Our second workshop took place on the 31st May - 1st of June at Pershore College. We worked with the Evesham Beekeepers Association and Vale Heritage Landscape Trust to think through how the participatory action research approach might be extended to working with non-humans. This is the second in a series of reflections on the workshop from our participants and is written by Phil Jones.

In the Goon Show, Eccles famously sang “I talk to the trees... that's why they put me away”.  Talking to beekeepers while trying to set up this workshop, I felt everyone was looking at me like I was a crazy person: “We want to talk to the bees and find out what they want us to research...”

Participatory Action Research (PAR), as a technique, displaces the expert power of the academic, working with different communities to identify issues of common interest, devise strategies to research these topics and jointly come up with solutions to problems.  Communities involved in PAR sometimes struggle to think of themselves as ‘experts’ and can be really intimidated by being asked to sit down and talk to academics.  I felt this was even harder when trying to apply PAR approaches to talking to bees – you have to convince people working with bees that you’re not joking, not crazy and that there’s something interesting to be gained by trying to ‘talk to’ bees in this way.

The most striking thing that came out of this workshop for me was how bees are ‘spoken for’ by other people.  Stories of bee extinction and various anthropomorphic representations of bees (including the knitted bee that I used as the logo for the workshop) make people generally quite sympathetic to bees.  But the reality of getting up close and personal with a hive – the noise, the need to stay calm and still while they crash and bang into your protective veil – can be quite scary at first.  The stories we tell about bees change how we engage with this species.  It seemed very productive therefore to flip this around and try to think about what the bees say.  Indeed, we ended up with some very interesting ideas for projects with this most sensitive of indicator species for general ecological wellbeing.  But even at the end of the second day I still felt a little bit like I was playing the role of crazy academic, having to apologise to non-academics (including the bees!) for the rather strange day out we were having...

As part of our exploration of how our ideas of community might be reshaped to include bees as active participants, Johan Siebers has written a lovely piece exploring the role of bees in philosophy and literature.

This includes analyses of Godfried Bomans' Erik of het klein insectenboek, Virgil's Georgica, and Mandeville’s Fable of the bees, or: Private Vices, Public Benefits.

Read an excerpt and download the full paper just below.

Part of being attentive to the possibilities of more-than-human participation in research is watching out for the ways that the traditional division between human agents and non-human subjects gets complicated in real life practices. I had been keeping this in mind throughout our In Conversation with Bees workshop, since we had quite a few discussions about different methods of beekeeping (e.g. frame versus natural) and how this might be interfering with bees preferred behaviours. But scattered throughout the two days were also a wide range of examples of how bees also shape the behaviour of the humans who keep them.

Interacting with bees makes humans:

1.       Calm down. It didn’t seem this way at first. When us amateurs where putting on our protective suits for the first time there was definitely some nerves. But we had been told about the importance of keeping calm and relaxed while inspecting hives and so we tried out best. Interestingly, in informal conversations many of the beekeepers also talked about how they looked forward to doing their inspections because of how calm the whole process made them feel. So while we did have examples of humans trying to control their own moods, there was also a more relational understanding where the activity of the bees also encouraged particular responses in the humans

2.       Become more attentive to whole ecosystems. One beekeeper discussed the way that since they had started, they noticed they were much more aware of the wider environment, including what trees and plants were being grown, whether they were flowering early or late, and cycles in the weather. Another also mentioned how important it is to be aware of the yearly rhythms of potential predators. So forging connections with bees seemed to have a knock on effect of building connections with a much wider variety of living creatures and plants.

3.       Develop multiplying practices. One of the first comments at our workshop was the saying that if you put 10 bee-keepers in a room you’ll get 15 different ways of doing things. I thought it was really interesting that bees, which are often used as symbols of regimented order, actually inspire a proliferation of practices and knowledges in the humans that keep them.

4.       More intelligent. In a Victorian-era book about encouraging bee-keeping amongst the poor, the author claimed that even while bee-keeping might not always be a success it should be encouraged because it makes people more intelligent.

5.       Continuous learners. Paternalism aside, there were many comments about the way the practice of bee-keeping meant that you were always learning more and so always needed to be open to the ways that bees don’t fit with strict models. 

6.       Drink less alcohol Bees don’t like the smell apparently, so bee-keepers need to moderate their intake, particularly the night before they do an inspection. I wondered how this might affect people’s social lives. Would one have to beg off from a night at the pub because the bees needed looking after in the morning?

