I often need to use words like decentralised, distributed and decentering to talk about the shape of collective intelligence and how people can be connected together and work together. And I want to get a hands on feel for what those terms really mean, what work they actually do, and what they could do.
… Centering.
[Version November 2020 :: These PhD posts are online workbenchs and mood boards :: Opening up research process, playing with multimedia and inviting your comments]
… PhD Argument 2I will sketch the overall ecosystem, however the focus will be on Decidim Barcelona and the associated Tecnopolitica community.
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… PhD Argument 1General Argument: Decidim is a prototype for public-commons participatory democracy, forming part of a live ecosystem of collective intelligences with transformative impacts.
… PhD Argument Intro + Welcome
Baran’s network typologies from the early days of computing (1964) are still referenced by Tecnopolitica researcher-activists at the forefront of social transformation today (see diagram below). Decentralized and distributed networks, politics and technologies are at the heart of Tecnopolitical practices, however their politics are far removed from Baran’s context of US Air Force funded research. Politically, Tecnopolitica would have more in common with the trajectory of bell hooks whose framework: emphasises ‘the centre’ (contrasted with the margin); suggests ‘the decentering of the West globally’ and a focus instead on ‘attention on the issue of voice. Who speaks? Who listens? And why?’ (p. 40, 1994); and continues to be a reference point today for people arguing for ‘decentering and decolonising knowledge’ (Moreno Figueroa, 2019).
However, the substance and vibe of the hooks’ text sends very different messages to these stylised network visualisations (above and below)….
… Centres, Margins, Distributions
