Posted by stravlo1
One of the key issues we discussed in the interviews with the four case studies’ participants was the role of the digital manual in the formation of communities. We looked at how co-creative practices of multi-voiced publications form, strengthen and/or enable creative communities.
Oriana’s and Salvatore’s (AOS) main goal is to give participants (either these are pre-existing or emerging communities) tools to work with in their own projects, for example a code to use for the REFF publication. As they said in this interview in Rome last April, their role is not about building a community but rather sharing knowledge and providing a toolkit with those participating in AOS’ different projects.
Eugenio’s work (Sauti Ya Wakulima) with local farmers in Tanzania has shown how emerging technologies (i.e. mobile phones) can strengthen dispersed rural communities by providing them with a toolkit to narrate and share with each other their everyday experiences of the impact of climate change in local farming practices. In this interview in Barcelona last April, Eugenio also described his new project in Oaxaca, Mexico where the communities of indigenous farmers there are close-knit and follow traditional political structures which resemble a lot to what we call ‘assembly democracy’.
For Helen, UpStage is building a community which contains many other smaller (or larger) interconnected communities. So she described her role as a key member in UpStage community , but also in the Magdalena Project, the international network of women in theatre and NetBehaviour, the networked artists’ online community.
For Adam, FLOSS Manuals is a community but very few members are actively involved in the online collaborative production of the manuals. From the 400 listed members of FLOSS Manuals, only about 15 people work on the various projects. This means that within the wider community, there are smaller substantial communities that stand alone. So, FLOSS Manuals is a ‘community of communities’.
