Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture (CIDA) Seminar Series: "Designing for impact on rural communities: Historical lessons for the future of digital agriculture" - Phoebe Sengers

Description

In the 1950’s, Newfoundland, Canada embarked on an ambitious project to modernize its fishery, by using technology to increase productivity, efficiency, and reliability. These modernization efforts eventually destroyed their fish stocks and decimated rural communities. Determined to not meet the same fate, Iceland introduced pervasive data collection throughout its fisheries starting in the 1980’s. Now one of the most high-tech fisheries in the world, Iceland has been able to maintain its fish stock; but these technologies raised the barriers for entry into the industry and led to profits and control of the fishery accruing to urban firms. Both projects were well-intentioned efforts to use technology to improve rural food production, but both systemically undermined the rural communities that rely on it. Why did this happen, and how can we avoid a similar face for future digital agriculture (DA)? In this talk, I will describe how these social impacts are tied to specific problem framings in technology design, and suggest alternative framings that may be useful for DA. Phoebe Sengers is an associate professor in Information Science and Science & Technology Studies at Cornell University. Her work integrates ethnographic and historical analysis of the social implications of technology with design methods to suggest alternative future possibilities. The Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture (CIDA), a faculty led initiative focused on creating a strong voice in the emerging area of Digital Agriculture (DA), invites Assoc. Professor Sengers to present her research for CIDA’s monthly seminar series. Live Stream: https://cornell.zoom.us/j/419930398