S T E W A R D S , T O G E T H E RC A N N E T W O R K E D C O M M U N I T I E S S T E W A R D P U B L I C A S S E T S A T S C A L E ?

Alberto Cottica, Inga Popovaite, Nadia El-Imam30 April 2015

Photo: Danny Dimita

T H A N K Y O U !C O N T R I B U T O R S

Alberto, Amiridina, Anthony Rimoli, Anna Peregrina, Auli, azzura, Bembo_Davies, Ben, Bezdomny, Billy Smith, Bjorn Ekblom, christine_timebank, CommonFutures, cristina, danohu, Danny Dimita, dante, Darren, Dorotea, edwin, eimhin, ElaMi5, elf Pavlik, elviapw, emkay, emmanuele, Ernest, Fabrizio Barca, Faizal Karmali, george, Hazem, henri37, Hexayurt, Hkaplinsky, Ida Leone, Iamkat, Inge, ireinga, IrmaWilson, jaycousins, jimmytidey, johnasweeney, Jordan Lane, Juha Vant Zelfde, julianavahn, Katalin, Kei, la_Gaia, lasindias, lauren, leo, lilian, Linda, mAdrien, marc, mariabyck, Matthias, mishek, mstn, Nadia, Natalia Skoczylas, NicoBis, Noemi, Oamax, Ola, Paolo Verri, Patric Andrews, Piero Paolocelli, Rbavassano, Remy, rielm, rmchase, Rafaella Pontrandolfi, Robert_TrashOut, Rossella Tarantino, Sam Muirhead, Steve Clare, teirdes, Theresia, vgratian, Vidrij Da

D A T A A N D F I N D I N G SP A R T O N E

Photo: Anthony Rimoli

P U R P O S E

Living On The Edge 4 The Stewardship is a massive online-offline conversation convening a diverse community of hacktivists, social innovators and policy makers, that took place in October 2014. Its goal was to assess if, and how, communities could take care of physical, immaterial and relational assets.

OpenEthnographer is a software tool to capture trends and insights from large online conversations. The first iteration of the software development and testing is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Photo: Juha Vant Zelfde

M E T H O D S & D A T A

Edgeryders collected and analysed ethnographic data by fostering an online conversation in August 2014 - January 2015. It built upon the annual Living On The Edge participatory Edgeryders event.

The dataset consists of 106 posts and 565 comments from 70 individuals in over 10 countries.

Photo: Azzurra Ragone

Visualisation: Benjamin Renoust

E N G A G I N G T H E N E T W O R K

The conversation on stewardship (orange) tended to involve the most central of the Edgeryders network, as well as a few lesser connected newcomers.

Dots represent participants, arcs represent interactions between them. Orange arcs represent people talking to each other about stewardship.

M A S S I V E O N L I N E E T H N O G R A P H Y

Ethnographic coding was applied to 106 posts and 564 comments on the Edgeryders platform. Coding is a standard ethnographic technique. It consists of reading all contributions and assigning relevant keywords to snippets of texts.

Keywords become then second-order data, and can be analysed in various ways.

226 tags in 7 categories were identified as recurring all along the Stewardship conversation.

H O W I S I T D O N E ?

Seed a conversation through high-quality content that is relevant to the theme. Start with people at the edge and traverse the social graph through social media.

Grow your conversation by community management, respectful interaction and connecting people to each other.

Harvest it through OpenEthnographer, built into the Edgeryders platform.

People select themselves to participate. This ensures enthusiasm and eliminates researcher selection bias (the usual suspects effect).

Photo: Sam Muirhead

Participants in the Stewardship are 20-65 years old, socially active, community oriented and mostly not working in public administration or traditional third sector organisations.

Diverse professional identities: artists, architects, economists, engineers, entrepreneurs, pharmacists, scientists, students

Individuals, not organisations: Participation is based on disintermediated conversation, peer to peer.

