Growing Tiny Publics

Abstract

Drawing from fieldwork of 13 small food farms in the Midwestern U.S., we describe the on-the-ground, practical challenges of doing and communicating sustainability when local food production is not well-supported. We illustrate how farmers enact learned and honed tactics of sustainability at key sites such as farmers' markets and the Internet with consumers. These tactics reveal tensions with dominant discourse from government, Big Ag, and popular culture. The success of these tactics depends on farmers having fortitude-control, resilience, and the wherewithal to be exemplars of sustainability. In our discussion, we highlight how the local farmers' social movement work constitutes loosely organized small groups connecting others to an amorphous idea of a sustainable society-one that sustains an environmental, economic, local, cultural, and physical way of life. Using Fine's concept of tiny publics, we identify design opportunities for supporting this less directed kind of social movement.CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Computer supported cooperative work;

Implications of Grassroots Sustainable Agriculture Community Values on the Design of Information Systems

“…For example, small-scale organic farming families uniquely merge their work and home life, yielding unique values for technological support including supporting the natural rhythms of family life, unmediated face-to-face interaction, being outside, and a person's ability to multi-class in their roles [44]. For another example, a collection of small mid-western farmers working to form a local food network had a value set characterized by balance require information systems that support selective transparency, socialization of newcomers with seasoned farmers, and the equity of disadvantaged newcomers [82].…”

“…Sustainable polycultures are designed to come into maximum effect decades after they are planted because the public is attempting to address issues both in the present, but also issues they anticipate occurring in the long-term. However, the participating communities are better characterized as tiny publics, which Steup et al describe as small groups for civic engagement that focus on everyday life as the medium for social change [82].…”

“…For example, the organic food community Bødker et al [10] researched also have local sustainable food production, community collaboration, and knowledge sharing. The small farmers associated with a local food movement from Steup et al 's research [82] demonstrated values towards a professional and appealing reputation, particularly in their selective transparency not to show the hardships of small local farming. There was a similar sentiment among the permaculture communities to present themselves and information in an appealing light, which they dubbed "making permaculture sexy."…”

Feeding the World with Data

“…This is a problem in HCI proper [22], but it is particularly problematic for the study of food systems, in which rural actors inevitably play key roles. A few studies have looked at the technology needs and practices of rural farms in Global North [49,27] and Global South [28,38] countries. However, there has been less attention paid to commercially available data-driven farming tools, many of which target rural spaces.…”

“…By positioning themselves as technology and design experts, startups have the potential to reconfigure-for better or for worsethe livelihoods of farmers. Our interest in this phenomenon arose from our ethnographic fieldwork with small farmers in the U.S. [49]. In our interviews, we repeatedly encountered the perception that "technology" was only relevant for large, industrial farms: big farms are high-tech, small farms are lowtech.…”