On gaps

What leads a person to do something different, to be creative?  It is said that design begins with a gap in the user’s experience (Ulrich 2011).  However, we might note that a person only experiences as a gap something they experience as a gap.  (The “objective” gap that a third party could point to is not necessarily a gap “subjectively” for the person.)  Moreover, if the experience of a gap is not accompanied by a sense that something can be designed and used to bridge the gap, then it can slip out of the person’s day-to-day attention.

The schema to follow allows us to think about two kinds of gaps together.  On the vertical direction, a proposal to represent the way things are (knowledge) or to manipulate them (technology) may entail social arrangements that do not currently exist.  For example, in a 1979 study I co-authored (Ferguson et. al 1979), restoration of soil degraded by salinity in south-east Australia could have happened by flushing out the soil with irrigation water, which was the current practice, or by ion-exchange in mixtures of gypsum and organic compost.  At that time, there was no separation of garbage into components, municipal composting of organic waste, or transport of such compost back to agricultural areas.  On this last item, there still is not, but it is clear that the ensuing years have made the counter-factual social arrangements around gypsum-compost approach more realizable.  The vertical gap, once large, has been reduced.   Yet—and this is the horizontal direction—a constituency would still have to be built to support the piloting and establishment of such an approach.  In the process of doing so, the approach might get adjusted so that more people can become invested in it.  Perhaps it would involve fewer or less profound counter-factual social arrangements.

In this last spirit, the schema is not meant as a static map of approaches, but as a place to chart trajectories.  Suppose, for example, that someone invents a touchscreen cell phone, relying on existing cell-phone networks to make calls.  We might position that innovation near the bottom left and notice the early adopters who just have to have one of the new devices whatever the price.  Soon, however, software developers create apps that allow for parents to keep track of their teenagers’ whereabouts, to run GPS instead of carrying maps, to take photos during surgery, and so on.  The innovation is now moving on a trajectory to the right and a little upwards as more people’s concerns are addressed by the innovation.  Eventually, the rise upwards leads to a dip downwards as the new social arrangements become the norm.

Suppose, as another example, we position Schweickart’s detailed (2002/2011) account of Economic Democracy as an alternative to capitalism.  Readers might find the account compelling but see no opportunities to build a social movement to support the transition to such a system.  If the ideal is positioned at the top left, the path to “cross the chasm” and bring more people into the project may well involved a steep drop from the ideal until what is left seems more immediately relevant to their concerns here and now.  Alternatively, a firm Schweickartarian may acknowledge the depth of the counterfactual arrangements entailed, but insist on pushing the trajectory however slowly to the right without watering it down.  Of course, the speed of moving to the right—of building a constituency for Schweickart’s Economic Democracy—may speed up as unfolding economic, political, and environmental crises hit capitalism, leading more people to  the gap in the vertical direction and contribute to bridging the gap in the horizontal, constituency-building direction.

The two directions in this schema match the perspectives on Action Research described by Taylor and Szteiter (2012), for which the schemas at http://www.faculty.umb.edu/pjt/ARcycling2.html provide an entry point.

References

Ferguson, J., A. Smith and P. Taylor (1979). “Economic aspects of the use of water resources in the Kerang Region” Technical Paper no. 11 of the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (I.A.E.S.R.). (Second report to the Ministry of Water Resources, Victoria).

Schweickart, D. (2011)  After Capitalism, 2nd edition.  Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Taylor, P. and J. Szteiter (2012) Taking Yourself Seriously: Processes of Research and Engagement Arlington, MA, The Pumping Station

Ulrich, K. T. (2011)  Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~ulrich/designbook.html