P E O P L E

Photo: Anthony Rimoli

E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S : C O M M U N I T Y - B U I L T R I N G R O A D R A M P S The citizens of the Al-Mutamidiya

community in Cairo built four ramps to access the ring road from their neighborhood.

Formally illegal, they were built to government specifications. Their cost is estimated at 25% of what the government would have spent to do the same work.

Construction happened at the time of the revolution, when the security apparatus was busy in Tahrir Square. The post-revolution government decided to accept the ramps as a citizen-funded improvement and built a police station nearby.

T H E P E O P L E O F A L - M U T A M I D I Y A N E E D E D T O B U I L D T H I S E X I T F R O M A L O N G T I M E A G O A N D

W H E N T H E C H A N C E O P E N E D F O R C O N S T R U C T I N G I T T H E Y T O O K T H E C H A N C E

D U R I N G T H E T E M P O R A R Y C O L L A P S E O F L O C A L A U T H O R I T I E S .

E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S : T H E U R B A N S H E P H E R D O F S T O C K H O L M A group of residents of a Stockholm suburb called

Gubbngen introduced chickens to a garden where two apple trees were infested by moths (chickens eat moths and their larvae). The need to take care of the chickens led to neighbours building, together, a chicken coop. The need to build the coop led to the need to borrow tools, and eventually to build a common tool shed. At each step of the way interaction across neighbours is encouraged.

Over time, local authorities have noticed a drop in the crime rate. Sunday morning socials and spontaneous community events like BBQs have increased. Children are encouraged to feed the chicken and play with them.

Residents hope to ensure communal spaces for agriculture and husbandry in the ongoing renovation project for Gubbngen.

A S A L L R E S I D E N T S H A V E E Q U A L R I G H T A N D A C C E S S T O T H E G R E E N S P A C E , I T W A S

I M P O R T A N T T O F R A M E T H E S Y S T E M I N C L U S I V E L Y A N D N O T M A K E T H I S A P R I V A T E

P R O J E C T . "

Photo: Jordan Lane

E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S : T H E U N M O N A S T E R Y

Inspired by 6th century Western monasticism, the unMonastery is aimed at addressing the interlinked needs of empty space, unemployment and depleting social services by embedding committed, skilled individuals within communities that could benefit from their presence.

A first prototype was led in the city of Matera, Italy, in 2014. Hackers, artists and activists helped the city in its successful bid to become European Capital of Culture 2019.

About 25 unMonasterians from all over the world were involved.

W H E N I T C O M E S T O W O R K I T I S I N C R E A S I N G L Y D I F F I C U L T T O R E C O N C I L E M A K I N G M O N E Y W I T H

M A K I N G S E N S E .

Photo: Ben Vickers

015

30

45

6053

8

38 34

820 16 12 11

6Communities Platforms Stewardship Cooperation DiversityAlternative economyData collection Sustainability Involvement MotivationA C T O R S C O N C E P T S C H A L L E N G E ST O O L S

M A I N K E Y W O R D S B Y O C C U R R E N C E

S C A L I N G , T O G E T H E R

Most experiences of stewardship are collective and highly socialized.

Networked communities are seen as a credible candidate for stewarding large assets.

Platform technology and knowledge-sharing skills, such as the ability to write good documentation, enable communities to function at scale without losing coherence.

M I S T A K E S A R E U N A V O I D A B L E A N D T H E Y H A V E T O B E D O C U M E N T E D , S O T H A T T H E W I D E R

C O M M U N I T Y C A N W O R K O N T W E A K I N G A N D I M P R O V I N G T H E P R O C E S S .

Photo: Bjrn Ekstrm

T H E H A R D S H I P S O F S C A L I N G

As communities take on larger stewardship tasks, their coordination costs increase.

Coordination tasks tend to be thankless and unrewarding, not well suited to volunteers, and to stay with one or few committed individuals.

