Everyday day growing cultures: connecting communities through data

Everyday day growing cultures: connecting communities through data

Farida VisResearch Fellow, Information School

University of Sheffield

@flygirltwo

Everyday Growing Cultures in the North of England: participation, citizenship and local economies.

Farida Vis (PI – Sheffield)Peter Jackson (CoI – Sheffield)Andrew Miles (CoI – Manchester)Erinma Ochu (CoI – Manchester)Yana Manyukhina (RA – Leeds)Ian Humphrey (RA – Sheffield)

+Steven Flower (ODM)Ric Roberts (ODM)Caroline Ward (SN/BBC)

Bringing together two ‘communities’ in Manchester and Sheffield – who to focus on? Growing communities

• plot holders; allotment societies; those waiting for plots; allotment governing bodies

• Local organisations

• Others (AAA/Diggers)

Open data communities

• open data activists; developers; local government; data journalists

• Central government (DCLG)• Local organisations

NB –> digital transformation through vacant lot mapping?

UK’s open data portal for government data

What’s it all about?

• Help people understand how government works• How policies are made• In one place – searchable• Easier for people to make decisions • Making suggestion about government policies – based on detailed information• Hear more about the Government’s Transparency agenda

Easier for people to make decisions?!

Open data project from Kirklees Council and Thumbprint Co-operative, funded by NESTA's Make It Local programme

But what happens when the funding runs out?

Allotment (publics): an open data and data driven journalism perspective

Farida Vis and Yana Manyukhina University of Sheffield and Leicester | Open Data Manchester

@flygirltwof.vis@sheffield.ac.uk

What is an allotment?

Small piece of land rented from the council for the cultivation of fruit and vegetables for home consumption. Sign a tenancy agreement every year.

Since the Allotments Act of 1908 a standard allotment is ‘10 rods’. Rods are also called poles or perches. 10 rod = 250 sqm.

Allotment data as ‘really useful’ data

People care about growing vegetables

Project overview

Not funded (huge advantage) – multiple (experimental) methods used

From the beginning strong engagement outside academia

Allotments Act of 1908: Clause 23 ensures that councils provide allotments. It takes six citizens. Responsibility of local government. If sites sold money can only be spent on allotments.

Spring 2011, the Department for Communities and Local Government issued a public consultation on 1294 Statutory Duties pertaining to local authorities to possibly reduce their number.

These duties included Section 23 of the 1908 Allotments Act, which ensures local authorities provide allotments, causing some newspapers to suggest that ‘The Good Life’ was now under threat.

Bewilderingly difficult survey to find and fill out. Engagement?

The Act remained unchanged however in the summer the government announced that of the 6,103 responses received nearly half contained a comment on the Allotments Act.

Threat to the Allotments Act

Huge waiting lists: big demand, tiny supply

In 1940s: 1.4 million allotment plots in the UK. Now: 200,000. Cycles of popularity. What do

you do when everyone wants one again?

Waiting list crisis (our local site): 12 years ago, waiting list was 2 months.Now: 15 years. Lots of people with children want to grow food with them.

Transition Town West Kirby (TTWK), Margaret Campbell

Grow Your Own | Land Share initiative | guerrilla gardening | alleyway gardens

Recent changes – rent increases, water rates, tenancy agreements

Sources of information on allotments in UK

Allotment Regeneration Initiative (ARI) – official body, policy documents, mentors and advice

National Society for Allotments and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG) – official body

Perennial problem: good allotment data. Difficult to get an overview of what is going on at local/national level.

Evidenced based policy making on allotments difficult

Transition Town West Kirby (TTWK) – waiting lists

Collecting data = time consuming (mainly not available). Not precise

Location data doesn’t tell you very much

Mapping plots in Manchester – AMAS (incomplete) + Trafford (open data of allotment locations released by the council)

Allotment data: focus on unreliable waiting list data (difficult to collect & track)New maps using TTWK FOI data: http://www.transitiontownwestkirby.org.uk/

Enriching existing data

Allotment data: difficult to collect & track (focus on unreliable waiting list data)New maps using TTWK FOI data: http://www.transitiontownwestkirby.org.uk/

New data (through FOI) – From all UK councils.

Tenancy agreements

Changes | consultations

Cost of hiring a plot(past, current, future)

Cost of water use

Discounts

Cost of waste removal

New data obtained through FOI: rent, water charges, discounts, tenancy agreements http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/farida_vis_and_yana_manyukhina

Stories in the data | data driven journalism

Data displayed on interactive map – How did your council compare?

