Research Communications Archives - Page 2 of 2

Unfulfilled promises of research and increased research waste in Nairobi’s Informal Settlements

By ISS Blog Bliss 26 November 2024 2524 views

…so another one of these researches? Is this any different? You know we are tired of these scientists … imagine if the poor were to get at least half of the money that is spent in studying them, wouldn’t it be nice?

These were the frustrated words of Makini (pseudonym) during a community baraza targeting evidence-based slum upgrading of Mathare, Kenya’s third largest informal settlement. Makini, a resident of Mathare for over 50 years, voiced the disappointment felt by many who have been over-researched without commensurate societal benefit. In this blog post, Stephen Nyagaya , Beatrice Hati and Alice Menya discuss this case as a point of departure to advance the debate on research waste within social sciences.

Informal settlements around the globe attract more appetite for exploration due to a complex nexus of wicked problems, emergent frugal novelties and new rhythms of development emerging in the informality context. In Nairobi, informal settlements house over 65 per cent of the city’s population and have experienced a fast-paced knowledge circus over the past three decades. While there is an uncontested need for research to inform development decisions and policy formulation, connecting this knowledge to community development and progressive action is still challenged. This phenomenon is what we discuss here as ‘research waste’.

Research waste: Not new, but still unacceptable!

The concept of research waste was first coined by medical statistician Douglas Altman in 1994, defining it as ‘research outcomes with no societal benefits’. This millennial concept dominates medical and clinical sciences but receives less attention in social sciences. Drawing on our experience, we argue that research is also wasteful if it lacks novelty, lacks relevance to a real-world gap and does not advance existing scholarship. We define research waste as ‘research that fails to yield societal benefits and lacks scientific value’. Research waste not only squanders tens of billions of dollars annually, but also contributes to research fatigue, perpetuates epistemic injustices and erodes public trust.

Every stage in a research ‘lifecycle’ is prone to waste, but the good news is that about 85 per cent of this waste is avoidable. Research waste arises from irrelevant rationales, flawed research designs, biased or poor reporting of results and methodologies and unpublished or poorly disseminated outputs. To further illustrate this point, we have outlined in Figure 1 below the various stages of research and practices that may (re)produce waste.

Figure 1: Practices producing research waste

The production of avoidable research waste is unethical practice. Researchers must navigate the research process conscientiously to strike a balance between scientific rigor, societal benefits and scholarly value. This negotiated middle ground is achievable through Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). CBPR offers a methodological framework that catalyses research value by repositioning community partnerships at the centre of three interrelated research goals: generating evidence, facilitating meaningful action and promoting engaged learning.

Research buzz in Mathare

Nairobi city is a home to over 4 million people and more than 100 informal settlements. It is estimated that 65 per cent of the city’s inhabitants live and work in these informal areas, which epitomize existing inequalities in the city. In Mathare, residents live in deplorable living conditions, epitomized by poor housing and basic services, overcrowding, pollution and insecurity of tenure that lingers with frequent threats of evictions.

The pervasive failure of the government to upgrade these living conditions is attractive to research, contributing to a ‘research buzz’. The findings from our data mapping show that approximately 300 research activities were conducted in Mathare in a decade. However, these activities failed to yield commensurate value for the community. For instance, our analysis shows that out of the 300 research entries, 31 of were related to ‘infrastructure and economy’ (see Figure 2), yet the community still lives in deplorable conditions characterized by overcrowded, makeshift structures that increase the risk of hazards such as fires, exacerbate inadequate access to clean water and poor sanitation, and limit access to reliable electricity amongst many other problems.

Figure 2: Research conducted in Mathare between 2013 & 2023 along research themes

Authors, 2024

A Mathare resident cited her frustration with research, noting the imminent failure of its implementation.

Then again the one who sent you, I don’t know the government, they have done a lot of research and none of it has ever been implemented….Why bring (research) yet they won’t implement, why take information, knowledge, sit somewhere and yet not implement? The next day the same information they took, someone uses it for their own benefit elsewhere. So they have done a lot of research in the community, not now, not yesterday but even in the past years and not one has been implemented…

Mathare residents have been exposed to multiple studies with limited novelty and duplicated research topics, leading to research fatigue and unmet expectations for societal change.

Helicopter research

Researchers enter informal settlements with pre-determined agendas, engage the community as research participants and leave with the bulk of the information without further engaging with the broader audience. Researchers use informal settlements as testing grounds for concepts while the community is relegated to the subordinate role of respondent. In other instances, community participation is romanticized and framed as ‘partnerships’ with tokenistic and ‘command-control’ approaches that replicate exclusion.

With ambiguous guidelines on conducting research in informal settlements, scientific and ethical procedures have been conflated into unclear practices that expose the participants to unfair treatment. In some cases, participants are influenced by monetary compensation, resulting to coercion and undue influence. In other cases, prior consent is not sought from the participants. Trust is eroded when there are no clear strategies for collaboration between researchers and the community. Additionally, poor sampling strategies contribute to biased participation. Ultimately, some studies are designed to serve researchers’ interests, rather than deliver societal benefits.

Towards a methodological framework

Knowledge should be co-created through fair collaboration between the community and scientific researchers to yield scientific rigor and societal development. The community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework provides a platform for knowledge co-creation by infusing local ingenuity with tools and techniques from scientific discipline.

The framework applies a bottom-up research process in which the research agenda, framed with communities, is scaled upwards. It proposes community participation in the entire research process, which translates into moving the community from being ‘research respondents’ to ‘research partners’. This approach allows for knowledge transfer to the community researchers through training and empowerment. The ten rules of CBPR, co-created with the Mathare community and dubbed ‘the ten commandments’, describe how researchers should co-create research ethics, establish rules of engagement and disseminate co-created knowledge to avoid waste. The following Figure 3 summarizes this framework.

Figure 3: The ‘ten commandments’

(1) Codesigning research agenda: Research should be framed together with community members, represented by community-based organizations (CBOs), groups or community researchers. These representatives help link research with local programmes that need urgent attention. The agenda should also align with themes of informality in literature.

(2) Seeking requisite consent: Researchers should seek prior permission from the research participants. This involves describing the research purpose, data collection methods and the intended outputs. Consent will help manage expectations and increase trust between the researcher and the community.

(3) Collaboration: Research with communities should, as much as possible, foster collaboration with community-led organizations. Collaboration ensures that knowledge is co-created with the community for empowerment and social action. The research proponents should further set long-term partnerships with the community with clear strategies for creating impact.

(4) Confidentiality and protection: Data collected from/with the community should be protected against destruction, loss or illegal access. Researchers should maintain confidentiality throughout the research process.