A short film about our first workshop In Conversation with Dogs.

I've already written about some of the thinking we've been doing as part of the process of planning our workshops. It's proving to be a fascinating process in and of itself. Last week I had a chat with Antony Lyons, who is working with Owain Jones to organise our fourth workshop "In Conversation With Water".  This workshop will be taking place in early October and our research partner in this case will be the Torridge River in Devon.

This project is all about pushing the boundaries of 'polite' research conversations to see who or what might be included. So we're really excited to be involved in a process where we need to think about how to include water as an active participant in research.

In a way, this sounds like the craziest of all our ventures, but in my initial discussions with Antony, when we were preparing the original bid, I asked him whether it might be possible to take account of the capacities, qualities and agency of water  in the research process. His answer was "of course". In a sense this is already what water management strategies are required to do. A water engineer is already expected to know these things as part of their job.  This made me wonder whether it might be possible to say that water actually already has more of a 'voice' in the research process, than dogs, for example, where full knowledge of their capacities and qualities is not a pre-requisite for working with them. Even so, I remembered from my former life as a graduate at Mouchel, working on waste water projects, that the emphasis when working with water was more on controlling it than supporting its ability to remake places as it wanted to (for example through the use of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems).

In discussing how Antony might organise the workshop two main issues came up. First how were we going to actually have a conversation with water? The first day was set aside for this, and once I reassured Antony that everyone really was up for some adventurous encounters, he suggested that we might go out on kayaks, go snorkelling or explore other ways to get out onto the estuary and interact with the river. The second question was what would our focus be? Having a particular issue to frame our readings, thought processes and planning would hopefully help us drill down into some specific issues rather than only talking about water in general. The issue of control had been an important one in our reflections on the In Conversation with Dogs workshop and Antony suggested the flood control would be an obvious topic that might help us combine our observations across those two workshops. We could then explore how methods of flood control affect the 'aliveness' of the river. We could also draw on the participatory research already done with communities affected by flooding such as the Knowledge Controversies project led by Sarah Whatmore.

Antony will be writing a post for the blog to help us think through this further, and we'll also be having discussions with Andrew Bell from the North Devon Biosphere reserve who will be helping to lead the first day. So more thinking and planning to do, but it's shaping up to be a very exciting workshop.

Michelle Bastian

Can you put yourself in the mind-set of a dog and what happens when you do?  Attempting to do so is particularly revealing as it requires us to adopt a different perspective to the World, the ways that we see things and the ways that we respond, our encounters and most importantly it challenges our thinking.  

Let’s look at the process by which we are moved from our ‘hedonistic relationship’ to one which is about making connections.  By adopting the stance of a dog and trainer, with only the reward and feedback of a ‘clicker’, it demonstrated that we enter spaces with strong pre-conceptions and a familiarity that was lost.  The room changed from a familiar place to one of complete mystery, challenging and uncertain, sensory cues were limited, a new communication of ‘clicks’ was our only feedback, we looked at this small portion of the world from a different perspective.  We considered and experienced the interdependence of the dog, trainer, user partnership, the connections made in ways not previously appreciated causing us to question how biased are our existing relationships, and how  limited is our communication.

Through the involvement of a third party with different physical and social expression, the dogs, it was possible to explore communications, actions and needs from another basis.  How did it affect me?  It opened up new perspectives requiring/forcing me to consider sensory cues, interaction with the environment. It opened up new possibilities for design options, alternative needs and approaches.

Can learn about social and community connections from wider animal worlds?  Let us think of a parallel situation, we look to nature for inspiration regarding technology, drug development and art.  In the same way, we should be looking at/turning to natural systems and natural relationships from the animal world to examine their societies, relationships and responses in the pursuit of understanding our own society and relationships with anticipated equally informed and dramatic results from which we will learn more about ourselves and how to live in the World. This seems to be  a natural progression for society as we continue to explore our own human condition within non-human communities.

Many thanks to the ‘Dogs for the Disabled’ an eye opening two days!