Mainstream media interest: about growing vegetables, not open data

Strong interest from the horticultural and allotment communities

Responses to the project

OSM community in West Midlands

http://blog.mappa-mercia.org/2012/01/west-midlands-allotments.html

Strong interest from the open data and policy communities

Problem with truly engaging with participants/end users: methods

participant / hobbyist open data activist / ex allotment committee / ...

‘The allotment data work struck a chord with the workshop as it is a prime example of

useful data concerning a topic that genuinely engages the public’

Full report: http://www.w3.org/2012/06/pmod/report

Quite a few responses via email. For example (on old measurements):

… The Rod was phased out as a legal unit of measurement as part of a ten-year metrication process that began in May 1965 but metrication has often been ignored and, in many instances, imperial measurements prevail: roads are measured in miles and yards; we measure our height in feet and inches and weight in stones and pounds; and it is difficult to change football goal posts from 8 yards x 8 feet to their metric equivalent. Some measurements changed from imperial to metric and back again: farms have reverted from Hectares to Acres and office rents from £x per square metre to £y per square foot. Sometimes we use even older measurements: the length of a cricket pitch between stumps is 1 chain (22 yards) horse races are run over furlongs (220 yards); and, one peculiarity, railway bridges have a metal plaque on the side of their brick or stone arches stating x miles and y chains from Victoria, Waterloo, etc. Now, I work in metric units every day but, in some cases, old measurements are not transferable: 10 square rods means something, 253

Your research into Allotments is not complete: it concentrates on Councils' charges and waiting lists. It does not include anything about their history; there is no reference to Rods, Poles and Perches.

Central Government

Allotment Associations

Local Government

Allotment secretaries

Allotment Officers

Plotholders

Who has / will give you the data?

Everyday Growing Cultures in the North of England: participation, citizenship and local economies.

Farida Vis (PI – Sheffield)Peter Jackson (CoI – Sheffield)Andrew Miles (CoI – Manchester)Erinma Ochu (CoI – Manchester)Yana Manyukhina (RA – Leeds)Ian Humphrey (RA – Sheffield)

+Steven Flower (ODM)Ric Roberts (ODM)Caroline Ward (SN/BBC)

Bringing together two ‘communities’ in Manchester and Sheffield – who to focus on? Growing communities

• plot holders; allotment societies; those waiting for plots; allotment governing bodies

• Local organisations

• Others (AAA/Diggers)

Open data communities

• open data activists; developers; local government; data journalists

• Central government (DCLG)• Local organisations

NB –> digital transformation through vacant lot mapping?

Very limited data

Trafford allotments mapped: http://bobop.co.uk/posts/10-Trafford-Open-Data-Maps

Commonalities: ideas of knowledge sharing, collaboration,

‘the commons’: shared digital/land accessible resources.

• What does digital engagement and transformation look like within these communities? (main question)

• How can these communities further the national open data agenda so that it benefits citizens?

• How can a more widely adopted and enacted open data strategy benefit local economies?

• If unsuccessful in these aspects, what might open data’s unintended consequences look like?

• How can we think of forms of resistance, mobilisation of local histories and heritage identities?

• How can we rethink received ideas of participation and enacting citizenship in light of these?

Data collection/Methods/Outputs/Engagement

• Updating UK allotment dataset• Mapping workshops + tours (mapping vacant lots)• Grow Your Own Data Hackday(s)• Short film (made by Squirrel Nation/BBC) • Website including toolkit

MadLabHack/makers space

Threat to Act -> release useful data

For critical consideration • What’s with all the mapping? Neo-cartography + activism

• Defining ‘community’: ‘In contrast a focus on the role of sociality in the production of Cittaslow ‘places’ indicates how social relationships or ‘bonds’ are implicated in the forms of individual and collective human agency and creativity through which the social and material elements of urban contexts are constituted’ (Pink, 2008: 185 – our emphasis)

• Community-based participatory research: a guide to ethical principles and practice – role of power (ethical principles: mutual respect; equality and inclusion; democratic participation; active learning; making a difference; collective action; personal integrity) (see http://www.dur.ac.uk/beacon/socialjustice/ethics_consultation/)

Open Government Data Camp: Eurohack

Look no maps ->

Google Fusion Tables

GIS OSM

More mapping: OSM communityrespond to Allotment DataNB - Free volunteermapping

Reflecting on past allotment data mapping

Easier for people to make decisions?!

Project website (under construction) #growingcultureshttp://everydaygrowingcultures.org/Allotment data website (in need of TLC – covered in weeds)http://allotmentdata.org/ | @allotmentdata

Farida Vis | f.vis@sheffield.ac.uk |@flygirltwo

Andrew Miles - @AGMcatErinma Ochu - @erinmaochuSteven Flower - @stevieflowRic Roberts - @RicRobertsCaroline Ward - @noveltyshoe