(5) Training community researchers: Community researchers are community members who live and work for the community. They engage in social work such as advocacy, activism, community health promotion, solid waste management, etc. When involved in research activities, they should be trained in research methods, ethics and dissemination strategies to foster learning and enhance research rigor.

(6) Data validation: Data collected from the community should be validated by the participants to ensure that it is devoid of errors and to determine whether the findings meet the intended objectives (avoiding data misuse).

(7) Acknowledge community input: The community should be acknowledged by mentioning its input and engaging it in various dissemination exercises such as dialogues, workshops or conferences. The community should be acknowledged and included as co-author in (academic) publications.

(8) Fair arrangements and equitable partnerships: Partnerships between the researchers and the community should be clearly stated with definite roles. This helps in building trust between the partners.

(9) Dissemination: Researchers should ensure that findings are shared with community members and other relevant stakeholders. Open data platforms that are accessible to the public and the broader community should be promoted. Researchers should encourage the use of dialogues, public forums or other engagement strategies to disseminate research information to a wider audience.

(10) Engage beyond research: Researchers should engage beyond mere scientific dissemination methods. Such activities include translating and vulgarizing research findings to be understood by the larger local audience, reaching out to development actors for implementation or lobbying for policy actions by the government.

Conclusion

This post fronts CBPR as a solution to mitigating research waste in urban informal settlements. While the need for research to inform societal development is uncontested, research waste should be prevented by designing research practices that sync with local priorities, foster knowledge exchange and enhance scientific value.

Notes:

The discussions presented in this blog post emanate from the project ‘Towards a framework for community-based participatory research in informal settlements: a pilot in Mathare, Nairobi-Kenya’ (2023). The project was funded by the LDE Global Support programme, supported by Vital Cities and Citizens and implemented in Nairobi by Nuvoni Center for Innovation Research and MSPARC (Mathare Special Planning Area Research Collective).

References

Balazs, C. L., & Morello-Frosch, R. (2013). The three Rs: How community-based participatory research strengthens the rigor, relevance, and reach of science. Environmental justice, 6(1), 9-16. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/env.2012.0017
Erasmus University Rotterdam. (2024). From Research to Action: How Community Researchers in Nairobi Promote Social Transformation. Accessed from https://www.eur.nl/en/news/research-action-how-community-researchers-nairobi-promote-social-transformation
Fransen, J., Hati, B., Nyumba, R., & van Tuijl, E. (2023). ‘Community vitality and frugal practices in informal settlements in Nairobi: Towards a typology’, Cities, 134(January), p. 104179. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2022.104179.
Hati, B., & Menya, A., (2023) ‘Our cities have failed … decolonizing urban planning in the Afrocentric’, DEVIssues, November 2023, Vol. 25 – No.2 https://www.devissues.nl/our-cities-have-failed-decolonizing-urban-planning-afrocentric
Ouma, S. (2023). Participation as ‘city-making’: a critical assessment of participatory planning in the Mukuru Special Planning Area in Nairobi, Kenya. Environment & Urbanization, 35(2), 470-489.
SDI-Kenya. (2020). Informal Settlements Profiling Report: Nairobi County. Accessed from https://www.muungano.net/browseblogs/2020/4/16/draft-informal-settlements-profiling-report-for-nairobi-county.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Stephen Nyagaya is an urban planning and development researcher whose interests revolve around spatial injustices, participatory planning and urban informality. He is a Junior Research Associate at Nuvoni Centre for Innovation Research/International Centre for Frugal Innovation and was actively involved in the CBPR project.

Beatrice Hati is a pracademic specializing in people-centred urbanism and resilience. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in multilevel disaster governance at ISS while simultaneously serving as an urban development and research associate at the International Centre for Frugal Innovation (Kenya Hub).

Alice Menya

Alice Menya is Head of Programmes at Nuvoni Centre for Innovation Research/International Centre for Frugal Innovation-Kenya Hub.

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

What’s the value in joining global value chains? A nuanced view for developing countries

By ISS Blog Bliss 13 November 2024 1695 views

Developing countries join cross-border production networks called global value chains to drive their economic growth and encourage job creation. But the gains from global value chain participation aren’t guaranteed, do not happen automatically, and vary widely. In this blog article, ISS PhD graduate and visiting researcher Gina Ledda discusses the heterogeneity or diversity in the global value chain experience of developing countries and highlights the importance of taking stock and assessing key factors of participation. The new analytical tool Constant Value Added Share Analysis (CVAS) facilitates the measurement and analysis of global value chain participation.

Developing and advanced countries participate in the cross-border, multi-staged production of goods and services called global value chains. Policy makers generally view global value chains as opportunities for developing countries to participate in international trade and reap advantages such as increased employment, higher incomes, and a boost in economic growth. The problem, however, is that the evidence of beneficial effects to joining global value chains is mixed. This blog article argues for a more nuanced perspective and a first step to evaluate participation.

Global value chains or international production networks started in the manufacturing industries when firms from advanced countries, mainly multinationals, began offshoring some segments of their production process. In the 1980s, the initial movement to locate production activities elsewhere was mainly to take advantage of lower labor costs in developing countries. This fragmentation model of production proved successful and was replicated in other manufacturing and service sectors – more recently to digital services like video games – such that many goods and services consumed locally are practically made in the world.

While involvement in global value chains could potentially foster growth in developing countries, heterogeneous or varied global value chain participation poses a formidable hurdle (Ledda 2023). Even though developing and advanced countries are involved in the same global value chain, their roles are dissimilar. Large multinationals initiate the global value chain, select the firms that join, and assign tasks. This asymmetry of power, the focus of global value chain governance, can hamper the movement of a developing country from low to higher value tasks known as upgrading. Upgrading through product, process or functional improvements is usually needed to sustain growth within global value chains but can be difficult to achieve. Lead firms are not keen to transfer the core technology and skills that define their roles and supplier firms may struggle to absorb and build on these higher-value inputs. The typical global value chain model seen in Figure 1 shows developing countries mostly in the lower-value production segment and advanced countries in higher-value tasks in the pre-production (product design, R&D, and branding) and post-production (distribution, retail, and marketing) segments.

Source of information: WTO 2021. Figure by the author.

Another important consideration is that reaping advantages from global value chain participation depends on a complex interplay of internal factors including resource endowments, geographical location, institutions, market, innovation and absorptive capacity for technology, inter-country agreements, and trade and investment regulation. A country’s ability and flexibility to adjust these drivers impact on the effectivity of its participation and present a challenge for government policy coordination and development strategies. The resulting diversity in country responses to these challenges contributes further to the mixed scorecard of beneficial outcomes.

