Reflexivity :: researching :: acting

Drawing connecting Lury on second order knowledge (pp. 65-67, 2021) and
my Argument 1: Decidim forms part of a live ecosystem of interconnected collective intelligences

Lury’s writing on second-order knowledge draws together and frames some qualities which I’ve been working with for some time: reflexivity, situated knowledge, recursion. It also helped something click for me. I’ve been very aware of these qualities in two key areas: my positionality and practice; as well as the agency and practice of people in Decidim (“in the field”). However, I had not put those two dynamics in relation to eachother or underlined their common qualities.

Reflexivity :: researching :: acting

How do you define collective intelligence?

Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND

Many versions of collective intelligence are active around us. From the social media Hive Mind, to wikipedia’s Wisdom of the Crowd, to the ant colonies under our feet, to Extinction Rebellion’s swarming tactics, to talk of citizen assemblies solving Brexit or even climate change. To name but a few. My PhD aims to organise different conceptualisations and manifestations of collective intelligence into written and visual meta-analysis. In the wider video work, I am also working with audio-visual analysis and am currently exploring “The Sound of the Hive”. In other words, exploring an understanding of collective intelligence and the hive, through sound and patterns of sounds.

How do you define collective intelligence?