This project takes place in a context of mass species extinction, extensive habit loss, climate change, and resource depletion. At its heart is the conviction that, while dominant research paradigms have undoubtedly given rise to  improvements in a range of areas, they have nonetheless failed to address how our changing societies might remain within sustainable limits. One concrete example of the effects of failing to consider more-than-human communities within research is the drastic decline of vultures in East Asia, where over 99% of the population have died from acute reactions to diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug given to cattle. Over and above the consequences for the vultures themselves, the increasing amounts of carrion available, (which was previously eaten by the vultures), has led to an exploding feral dog population, which in turn has led to tens of thousands of rabies cases in humans, as well as increases in other diseases. There have also been cultural losses for Zoroastrian communities who have had to find alternative funeral methods. This cascade of effects, which has very real consequences for humans, is partly due to inadequate research methods around drug testing that do not take broader contexts into account (van Dooren, 2010).

What this suggests is that the impacts of transforming research practices so that they operate within a paradigm of more-than- human communities are potentially immense. However, shifting conventional research paradigms, many of which remain embedded within Enlightenment philosophies of self-aware humans in a machine-like world, is not a task to be taken at all lightly. Thus while we would like to situate our project within this broader context, we have more modest hopes for our work.

Traditionally, concepts of community have been tightly bound to ideals of shared communication. The vision of the localised, face-to-face community and the emphasis on the need for shared languages and cultures, as well as the exercise of public reason (e.g. Habermas), remains influential even as it has been widely challenged. In this context, the move towards the co-production and co-design of research (e.g. Ostrom, 1996) is particularly interesting, since even while much of this research is aimed at strengthening local communities, at its heart is an account of knowledge as partial and situated (Haraway 1988). That is, rather than taking a universalist approach to knowledge, and knowledge generation, it is explicit about the difficulties of communication and the incompleteness of any knowledge system. As a result, the co-production agenda raises a range of fundamental philosophical questions about what it means to generate knowledge, even while it insists on the need to engage with a wide variety of stakeholders in the interest of stronger and more ethical research processes.

Inspired by a variety of feminist epistemologies, as well as emancipatory movements from South America and Africa (e.g. Freire 1970 [PDF]), the central components of the co-production agenda have been the desire to support the inclusion of marginalised voices in the research process, to make research accountable to those it affects, and, in the process, to transform the practice of research and knowledge production. To date, discussions of co-production have taken place in a range of areas including public service provision (Verschuere, 2012), health services (Gillard, 2010), management and organisational research (Antonacopoulou, 2010; Orr, 2009), as well as broader debates about science, policy and the public realm (Nowotny, 2001). However, in our current context, where the failure of the enlightenment project to produce knowledges that support sustainable ways of life has become clearly apparent, there are strong incentives to extend this agenda by thinking through what, and who, research might still need to take into account.

Intriguingly, one of the foremost current proponents of participatory research - Peter Reason – has explicitly argued that the ethical and political imperatives implicit within the co-production paradigm need to be extended to non-humans (Reason, 2005). Claiming that we need to re-conceive ourselves as embedded within biotic systems, Reason characterises the notion of the more-than-human as an emergent edge within participatory research. Like other writers on co-production within sustainability research (Maclean, 2009; Pohl, et.al. 2010), he notes that non-humans are both marginalised from, and affected by, research processes. The need to more explicitly engage with the problem of how to place non-humans at the heart of the research process has also been noted by feminist biologist Lynda Birke in relation to Human-Animal Studies (Birke, 2012, 152). Even so, the work of exploring how co-production might be redesigned to take non-human participants into account is still to be undertaken.

Despite this, there is much work to suggest that taking the more-than-human into account can produce broader understandings of both ‘community’ and ‘research’ that are better able to account for the changing nature of communities in our current context.  Bruno Latour’s notion of a Parliament of Things (Latour, 1993), and Donna Haraway’s account of companion species (Haraway, 2008) already provide important pathways into thinking through these issues. More recently, Nigel Clark’s account (2010) of the role of dynamic geological processes in social life provides an example of how to extend the more-than-human community beyond animate life.  Work utilising methods such as multi-species ethnography has further shown the importance of attending to the perspectives of non-humans in understanding technology design (Mancini, 2012), tourist communities (Fuentes, 2010), indigenous activism (de la Cadena, 2010) and field research (Candea, 2010). Connecting research on co-production and ‘the more than human’ thus has the potential to extent both literatures while also contributing to more nuanced understandings of ethics, power and voice in the research process.