With all these dynamics to consider, how does a developing country benefit from global value chain participation? We argue that the first step is to take stock and assess participation through quantitative and qualitative methods. Our article, Van Bergeijk and Ledda 2024 introduces Constant Value Added Share (CVAS) analysis which is a novel reinterpretation of constant market share analysis, a well-known tool that examines the underlying reasons for a country’s export performance. We use the latest trade in value added data (OECD TiVA 2023) for the years 1995-2020 to measure the value added by each country in global value chains. Applying CVAS analysis to the Philippines, we identified a loss of competitiveness in the computer and electronics sector and emerging sectoral strength in technology-related business services, results that are unclear using the traditional approach and aggregated gross export data. We argue that Constant Value Added Share analysis is useful for assessing the global value chain involvement of other developing countries and can help identify where adjustments can be made towards more gainful participation.

To be fair, a number of developing countries have experienced benefits from global value chain participation. However, global value chains are not static and are changing especially in this post-pandemic era. It remains true that global value chain engagement can be unequally advantageous for participants. An assessment of current participation is a solid first step to ensure that integration into the global economy through value chains supports the pursuit of a country’s sustainable development goals.

References

Ledda, Gina M. 2023. Heterogeneous Participation of Developing Countries in Global Value Chains. Ph.D. thesis, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands.

van Bergeijk, Peter A.G., and Gina M. Ledda. 2024. “Constant Value Added Share Analysis: A Novel Trade Decomposition Technique with an Application to the Philippines” Economies 12, no. 7: 173. https://doi.org/10.3390/economies12070173

WTO (2021). Global value chain development report 2021: Beyond production. Geneva, Switzerland: World Trade Organization. https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/00_gvc_dev_report_2021_e.pdf

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Gina Ledda has a PhD in development economics from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. She conducts research on global supply chains, digital services and technologies, international trade and competitiveness, and sustainable development. She has worked in a policy research think tank, consulted for government, taught economics at the master’s and undergraduate levels, and is currently a visiting researcher at the ISS.

Rain or shine, the gig must go on – Platform workers navigate climate extremes

By ISS Blog Bliss 29 October 202431 October 2024 2335 views

Precariousness is an underlying factor in the gig economy. When combined with the climate crisis, this becomes an even bigger burden on gig workers. These ‘flexible workers’ are often not equipped to be flexible to the changing environment. They face the dilemma of navigating between algorithms and climate extremes, often forced to choose earnings over health. In this blog, Anna Elias explores how the vulnerabilities of the workers are amplified in the context of climate crisis.

‘Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.’ Naomi Klein (This changes everything: Capitalism vs. the climate).

Most parts of India suffered from extreme weather conditions this year. While the temperatures soared up to 50℃ in some cities, the monsoons that followed caused extreme havoc in others. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) report predicts that India will lose 5.8 per cent of its working hours by 2030 due to extreme heat. What does this mean for a gig worker, for most of whom the city is their workspace, and for whom navigating the city constitutes a substantial part of their everyday life?

App based platforms have revolutionized the way urban dwellers travel, eat and purchase. While the gig economy has created numerous flexible jobs, it is also criticised for not effectively dealing with various issues such as workers’ wellbeing and social protection.

Flexible workers are not equipped to be flexible to the changing environment. In current research and policy discourses on gig work, the impact of climate change on the worker is often overlooked. While climate change has significant consequences to both their lives and livelihoods, it is only one among the many vulnerabilities they face. Gig workers already suffer from casualised, low-paid working conditions without access to long-term security, formal social protections and welfare. The pressure caused by these precarious conditions is further exemplified by extreme weather events. Beyond the immediate physical dangers posed by heatwaves or flash floods, these conditions increase the susceptibility of road accidents, thereby heightening the risk of traffic-related injuries.

As research has shown, in the gig economy, climate change is poised to act as a ‘wicked multiplier’ intensifying the vulnerabilities experienced by workers in developing countries. Gig workers in these countries are exposed to extreme weather conditions and endure long hours while navigating hazardous roads and traffic during heatwaves, storms, and floods. Those using two-wheelers to get around face additional challenges such as dust inhalation, impaired vision due to harsh sunlight, heatstroke, and the lack of shade on the roads. These conditions, along with algorithmic management and the promise of ‘lightning fast’ services, make gig workers vulnerable to exhaustion, dehydration, and severe health risks. That their earnings are dependent on the satisfactory execution of the gig exacerbates the precariousness of their situation.

Amidst this crisis, the responses from app-based companies are noteworthy. A prominent Indian food delivery platform issued the following statement: ‘please avoid ordering during peak afternoon unless absolutely necessary’. Yet in the platform economy, lower order volumes correspondingly diminish workers’ earnings. So, this seemingly well-intentioned request to customers aimed at reducing the delivery workers’ exposure to the intense afternoon heat, neglects the dilemma the workers face between making viable earnings and risking their immediate and long-term health. Another example is of a ride-hailing platform that introduced a ‘weather fee’ in Vietnam, which imposed an extra charge on an order whenever the local temperature hit 35℃. This was counter-intuitive, as it incentivized the already precarious worker to work extra hours regardless of the weather conditions, thus putting their lives at risk.

A common misconception is that extreme environmental situations affect only two -wheel drivers. Beyond the physical discomfort to themselves, even auto and taxi drivers face additional challenges of managing customer expectations and interactions on topics that are related to climate change. For example, a common conflict between drivers and customers, especially during warm day-time hours is the driver’s reluctance to switch on the air conditioning, fearing higher fuel consumption. An Uber driver in Mumbai shares his experiences and strategy in coping with climate change:

”I don’t want to turn on the air conditioner in my car throughout the day. All the money I make goes on fuel charges. Over time, I realised that during the summer the best I can do is drive only during the night. The customers usually don’t insist on travelling with the AC on at night. Of course, I lose sleep and it affects my health. But I don’t have any other choice”. (Fieldnotes, Mumbai 2023).

Apart from highlighting the precarious nature of the work, these cases illustrate the importance of engaging all key stakeholders when developing solutions. Specifically, they emphasize the need to recognise the gig worker as an important stakeholder in the gig economy. They make clear that addressing climate challenges in the platform economy requires a collaborative effort from companies, workers, and the government.

App based platforms were once considered part of the sharing economy and hailed as harbingers of sustainability and collaborative consumption. However, with rapid expansion, they are now criticized for their significant environmental and social costs and for increasing road congestion and intensity.

