Community Gardening

I recently started working at a community garden in Christchurch - the Strickland Street or Spreydon Garden. It is an interesting place and I"m meeting some very interesting people with an interest in green issues in a very practical grass roots sort of way.

The garden has a spectacular composting system and takes in kitchen waste from a number of nearby households as well as composting everything that comes from the garden (weeds, prunings etc). I've been learning about the art of teaching people about composting (which like every other form of teaching I've had anything to do with involved a lot of learning). I've also become the promotions person which is a slightly novel experience for one with my background!

I suppose what I'm concluding from all this that the whole idea of social learning and on reflecting on action is as useful gardening and composting as it is in lots of other places. No compost heap or garden is ever the same and on top of that everyone who gardens has learned a great deal through their own experimentation and assessment of success or failure.

This means that actually it is feasible to learn something from everyone who has every tried to plant and grow something and that good gardeners have to be good at reflecting on their efforts because the environment in which they garden is continually throwing new issues and problems their way.

Mixing Art, Science and Social Science to Learn about a River

I've been reflecting back on an amazing experience that I had a few years ago when I worked on a project aimed at mixing art and science. Two artists, two scientists and two social scientists worked together over a year or two to learn about our different perspectives and to apply our learning to a project centred around the Motueka River and its associated community in New Zealand. Check out the information about the project at: the project website.

There were a number of outputs from the project. The most obvious was an installation that brought together stories and images from artists scientists and community members. There was also a book containing some of the conversations that the group had through the process of getting to know each other and an evaluation of the collaboration process that drew out the learning we all did about working with people from such radically different perspectives - all available from the website above.

For me personally, this project opened up some new ways of thinking and engaging with people and the environment. It also reinforced my interest in learning from those in other areas of endeavour and with different experiences, and helping them to do the same.

I'd like to be doing something more with this experience and I haven't quite worked out how but I am thinking that perhaps it cannot be done working from within the limitations of the New Zealand Science system and or perhaps within the organisational framework within which I work.

Interconnections and problem solving

I"ve been away to meet with a group of social scientists from around New Zealand to talk about social science in New Zealand and how to raise its profile. One of the things that we discussed was interconnection in science which at the time translated into working across boundaries - disciplinary, cultural, social and professional usually to 'solve' complex /wicked problems.

We assumed that this is quite a difficult thing to do, but many people I encounter assume this is easy. I suppose that to some extent it might be when two people, who like each other and have some overlap in their backgrounds, sit down to work together particularly if they are both interested in the perspective of the other and are willing to listen. It gets significantly more difficult when there are multiple people with different perspectives, particularly if those perspectives have a different philsophical, epistemological or ontological bases. In such a case the social learning that needs to happen is greatly multiplied, while the likelihood that every perpective will be met with respect is greatly reduced!

The thing that gets in the way is an assumption that in fact everyone has, and should have, the same basic idea of what is going on when in fact nothing may be further from the truth!

C