Michelle Bastian

References
Antonacopoulou, E. P. (2010). "Beyond co-production: practice-relevant scholarship as a foundation for delivering impact through powerful ideas." Public Money & Management 30(4): 219-226.
Birke, L. (2012). "Unnamed Others: How Can Thinking about "Animals" Matter to Feminist Theorizing?" NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 20(2): 148-157.
de la Cadena, M. (2010). "Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections beyond “Politics”." Cultural Anthropology 25(2): 334-370.
Candea, M. (2010). ""I fell in love with Carlos the Meerkat": engagement and detachment in human-animal relations." American Ethnologist 37(2): 241-258.
Clark, N. (2010). Inhuman Nature: Sociable Life on a Dynamic Planet London, Sage.
van Dooren, T. (2010). "Pain of Extinction: The Death of a Vulture." Cultural Studies Review 16(2): 271-289.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, Continuum.
Fuentes, A. (2010). "Naturalcultural encounters in Bali: Monkeys, Temples, Tourists, and Ethnoprimatology." Cultural Anthropology 25(4): 600-624
Gillard, S., K. Turner, et al. (2010). "“Staying native”: coproduction in mental health services research." International Journal of Public Sector Management 23(6): 567 - 577
Haraway, D. (1988). "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective."  Feminist Studies 14(3): 575-599.
Haraway, D. (2008). When Species Meet. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press.
Maclean, K. and L. Cullen (2009). "Research methodologies for the co-production of knowledge for environmental management in Australia." Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 39(4): 205-208.
Mancini, C., J. v. d. Linden, et al. (2012). Exploring Interspecies Sensemaking: Dog Tracking Semiotics and Multispecies Ethnography. Ubicomp, Pittsburgh, USA.
Nowotny, H., P. Scott, et al. (2001). Rethinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge, Polity Press.
Orr, K. and M. Bennett (2009). "Reflexivity in the co-production of academic-practitioner research." Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal 4(1): 85 - 102.
Ostrom, E. (1996). "Crossing the great divide: Coproduction, synergy, and development." World Development 24(6): 1073-1087.
Pohl, C., S. Rist, et al. (2010). "Researchers' roles in knowledge co-production: experience from sustainability research in Kenya, Switzerland, Bolivia and Nepal." Science and Public Policy 37(4): 267-281.
Reason, P. (2005). "Living as Part of the Whole: The Implications of Participation." Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy 2(2): 35-41.
Verschuere, B., T. Brandsen, et al. (2012). "Co-production: The State of the Art in Research and the Future Agenda." Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 23(4): 1083-1101.

I have been thinking about Deirdre, Owain and Timothy’s very insightful comments about the workshop and ACI ethics protocol, as well as about my own workshop experience [discussions had on the team’s email list after the first workshop – Ed.].
Two questions hover in my mind, against the backdrop of my communication and design background:

1. What is participation really about? What does it meant to participate, in design, in society, in life?
2. How can animal-computer interaction allow animals (including humans) to participate in the process of designing the future of a multispecies society?

An old song from Giorgio Gaber, a cherished Italian author, comes to my mind. The song goes:

Could it be that, conversely, participation is a ‘quantum of freedom’ (if you let me get away with the expression)? For example, the freedom to cast a vote, to engage in a social exchange, to use a piece of technology, perhaps to do something unexpected with it. But the dogs do not choose to participate, so they cannot be participants, many say. But I did not choose to be part of this world, I was pulled into it. Does that mean that I cannot be a participant in the process of designing my life? Can I not make individual choices, even though the biggest choice of all was made for me? And isn’t having a small quantum of freedom to make choices, albeit within a limited space and between limited alternatives, enough to make me a ‘participant’? Winnie was brought into the room, but she chose whom to interact with…would we not take something away from her if we did not regard her choices as the autonomous expression of her participation? Isn’t indeed the way in which we regard and respond to the other’s choices that determine whether they are participating? Isn’t recognising the other’s autonomous agency, in spite of the boundaries that limit it within specific processes, the first step to seeing, hearing and, then, respecting their otherness?

But surely, in order to be participants we need to understand what we are participating in? …or do we? Do I understand the conversations I have? I certainly have the impression that I do, but I have learnt how that is mostly just an impression. What I interpret is inevitably different from what is being transmitted by my interlocutor, yet it is enough to keep the communication process going and, in many cases, to effect what I perceive as constructive change. So are the conversations we have with dogs substantially different from the conversations we have with other humans? Should the interaction of a dog with a computing interface be looked at differently from the interaction of a human with a computing interface? Should their input in the design process be regarded as different? I think not.