Conversely, emerging research highlights the potential of platforms to be part of the solution, positioning them as essential stakeholders in sustainability efforts, emphasizing the need for collaborative approaches that integrate labour rights and climate justice. Platform companies have the best of technology and resources at their disposal to craft solutions that benefit their customers, workers and investors alike. For this, they need to view all stakeholders as equally important, create avenues for dialogue between them and work with them to incrementally build equitable solutions for both people and the planet.

Bibliography

Economic survey of Asia. (1991). Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. https://www.unescap.org/kp/2024/survey2024
Vu, A. N., & Nguyen, D. L. (2024). The gig economy: The precariat in a climate precarious world. World Development Perspectives, 34, 100596. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245229292400033X
https://x.com/zomato/status/1797179156528005204
Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, L., Kar, A. K., Baabdullah, A. M., Grover, P., Abbas, R., … & Wade, M. (2022). Climate change and COP26: Are digital technologies and information management part of the problem or the solution? An editorial reflection and call to action. International Journal of Information Management, 63, 102456. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401221001493

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author:

Anna Elias is a PhD researcher at International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research explores socio economic transitions brought about by digitisation, particularly its effect on livelihoods in the informal economy. With a strong professional background in the social impact sector, her expertise lies at the intersection of evidence-based research and evaluation, digital innovation, and sustainability.

“Happy cows without happy workers?” How Migrant Justice is fighting for improved labour conditions in the US’ dairy industry

By ISS Blog Bliss 3 September 20243 October 2024 2676 views

Dairy production often relies on poorly paid and precarious migrant labour, but while the welfare of animals in the dairy sector is increasingly emphasized, that of the people working in the sector receives less attention. In this blog article, Hammal Aslam and Karin Astrid Siegmann discuss the efforts of migrant dairy workers’ organization Migrant Justice to highlight the precarious labour conditions migrant dairy workers face and to push for the sector’s transformation. The organization’s approach combines the expansion of workers’ associational capacity and the forging of alliances with other actors — a successful strategy that can inspire other movements.

Migrant workers formed more than half of the total work force in the US’ dairy sector in 2014. According to the farmworker solidarity organization Farmworker Justice, “[…] if this work force were to disappear, US dairy production would decrease by 48.4 billion pounds while the cost of milk would increase by an estimated 90.4%.” This suggests that the low prices of dairy are subsidized by the workers of the sector, a result of their systematically suppressed human and labour rights. In practical terms, downward pressures on dairy prices translate into a range of exploitative arrangements including but not limited to long working hours, low wages, and frequent exposure to occupational hazards.

The development of more complex global and regional production networks in and beyond agri-business has raised pressing concerns about labour rights. Therefore, marshalling public support and fostering connections between various segments and actors in society seems to be a viable alternative for promoting social justice, given the erosion of power of labour unions caused by neoliberal processes. In this blog article, we talk about Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based migrant workers’ organization that is seeking to change the US’ dairy industry from the inside out.

Pursuing dignified working conditions

In Vermont, a state in the northeastern US in which dairy sales represent more than two thirds of agricultural sales, a coalition of dairy farm workers, labour activists, and consumers have encouragingly tackled some of these long-suppressed issues after the death of a young Mexican farmworker, Jose Obeth, in a preventable accident in 2009. Organized under the banner of Migrant Justice, Vermont’s migrant dairy workers — many of whom are undocumented — and their allies in civil society have been campaigning for migrant workers’ rights.

The Milk with Dignity program that Migrant Justice implemented in 2018 has sought to engender corporate responses that assume some responsibility for injustices and to guarantee decent labour conditions in the dairy chain. The programme incentivizes improved working conditions at the farm level through a premium paid by upstream buyers for milk produced under conditions that comply with an agreed labour standard monitored by workers and a third party, the Milk with Dignity Standards Council.

In a legal context hostile to workers in the agricultural sector and to migrant labour in particular, and in the absence of collective bargaining power, labour rights activists associated with Migrant Justice have adopted a multi-pronged approach to address abuses in the dairy value chain. They mobilize popular support from civil society to pressure commercial buyers of milk such as the supermarket chain Hannaford for more dignified labour conditions. This advocacy has led to the Milk with Dignity program’s institutionalized mechanisms for settling workers’ grievances.

The expansion of associational capacity for workers and the formation of coalitions with other actors have also catalysed the passing of progressive legislations. Especially the recent landmark passing of Vermont PRO Act not only widens workers’ collective action rights but also extends bargaining rights to domestic workers, a group of workers devoid of labour rights since 1940s. Previously, Migrant Justice also lobbied for the Education Equity for Immigrant Students bill, which now ensures that migrants have access to higher education regardless of their legal statuses.

By holding accountable corporate actors and positioning workers centrally in their programs, Migrant Justice’s approach goes a step ahead of typical consumer-focused conceptions of ethical consumption and corporate social responsibility.

Lobbying the big players

When a delegation of Migrant Justice arrived at the ISS for a conversation on “Lobbying Ahold for Milk with Dignity” this April, they had just returned from an action in Amsterdam. The delegation had travelled from the US at the occasion of the Annual General Meeting of Dutch–Belgian multinational Ahold Delhaize to highlight human rights violations in their dairy chain, where the executives of the company convened to celebrate € 88.65 billion in 2023 sales. Ahold Delhaize’s subsidiary, the Hannaford chain of supermarkets in the northeastern US, sources dairy from farms in Vermont, where workers originating from Mexico and Central America work in inhumane conditions.

Building a counterhegemonic current

A Migrant Justice delegate opened the conversation at the ISS with the remark that “[w]e might have happy cows, but without happy workers.” His remark showed that in the dairy industry, corporates actors often talk about happy cows, but that the working conditions of the labourers are rarely part of the agenda. The conversation was a lesson in how modern-day global value chains have evolved, how they lock in cheap and exploited labour and continue making enormous profit, and what creative and effective strategies are needed to defend human and labour rights in such conditions.

Celebrating successes

So far, Migrant Justice has celebrated several successes:

The expansion of associational capacity for workers and the formation of coalitions with other actors, including civil societyactors, employers, and public representatives, has been one successful strategy in Vermont.
While global ice-cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry’s is the only company who currently participates in the Milk with Dignity programme, this nevertheless means that one fifth of Vermont’s dairy industry is covered by the programme.
Five years into the programme, over US$ 3 million has been invested in boosting workers’ wages and bonuses as well as in improvements to their labour and housing conditions.

