TEAM: M. PENTTINEN, R. JŪMITE, AND S. SOOD SUPERVISOR: DR. S.M. AMADAE

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION WORKSHOP AT BYOK, PIXELACHE FESTIVAL, ON JUNE 12, 2021

GOAL.

Public engagement to develop a self-curated anti-rival index to be built as a prototype for a Food Futures to increase wellbeing and to reduce suffering.

WHAT WAS DONE.

To engage participants in discussions and co-creation of a self-curated food suffering and wellbeing index, we had developed an interactive workshop with two activities designed as ‘provo’-types that provoked thinking about food hyper-transparency and created tools to decrease suffering and increase wellbeing.

Our first activity was “Collective-reflection and construction of food hyper-transparency”. During the activity, we had participants consider three commonly consumed food items (salmon, bananas, and oat porridge) and a journey map of their food chain with several checkpoints and thought-provoking facts. The participants were invited to reflect on the checkpoints and draw new ones, make connections and indicate suffering and wellbeing aspects throughout the foods’ journey from origin to purchase. This activity aimed to provoke thinking about our alienation from suffering and wellbeing caused by the complexities of food production, consumption, and disposal. We aimed to expose the participants to the concept of food hyper-transparency as a way to approach these complexities to learn from participants’ interests and concerns.

The second activity was “Self-curated wellbeing and suffering index.” For this activity, participants received a ‘provo’-type in the form of two outlines for concentric circles with eight divisions. The participants were invited to create the self-curated index by coming up with suffering and wellbeing variables pertaining to the chosen food item, and to colour the intensity of pain or wellbeing caused. The aim of this activity was to test the framework of indexing to provoke thinking around food-related suffering and wellbeing aspects to decide which is more salient in people’s thinking. Once they were done with this activity, they were asked to choose how they would like the food future index to be named.

WHAT THE RESULT WAS.

During the workshop, we had sixteen participants who completed both activities and created self-curated food suffering and wellbeing indexes. The self-curated indexes reflected participants’ knowledge gained and their thinking provoked in activity 1. The outcome of the sixteen created food future indexes is to being synthesized into a Anti-rival index for hyper transparent blockchain product sourcing thematic diagram by our team. Additionally, seven of the participants voted for the name “Suffering Index,” five voted for “Wellbeing index,” one voted for both, and two did not vote. Feedback we received confirmed that after engaging in both activities, participants had a feeling of gaining new knowledge and a critical viewpoint on food systems. From this we conclude that supplying citizens with hypertransparent data about the food items they may purchase could decrease their distance from the journey our food takes from oceans and fields to our mouths and beyond. Self-curated anti-rival indexes informed by hypertransparency, supported by blockchain technology, may one day be a tool to enhance planetary wellbeing.

To view the original report, including images, read here.