When interaction designers design computing systems they constrain users’ choices while at the same time making it possible for users to make those choices. Even when users design their own systems their design choices are still constrained by others: by those who made the materials and components they will use, by the educators who informed their knowledge and imagination, and so on. However, through their constraining influences, these other agencies have made it possible for these users to express themselves through specific, concrete designs. Indeed any productive process expresses a unique set of constraints by which it is at the same time limited and enabled. Because these constraints are in turn the expression and the result of an otherness’ situated subjectivity, they can never be fully understood. However, this does not prevent us, and dogs, from using these constraints as the starting point and indeed the building blocks of new productive processes in which we can all participate as autonomous agents.

Animal-Computer Interaction aims to give animals a place at the design table. And, no matter how one may presume that they could understand the design process, ACI regards animals as autonomous agents whose constrained choices are to be in turn taken as constraints in a production process. Yes, the design table is dominated by human constraints, because technology has so far been dominated by humans, so for now animals are invited to “communicate with ‘us’” and “influence ‘our’ environments”. However, by inviting animals to make design choices and by treating those choices as the expression of autonomous agents (in other words, by taking them seriously), we open a space in which animals can begin to use our constraints as the building blocks of new forms of communication and new environments.

“Freedom is not a free space…freedom is participation”. Participation does not have to, and indeed cannot, take place in a free space. Participation does, and has to, take place in a constrained space which we can never fully understand, but in which we have a small quantum of freedom. This quantum of freedom allows us to make choices which begin to affect productive processes and effect change in unpredictable ways. Giving animals a quantum of freedom at the design table is what ACI aims to do.   

The image that I remember the most from our workshop is that of Willoughby turning away from his tag to look at us with talkative, curious assertiveness. I can almost hear him say: “I’m here. Who are you? I enjoy playing with my tag, which my human goes out of her way to keep moving for me. However, now, right now, I choose to look at you instead. Look at me. I am who I am. Who are you?”

Our first workshop took place on the 12th-13th of April in Milton Keynes. We worked with the Animal-Computer Interaction Lab at the Open University to think through how participatory design methods might be extended to working with non-humans. This is the second in a series of reflections on the workshop from our participants and is written by Owain Jones. 

  I think the first and basic thing is that the dogs did come into the room, were there for quite a long time and were active. This at least opened up the process to their interventions and agencies. Clearly the handlers were critical mediators between us and the dogs but that is fine. We can’t expect to learn new languages or be comfortable with strangers instantly. All the way through this project and in the wider area of more-than human politics, ethics etc., it makes sense to draw upon those who are ‘expert’ and empathetic in relation to non-humans of one kind or another.

The differing behaviours of the dogs as individuals and how they interacted with each other and with the humans present was important to me. [Dogs for the Disabled brought three dogs, two working dogs and one of their own pet dogs – Ed.]. Clearly the dog handlers had their agendas in terms of what they want, need and expect the dogs to do. In terms of participatory research with dogs to respond to  particular design needs it would be important to consider the specificities of particular dogs in particular relationships in particular settings. A sort of qualitative ethology of human, non-human, material assemblages.

Regarding the clicker exercises we did [see overview here – Ed.], I thought it was sort of interesting doing the clicking but not that interesting being the dog. This was done on the premise (I think) of showing how sharp the dogs are. But I think anyone who watches, and takes various kinds of animals seriously will know they have plenty of abilities / skills / capacities which some sometimes (often) exceed human capacities. We must avoid any cheap notions of becoming-animal, it is not respectful of their otherness, of their ways of being in the world. Speaking of that, the workshops were quite visually orientated, less was made of smell and sound. Of course we can’t get our senses to do what they do but maybe we should have taken a bit of time to watch them smelling and to watch them listening. (If you got a cat – when it is alert – watch its ears as they twitch around focusing on one sound then another). As I said at the time I liked the first session when Winnie was just in the room more or less doing her own thing. And also when Winnie and Cosmo were switching back and forth between the training exercises and doing doggy playing. Haraway (1992) states that ‘biology and evolutionary theory over the last two centuries have…reduced the line between humans and animals to a faint trace’ (193). So because of that – although otherness has to be respected – I don’t think it rocket science to look carefully at animals and get some sense of their intentions, well-being or otherwise – probably true for trees and bees too. I don’t see anthropomorphism as the big impediment to thinking animals and non-humans as other do. There are many shared traits between us. Winnie did a big yawn at one point. For me there are clear continuities between yawning dog and yawning human in terms of affective state.

A great video from the Open University about the work of the Animal-Computer Interaction Lab, featuring our recent Conversations with Animals workshop.