Migrant Justice members showed us that improved outcomes for workers have been made possible by building a broad-based counterhegemonic current and articulating demands through both cooperation and contestation. Their experience is an encouraging example for innovative ways to achieve justice at work and making small, yet meaningful gains for workers and their families at the bottom of the ladder. They can prefigure significant change that places those currently constructed as social, political, and economic ‘nobodies’ at the centre of an alternative vision of agri-food chains.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

Authors:

Hammal Aslam is a PhD researcher at ISS. In his doctoral work he is focusing on rural transformations in Balochistan, Pakistan. Previously, he worked as a university lecturer and was actively involved with organizations that advocate for the rights of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Karin Astrid Siegmann is an Associate Professor in Labour and Gender Economics at ISS. In her research, she seeks to understand how precarious workers challenge and change the social, economic and political structures that marginalize labour.

How the United States’s legacy of slavery influences unequal credit scores and what we can do about it

By ISS Blog Bliss 20 August 20247 October 2024 3457 views

The credit scoring system in the United States, particularly the FICO score, significantly impacts individuals’ access to affordable financing, housing, and employment opportunities. In this blog article, recent ISS MA graduate Conor Farrell shows that though deemed “colour-blind,” the model inadvertently perpetuates racial disparities rooted in historical injustices, particularly slavery. Reforms, including AI-enabled credit scoring and policy changes like excluding medical debt from credit considerations, are essential to address these inequities and break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and racial inequality, he writes.

Acting as the economic gatekeeper in the United States, the credit score, most commonly known in its FICO form and that which is referenced throughout this blog article, scores individuals on a range from 300 to 850, with lower scores representing greater risk of default or missing payments, and higher scores the opposite. Within the FICO form, an individual’s score is primarily calculated across five components, each with an approximate weight (1):

Payment history (35%):an analysis of timely payments on outstanding debts and the severity of late payments (i.e., 30 or 60+ days late).
Amounts owed (30%):calculated as a percentage of total credit available and amount currently employed with a rule of thumb to keep this percentage lower than 10%.
Length of credit (15%):calculated as the amount of time an individual has accessed credit.
New credit (10%):how recently the individual opened a new account.
Type of credit(10%): considers the different revolving and installment loans you have active.

Poor credit scores almost always mean far fewer lending options and far more expensive options when available. Putting this into hard numbers, according to data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a change from a “subprime” 640 credit score to a 740 credit score in one example might allow a potential home buyer to access a mortgage interest rate as low as 5.75% instead of 7.625%, resulting in almost $90,000 in lower interest costs over the life of a thirty-year loan for the same house (2).

The five factors determining the level of risk are claimed not to consider demographic characteristics. However, the map of average percentages of county populations with subprime credit scores in the United States (Figure 1) shows the stark differences between the American south and north.

Figure 1: Subprime Credit Score Populations by County

The percentage of people per county with subprime credit scores in the United States. Orange indicates counties with fewer subprime credit scores and blue counties with more subprime credit scores. The red line on the map is the Mason-Dixon line and Ohio River extension, the traditional division between northern and southern states. Source: (Equifax and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2024).

In particular, given that over 60% of the total African American population resides in the American south, as we further break out the average credit score by race, it is therefore unsurprising to find a mirrored divergence in subprime credit scores, particularly between Black and White Americans (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Average Credit Scores by Race in 2021

Seen across race, there is a significant divergence between the average credit scores of White Americans (734) and Black Americans (677) with the average score for Black Americans averaging near the subprime threshold. Source: (Dual Payments, 2020)

This brings into question whether these differences can be explained by other factors not accounted for by the model. Given that credit scores play such a significant factor in one’s ability to obtain affordable finance and in certain cases may impact where one can live or rent or inhibit one’s ability to obtain employment opportunities, how is it then that such a “colour-blind” model appears to be disproportionately impacting Black Americans? In this blog article, I show that a historical institution fundamental to economic development of the United States and the racial and geographic divisions still present in the present — the institution of slavery — can provide an alternative explanation for injustices in the credit score system.

A quick history lesson

While present for the initial two centuries of colonial expansion in North America, slavery rapidly grew in the early 1800s as the United States solidified into a nation-state (Figure 3). Ultimately abolished after a bloody civil war, the history of the United States since slavery’s abolition in 1865 has been characterized by a various forms of institutionalized and explicit forms of race-based discrimination and exclusion, including the sharecropping system, housing discrimination in the form of redlining, and segregation in the education system. While each of these systems and institutions can each be understood to be extensions of the historically unequal forms of development in the United States with their own unique impact of the historical inequalities in their respective period of development, my research as part of my MA thesis set out to determine how is it that the Figure 3 and that of Figure 1 bear strikingly similarities to one another.

Figure 3: Relative Slave Populations by County (1860)

Figure 3 presents the relative slave population as a share of the total population in 1860. Counties with dark yellow shades have the largest slave population relative to the total county population, while light blue are the counties with lower slave populations. Counties in dark blue are either unreported or have zero slave population according to the census. It is important to note that this data may not be fully reflective of the actual slave population, but it is the best official data that is available. Source: (United States Census Bureau, 1864)

Current models are far too simplistic

Hypothesizing that the current model claims to be colour-blind in its analysis and that its simplistic model focuses solely on the present-day actions of an individual without acknowledging the persistent inequalities already present within our society, my research analysed 1860 census data alongside contemporary panel data from 2014–2021 through an instrumental variable specification. Through the most stringent specification applied, I found a 10-percentage-point increase in the relative slave population of a county in 1860 results estimated average effect of 0.791 percentage point increase in the percentage of the current population with a subprime credit score in 2021, holding all else constant; a result that remains highly significant even in the most stringent model employed (3). Put simply, counties that had higher proportions of enslaved people in 1860 tend to have a higher percentage of residents with poor credit scores today, even after considering other factors that might influence this outcome.

Given the consistent but varying forms of discrimination experienced by Black Americans since the abolition of slavery, I also found that relative slave populations influence different channels’ persistence including through an education system that requires Black Americans to take on higher levels of debt to obtain the same education, only to earn consistently lower wages than their White counterparts. Unable to generate as much wealth as their White counterparts, Black Americans are often far more burdened by greater amounts of relative debt, limiting their ability to obtain larger assets like homes, which are so vital in generating and retaining intergenerational wealth (4).

Such findings demonstrate that the current credit scoring model, one that claims to be unbiased and does not explicitly penalize individuals based on race, fails to account for the multitude of contextual historical factors that continue to privilege certain groups while barring others from accessing the same system. Contemporary economic inequalities may be influenced by the lingering effects of historical factors emphasizing the complex interaction between race, inequality, historical factors, and contemporary economic outcomes.