O F T E N S T E W A R D S H I P P R O J E C T S A R E P O W E R E D B Y O N E P E R S O N W H O M A K E S A H E R O I C

C O N T R I B U T I O N A N D T H E N B U R N S O U T . T O B E S U S T A I N A B L E , P E O P L E W H O M A K E L A R G E

C O N T R I B U T I O N S N E E D S O M E K I N D O F R E C O M P E N S E T O S U P P O R T T H E M S E L V E S .

Photo: Bjrn Ekstrm

C O M M U N I T I E S V S . C O M M O D I T I E S

Successful companies in the sharing economy solve the problem by professional coordinators, paid through fees collected at a point of monetisation.

Many feel that this model is unfair. It produces excess profit for investors, blocks potential competition and commodifies the community, in a Tragedy of the Commons rerun.

M Y I S S U E W I T H A I R B N B I S T H A T T H E V A L U E O F T H E C O M P A N Y R E S T S O N I T S A B I L I T Y T O U S E

N E T W O R K E F F E C T S T O L O C K I N T H E W H O L E O F T H E R O O M S H A R I N G M A R K E T , A T W H I C H P O I N T

I T W I L L B E A B L E T O M A K E B I G P R O F I T S W I T H O U T F E A R O F C O M P E T I T I O N .

Photo: Nicola Bisceglia

N E T W O R K E D M A R K E T F A I L U R E S

Stewards and the market economy exist in mutual interdependence. Stewards use excess capacity in the market economy to do stewardship (eg. using income from a secure job or pension to engage in their activities). The market economy benefits from the asset being stewarded.

This exchange is perceived to be unfair and inefficient: stewardship as such is generally not compensated. There is no market for stewardship.

P E O P L E D O W O R K T O M A K E A L I V I N G . O T H E R S D O W O R K T O M A K E M E A N I N G . B U T T H E T W O

W O R K S A R E N O T T H E S A M E W O R K .

Photo: Hazem Adel

H A C K I N G T H E E C O N O M Y

The economic logic of stewardship is recognised as fundamentally different from that of market operators in textbook economics.

There is a growing fascination with alternative economic models: local currencies, crypto currencies, network bartering algorithms, time banks

S T E W A R D S M A K E D E C I S I O N S O N T H E B A S I S O F R U L E S O F T H U M B L I K E M A K E S U R E W H A T Y O U D O D O E S N O T A F F E C T N E G A T I V E L Y T H E N E X T S E V E N G E N E R A T I O N S O F T H E T R I B E , O R O U R F A M I L Y S H A L L H A V E Z E R O D E B T : I F W E D O N ' T

H A V E T H E C A S H , W E C A N ' T A F F O R D I T .

Photo: Ben Vickers

W A Y P O I N T S T O S T E W A R D S H I PP A R T T W O

Photo: Danny Dimita

A C K N O W L E D G E I N V I S I B L E W O R K

Increase the visibility of invisible work spent in tasks like coordination, and acknowledge the people who do this kind of work. This could encourage more people to chip in, and help stewardship projects to scale.

Communities that coordinate through online platforms might consider making this work publicly visible through tracking mechanisms. This was experimented, with promising results, at Living On The Edge 4.

Photo: Danny Dimita

R E T H I N K S O C I A L C O N T R A C T S

Many organisations who engage with communities do so in ways that are potentially extractive. Many people have become weary to join new initiatives for fear of being exploited.

As individuals take part in a stewardship initiative, an effort to rethink the social contract across them could unlock more participation and enable scaling.

Photo: Ida Leone

E X P E R I M E N T W I T H E C O N O M I C M O D E L S

Encourage innovation around economic models.

This should be broad-scoped, and include the more radical non-market approaches like self-sufficiency (growing you own food) and moneyless models.

C O N T A C TThis report was built by members of the Edgeryders community using Open Ethnographer, Open Source software designed and built by Edgeryders LBg with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation.Find out more about the community at edgeryders.euFind out more about the company at edgeryders.eu/company/homeOr write to contact@edgeryders.euPhoto Credits: indicated on individual photos

This work is property of the Edgeryders community and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0

International License.Photo: Danny Dimita