shannon, Faddoul, et al., 2023).

Adjacent technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence) and VR (virtual reality) have recently spread rapidly into popular use and awareness, in what has been described as a “tool tsunami” (DeJonghe et al., 2023). AI is a term to describe a collection of machine technologies that use data to learn, reason, correct, and create in a way that attempts to enhance human capacities (OECD, 2023; Laskowski & Tucci, 2023). VR refers to the computer generation of virtual environments that can be interacted with by a user (Virtual Reality Society, 2017). Of most interest, these tools can enhance collective imagination for planetary health, through generating visual possibilities, supporting alternative narratives, and enhancing collective sense-making of current challenges (Tucker, 2022). For example, they may be used to visualise future scenarios and support out-of-the-box creative thinking, or to create visual political compasses (The Political Compass, 2023) of possible planetary health futures, that allows one to situate and transform their worldview (DeJonghe et al., 2023).

Emerging technologies such as blockchain, AI and VR have attracted healthy scepticism (Howson, 2021). Like most technologies, there are use cases that undermine the common good. Like the internet, we see the power (both destructive and generative) of emerging technologies and the impact they have or may have on our collective wellbeing. While these technologies are neither inherently good nor bad, they are not neutral either: their outcomes reflect human will, assumptions, and biases throughout their design and use. It is our assertion that we must actively engage with such technology to understand their negative impacts, as well as to enable their potential for good. Thus, critical engagement with the anthropology of technology development, the application of ‘solving for pattern’ thinking (see ‘Towards systemic multi-solutions’ above), and transparent, accountable design are vitally important to develop sustainable solutions for the common good."

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Examples

Geordan Shannon and Jeremy Lauer:

"In this final section, we provide two examples of initiatives that may provide practical insights into early stage translocal infrastructures: one that focuses on the most local / proximal unit of innovation, and the other that focuses on building the infrastructure to tie localised initiatives together. These are shared as works in progress that we are personally involved with, in the spirit of learning and as a gesture towards positive planetary health futures, but we don’t pretend they represent perfect or complete approaches.

Stema

The first example, Stema, is a set of decision-making tools for those at a proximal level to the community to better understand systems of interconnected human and environmental resources and how they shape health (Stema, 2023). Stema arose from experience across a range of community settings globally, where we identified common challenges to building positive community health systems, such as lack of community voice, dependence on extractive, power-imbalanced systems, and reductionist approaches to health:

Health disparities are rooted in social injustices, structural inequities, and the uneven distribution of resources and opportunities for health. We also advance a critical engagement with the natural environment as not solely an external or exogenous factor to social systems but a part of them. Humans, as social beings, interact with and shape the natural environment through their behaviours, practices, and policies, and they may have more influence on their natural environments than they may fully realize. These understandings are key to understanding how communities get locked into cycles of vulnerability, degradation, and dependency – and these understandings are also key to unlocking insights for tipping points into new paradigms of health and wellbeing on their own terms. (Peters, 2023, p.1)

One of the founding insights of Stema is that of resourcefulness, the respect and wise use of systems of existing resources rather than the dependence on external or top-down approaches. Stema has worked hands-on with communities across three continents to develop a systems-based approach to resourcefulness for community positive health. Stema is now building tools to support the complex salutogenic systems that determine and enable collective health. The community positive health index challenges existing paradigms and approaches, by centering community insights and participatory data, and taking stock of process, power, and place (Peters, 2023). The Stema community positive health index is conceptualised as a fabric that is collectively woven by each community: the warp represents tangible resources, the weft is the processes that steward these resources, and the pattern is how these systems of resources fit together (Davis, 2023). We are exploring hybrid data to support local index construction, from participatory research to GIS and AI computer vision, as well as different data layers to capture subjective experiences alongside more traditional empirical data. From here, the index will inform local decision processes around community-led salutogenesis and connect-up communities through networks of peer learning. Ultimately, Stema aims to support communities to build a picture of health that is “hopeful and empowering as they orient toward the futures they want for themselves amidst changes and challenges” (Peters, 2023, p.2)."

Planet.Health

"The second example, Planet.Health, is an ecosystem to imagine, prototype, and disseminate flourishing planetary health futures. Planet.Health was designed to facilitate linked-up thinking and action to address problems at root, drawing on our own interwoven life experiences and ecosystems of resources (Planet.Health, 2021). By involving practitioners, technologists, artists, and frontline communities, Planet.Health advances the use of hybrid approaches to facilitate decentralisation, ownership, and agency, and help us see, imagine, and build through fresh eyes (Shannon, Faddoul, et al., 2023). In 2022, Planet.Health comprised three phases: discovery, chrysalis, and emergence. The discovery phase was a series of virtual events focused on shared learning, community building, and upskilling on planetary health and emerging technologies. The chrysalis phase was a 3-day in-person incubator event, run in an “unconference” style to encourage non-hierarchical forms of knowledge generation. The emergence phase represents a shared platform for ongoing collaboration and action (Shannon, Faddoul, et al., 2023).

The Planet.Health model has so far focused on three reinforcing approaches:

1. Imagine: explicit use of play and other imaginary and creative approaches, leveraging emerging technologies whilst grounding in Indigenous knowledge systems and deep listening, using extitutional relationships that transcend institutional identities and focus on relationships of trust and affinity

2. Catalyse: Focusing on safe to fail prototyping for communities and projects that bridge community perspectives, arts, emerging technologies, public goods, and planetary health.

3. Disseminate: finding ways to propagate and share knowledge through roaming think-do tanks, in-person unconferences, and virtual ecosystems.

Planet.Health is built on a number of aligned values: “We understand that health is relational. We believe in a plurality of modalities. We acknowledge different forms of knowing. We listen, and we learn from each other and the planet. We aren’t afraid to fail. We prototype projects and see what works. We communicate and share our findings openly” (Planet.Health, 2021). To steward resources for planetary health in a decentralised way, we have begun to investigate decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) as a model for technology-enabled, non-hierarchical platforms for collective decision-making and action. The focus of Planet.Health for 2024 is to ideate and build translocal social and technical infrastructures that support place-based actions for planetary health, honouring and grounded by Indigenous knowledge systems, while supported by emerging technologies. This is guided by several questions: What does this infrastructure look like? How can it be funded and resourced? What sort of translocal action through community labs is feasible? How can our actions bridge ecology and health?"

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