As such, it also provides clear evidence that policies that do not adequately consider historical inequalities existing and persistent in the system may in fact serve only to continue to perpetuate such inequalities. Particularly in the context of the credit scoring model in the United States and similar systems of economic gatekeeping, not addressing the existing inequalities through the model restricts an individual’s ability to access affordable financing, housing, or decent employment prospects.

Significant reforms are the only way to address persistent injustices

The rapid introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) holds some promise in this context. A greater number of AI-enabled credit scoring algorithms are being tested that could vastly expand the number of variables influencing a credit score. This will hopefully allow a far more comprehensive picture of an individual current financial health. Models with a greater number of variables would increase the diversity of scoring criteria and de-emphasize the potentially discriminatory data points currently prioritized in the FICO model. The recent decision by the Biden administration to remove medical debt as a variable influencing credit scores also helps to address the burden of emergency care costs that can be detrimental to an individual’s ability to meet their financial responsibilities (5).

However, given that poor credit scores have the potential to make financing almost inaccessible for low- and middle-income individuals, additional social safety nets must be considered to ensure that drastic emergency expenses do not create cycles of intergenerational poverty resulting from poor credit scores. Without significant reform, the current credit scoring model will continue to punish low-income families, forcing them to take on more expensive financing to obtain the same assets as their neighbours, inhibit access to home ownership, make higher education less accessible without taking on larger debt, and continue to ensure a cycle of poverty that perpetuates racial inequalities within the United States.

Footnotes

(1) Pritchard, J., (2021) How the FICO Credit Score Is Composed. Available at: https://www.thebalancemoney.com/fico-credit-score-315552 (Accessed 28 July 2024).

(2) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), (2023). Explore interest rates. Available at: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/explore-rates/ (Accessed 28 July 2024).

(3) Farrell, C. (2024). The lingering legacy of slavery: historical injustices and credit scores in the United States. International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). ISS working papers. General series No. 723

(4) Jones, J., & Neelakantan, U. (2022). How Big Is the Inheritance Gap Between Black and White Families? Richmond: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Brief.

(5) The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (2023). CFPB Kicks Off Rulemaking to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports. Washington, D.C.: CFPB. Accessed 4 July 2024.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (2023). CFPB Kicks Off Rulemaking to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports. Washington, D.C.: CFPB. Accessed 4 July 2024.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2024). Explore Interest Rates. Retrieved from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/explore-rates/. Accessed 5 July 2024.

Dual Payments. (2020). Credit Score. Retrieved from Dual Payments: https://dualpayments.com/statistics/credit-score/#race. Accessed 28 July 2024.

Equifax and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Equifax Subprime Credit Population, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EQFXSUBPRIME036061. Accessed 28 July 2024.

Farrell, C. (2024). The lingering legacy of slavery: historical injustices and credit scores in the United States. International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). ISS working papers. General series No. 723

Jones, J., & Neelakantan, U. (2022). How Big Is the Inheritance Gap Between Black and White Families? Richmond: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Brief.

United States Census Bureau, (1864). 1860 Census: Agriculture of the United States, Washington: United States Census Bureau. Available at: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1864/dec/1860b.html

About the author: Conor Farrell

Conor Farrell is a graduate of the International Institute of Social Studies where he majored in Economics of Development. He is passionate about the intersection of history and contemporary economic outcomes understanding that history is not a set of fixed beginnings and ends, but continues to live on through the institutions we have created to shape our societies and influence our future.

How artisanal fishers across the world are trying to turn the tide by adapting to climate and anthropogenic change

By ISS Blog Bliss 16 July 20247 October 2024 4336 views

Artisanal fishers across the world are facing change from all sides. While these changes have been well documented, the intricacies of the adaptation strategies they are forced to assume remain underexplored. A group of researchers met at a workshop held at the ISS in December last year to discuss the challenges artisanal fishers face and what we can learn from their responses. In this blog article, Ilaha Abasli, Nina Swen, and Oane Visser highlight the key takeaways of the workshop, showing that while artisanal fishers are trying to turn the tide by adapting, the challenges they face at times may seem unsurmountable.

Artisanal fishing is a profession and livelihood profoundly impacted by climate and other anthropogenic changes (Mills, 2018; Ojea et al., 2020; Otero et al., 2022). Fishers across the globe are facing declining fish stocks, biodiversity loss, and shrinking spaces caused mainly by environmental pollution, changing sea temperatures, and fish migration, combined with increasingly restrictive ecological conservation policies. They are forced to adapt their practices, for example by changing how and where they fish.

The adaptation practices of artisanal fishers remain under-researched, however, which prompted a group of researchers at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) to organize a workshop in December last year titled ‘Artisanal fisheries, climate change and knowledge for adaptation’, which sought to bring together junior and senior researchers from the Netherlands and beyond who work on socio-ecological aspects of fisheries, climate change, and marine anthropologies.

We as workshop organizers focused on the following questions: How do fishers adapt to the changes they face? What role do collaboration and new technologies play? The first part of the workshop comprised a panel discussion among early-career researchers centred around artisanal fisheries, knowledge, and technology in the context of climate change adaptation. The second part of the workshop featured a plenary session where senior researchers discussed their research on artisanal fisheries. This was followed by a roundtable discussion with representatives from academia and beyond. This blog article shares the workshop’s key takeaways.

Is climate change the only cause of the challenges fishers face?

Artisanal fishers are among the first to notice climate and other anthropogenic changes, including fluctuations in sea levels and temperatures and changes in the quantity and quality of available fish, altered fish migration patterns, and the appearance or extinction of species.

Climate change and anthropogenic activities heavily impact artisanal fisheries. Ilaha Abasli, Nina Swen, and Oane Visser of the ISS showed that fisheries situated along the coast of the Caspian Sea for instance are threatened by oil and gas extraction that causes pollution, disrupts fish migration, and affects fish populations. Vitor Renck of Wageningen University & Research demonstrated that Brazilian artisanal fishers in Bahia face overfishing by larger vessels and inadequate regulation of fishing activities. And Yasmine Ahmed Hafez of SOAS University of London noted that at Lake Victoria, strict quota systems and environmental conservation measures exacerbate the negative impacts, limiting their access to certain areas and types of fish.

Climate and anthropogenic change is fundamentally changing how small-scale fisheries are operating.

The combination of climate and anthropogenic impacts on these water bodies lead to fundamental changes in the practices and livelihoods of small-scale fisheries. They are unable to maintain the same level of fishing in quantity and quality as they did previously and have to go further offshore in vessels that are ill suited to withstanding harsher conditions, risking their lives. These changes often affect their practices, income, and food sovereignty.

For instance, fishing communities must adapt to unfamiliar species, such as the invasive round goby in the Eastern Baltic Sea. Guntra Aistara of the Central European University talked about how such invasive species transition from being perceived as threats to becoming a valuable food source. It exemplifies how communities rapidly recognize their nutritional and social significance.

By sharing their skills, knowledge, and technology with each other, fishers are learning more about adapting.

Many of the case studies discussed during the workshop highlighted the exchange of knowledge and technology as a key adaptation strategy. Workshop participants drew on their research to discuss its definition and the ways in which it manifests. Artisanal fisheries in the Caspian Sea for example adapted to change through collective initiatives; these include pooling resources to acquire affordable technologies like GPS trackers and life vests, which facilitates navigation in deeper waters, and sharing skills, for example teaching others how to swim and how to repair and refurbish old technology and boats.

Along the Caspian coast, communication platforms and tools such as WhatsApp groups and gatherings at tea houses (cayxanas) served as a way of sharing information on weather events, fish migration patterns, and recipes for preparing fish previously considered “poor man’s food”. Aistara noted that fishers from the Eastern Baltic and Caspian Seas share a Soviet history that enable them to compare adaptation strategies. Both groups have adapted to the new conditions of the seas by becoming skilled in repairing, constructing, and repurposing materials and other existing technologies.

Knowledge- and technology-sharing practices are influenced by social norms and values.

Such cases reveal that while knowledge and technology sharing are widespread, these practices are influenced by community social norms and values. In specific communities, people for example uphold and respect territorial boundaries agreed upon by fishers and refrain from crossing into each other’s parts of the sea, even if it means catching fewer fish.

Ahmed Hafez highlighted the bottom-up adaptation process taking place at Lake Victoria and Egypt’s Nile Delta by reflecting on internal dynamics that (re)shape social norms and values such as race, migration, and gender. She explicitly focused on patriarchal norms, as men in the communities mostly dominate fisheries. Iddrisu Amadu and Ingrid Boas of Wageningen University & Research talked about how nomadic Fante fishing communities in Senegal and Gambia are adapting, focusing on the entanglements between social and material elements across land-sea spaces (1). They also stressed that mobilities and their challenging encounters within fisheries during adaptation transcend fixed land-sea boundaries.

Traditional knowledge driving local adaptation needs to be incorporated into official adaptation strategies.

Artisanal fishers in Bahia have successfully adapted technologies, actively using advanced GPS technology and various nets combined with traditional knowledge to navigate changing waters. Renck observed that the significance of adaptation to fishing communities (in Siribinha and Poças) extends beyond preserving fisheries; they are also actively involved in mangrove preservation initiatives in Brazil. Workshop participants agreed that documenting and incorporating the traditional knowledge of local fishers into adaptation strategies is of critical importance for fostering a dialogue between scientific and indigenous and local knowledge systems amidst environmental and anthropogenic changes.

Contextual factors have a bearing on collaboration but does not prevent it.

In several fishing communities, collaboration among fishers is facilitated or constrained by the geographical, political, legal, technological, cultural, and social context they live in. Cornelie Quist of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) for example shared that despite their diversity, artisanal fishing communities have mobilised nationally and globally in manifold ways to push for recognition and prompt political change through policies and treaties. The most significant achievement in this respect is the endorsement in 2014 of the International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Alleviation following their lobbying efforts. Quist noted that these guidelines are important for promoting a human rights approach in fisheries policies.

Fishers are adapting, but what does the future hold?

A critical reflection followed on the limitations of adaptation to climate change. Participants highlighted unease among fishers in the adaptation process, particularly because of its high costs for artisanal fisheries already unacknowledged by governance regimes and crowded out by industrial aqua fisheries. And despite pooling resources, adaptation through technology and collective action is only sometimes feasible due to ecological and governance limitations.

For instance, at Lake Victoria and in the Nile Delta, artisanal fishers are forced to abandon their fishing grounds due to resource depletion and relocate further along the river. Similarly, in the case of the Caspian Sea, some artisanal fishers have abandoned their vessels and have become taxi drivers to provide for their families. Joeri Scholtens of the University of Amsterdam commented that fishers working in the Indian Ocean are subjected to a shrinking space for adaptation, with smaller fisheries being outcompeted by bigger industrial vessels.

Additionally, adaptation practices are influenced and disrupted by evolving border regulations and stricter governmental policies prioritising environmental preservation or industrial activities, such as imposing quotas, fines, and territorial markings. Scholtens demonstrated how the Indian government’s Blue Revolution and Blue Economy policies from 1960 to 2020 squeezed out many of the small fisheries and reinforced the pre-existing vulnerabilities of these groups.

We need to work towards preserving traditional knowledge systems and better understanding and recognising their role in modern adaptation strategies.

All in all, the workshop sparked extensive discussions and highlighted the cultural, economic, and social importance of artisanal fishing. Moreover, it highlighted the significance of fishers’ knowledge in addressing the challenges posed by climate and anthropogenic change. The conversation also discussed the interplay between moral and legal boundaries and associated imaginaries. As Aistara aptly summarised, the future holds manifold uncertainties for artisanal fishing, influenced by climate and economic changes and conditioned by political regimes and internal dynamics.

(1) This case explored the intricate ways that fluid relations binding mobile fishery practices (including women involved in market and land practices) of the Fante on land and sea in a transnational context enable adaptive strategies, challenging conventional understandings of cross-border land and sea-based fishery mobilities.

We would like to thank all participants for their thoughtful and engaging contributions:

Callie Berman (PhDResearcher, Cambridge University);
Cornelie Quist (Sociologist; Member of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers);
Guntra Aistara (Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University);
Ilaha Abasli and Nina Swen (PhD researchers, International Institute of Social Studies);
Joeri Scholtens (Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, University of Amsterdam);
Ingrid Boas and Iddrisu Amadu (respectively Associate Professor and PhD researcher, Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University);
Matteo Lattuada (Post-Doctoral researcher, Technische Universität Braunschweig);
Oane Visser (Associate Professor, International Institute of Social Studies);
Per Knutsson (Senior Lecturer, Director of Center for Sea and Society, University of Gothenburg).
Vitor Renck ( Post-Doctoral researcher, Federal University of São Paulo and Wageningen University); and
Yasmine Ahmed Hafez (PhD researcher, SOAS University of London).

List of presentations:

Abasli, I., N. Swen, N & O. Visser (2023) ‘Climate change in Caspian Sea, small-fisheries and climate adaptation’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Ahmed Hafez, Y. (2023) ‘A lakeview on Nile politics: A socio-environmental analysis of fishing in Lake Victoria and the Egyptian Delta lakes’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Aistara, G. (2023) ‘“The ugly guest who’s come to stay”. Round Goby from foe to food on the Eastern Baltic Coast’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Amadu, I. and I. Boas ( 2023) ‘Fisherfolk navigating west African borderland in the context of changing environments’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Quist, C. (2023). Roundtable Discussion, ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Renck, V. (2023) ‘Varieties of expertise in local communities. Insights from artisanal fishing villages in Brazil’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Scholtens, J. (2023) ‘Blue revolutions, shrinking spaces and adaptation of small- scale fishers in the Indian Ocean Region.’ Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Oane Visser is an associate professor, Political Ecology research group, ISS) studies the role of technology in agrifood and the environment, for instance in precision agriculture, greenhouses and urban agriculture.

Ilaha Abasli is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam). Her research interests include the circular economy in the Global South, especially its social dimension, and fostering sustainability through science-driven and participatory policies.

Nina Swen is a Ph.D. researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Nina’s research focuses on knowledge, technologies, and human-environmental relations in contexts of pollution and extractivism, with a regional focus on the Amazon.

From Content Production to Meaningful Engagement: A Collective Reflection on Communicating Development Research Online

By ISS Blog Bliss 28 March 2024 1295 views

The communications landscape around us is changing — seemingly at breakneck speed. Since our last meeting as EADI Research Communications Working Group more than five years ago, especially the online communications environment has all but been transformed. These changes are forcing us to reflect on how we are communicating and whether it’s sufficient, also from a social justice perspective. The recent workshop for EADI members held in Bonn, Germany, was a moment for us to get together and reflect on recent changes and our responses.

Get with the times or fall behind

As the communications environment changes, we as research communications professionals are changing how we communicate scientific research. Sometimes this change takes place naturally. The recent changes to Twitter (X) — a platform long favoured by (development) researchers and research institutions for keeping vital discussions alive online — is a prime example. What we see now is a call coming from within the research community to find alternatives to a platform that no longer aligns to the mission of researchers and research communications professionals. We are not being forced to abandon Twitter; it is a choice that we make.

Fear the algorithm — it does as it pleases (or does it?)

At other times, we don’t have a choice; we are forced to change our communications strategies to prevent what we’re communicating from going unheard, from not making the impact we want it to, or from being misused. At the workshop, several participants highlighted difficulties they were facing when producing content for social media: the algorithms for platforms such as Instagram and Facebook decide which content is visible — and we don’t always know why. Algorithms all but govern social media, one participant observed.

Another recounted that the organization’s Facebook page was disabled because the word “climate” had been used. The word was considered politically inflammatory. The organization didn’t realize that this had happened until they investigated it, and even then, it took some puzzling to determine that it was that specific word that had triggered the freezing of the account. Something similar happened at another organization that had posted political content on TikTok — the account they used was banned from the platform. In both cases, they later knew what had triggered the ban but not how to prevent it.

At other times, the algorithm suppresses or highlights content seemingly at random. Many of us do not fully understand how this works. What we do know is social media platforms want to keep people on them for as long as possible. For this reason, content with links is suppressed because it takes users to another site. Embedding content on these platforms or on website pages might be one way to circumvent this – but this is not always possible, especially when we link to longer texts that simply cannot be posted on social media.

Too much information

This is linked to the problem of oversaturation: there is a wealth of content that gets posted on social media, meaning that content gets ‘lost’. And if the algorithm sends ‘undesired’ content to the bottom of the pile, the chances are even smaller that the post will be seen. How can we deal with this problem? Perhaps cross-posting on social media can ensure that it reaches more people. Researchers themselves could possibly also play a key role, as their online presence complements that of research communications teams and their voices are preferred over the more ‘generic’ voices of those who do so professionally. How to get researchers to want to communicate their research is discussed in another blog article on the workshop that follows this one.

We still need Twitter — but we don’t want to

Getting back to quitting Twitter, moving away from the platform is not as easy as we would imagine it to be. One participant remarked that they use the platform to reach journalists and that they’d simply fail to do so if they stopped using it. There also is not a strong enough alternative to the platform. Several participants had joined BlueSky but have not yet been able to determine whether the platform is useful or not; not many researchers have joined the platform, either.

And until everyone who’s important for our communications efforts has joined an alternative platform like BlueSky (both researchers and our target audiences) — or enough people to start a new community join it — Twitter will probably remain the dominant platform. A coordinated migration by development research and education institutes to a new platform was suggested as one possible way to make this shift, but the loss of followers that had taken several years to amass was identified as one disadvantage of this suggested strategy. And yet again other platforms such as Threads do not allow political content to be posted, something which several of the organizations wish to do.

LinkedIn is more important than ever

The discussion clearly showed the rise of LinkedIn, which not only performs well but is also becoming preferred by (development) researchers and practitioners alike. While other platforms such as Facebook are also used for personal reasons, LinkedIn is used by professionals to find information they need to do their work, one participant commented. This includes what’s happening in the field — new developments and possibly new partners to collaborate with. LinkedIn Groups are also useful for locating epistemic communities and those researchers and practitioners working on particular subjects or in particular fields. One participant shared how she had spent time on LinkedIn scanning groups to (re)post relevant content in.

Accessibility is key, but the digital divide persists

Accessibility is also becoming increasingly important. Videos are being produced with subtitles for those who cannot access the audio, or for those who watch them while commuting, for example. Other platforms remain less accessible; these include podcasts, which like videos require data to listen to that is expensive in many countries (where there is also limited access to Wi-Fi networks). In such contexts, mainstream media – television, radio, and newspapers – are still seen to play an important role.

Building and nurturing relationships

One of the important lessons we learned at the workshop is that communicating is more than simply producing and disseminating content; it is much more than that. One participant commented — and this struck me — that we need to focus not only on the “media” aspect of social media but also on its “social” aspect. We have a responsibility as research communicators to create and nurture social spaces.

Related to this, another participant commented that communication is about building relationships. From this perspective, we need to focus on enduring engagement that means nurturing the social spaces for dialogue we’ve created. Focusing only on spreading content is not enough.

And, last of all, meaningful engagement should be a key priority that drives our communications strategies so that our messages are not only heard but also heeded.

This blog article was first published here

Image: Taken from the workshop

About the author:

Lize Swartz is an academic blogging specialist, academic editor, and development researcher. She is Editor of Bliss, the blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, where she also conducts PhD research on experiences of and responses to water scarcity in urban contexts.