‘INSTITUTE 20217250 ‘ as an entity is in gestation and its destiny may come about as a rhizomatic entity focused on regenerative homemaking . If it is to be an 'institute' rather than being one in an archaic sense – a commentary, treatise, or summary of principles – it should/could/might be one of the 21st C – a CYBERplace/entity... to do with placedness but not fixed in a place ... a place with infinite entry points.
Place defines culture and culture defines place and what is true of geography is true in CYBERspace
In a 21st C context CYBERspace might well provide the REALestate that might be occupied by a network of networked communities with shared aspirations to promote and sustain scholarship and pedagogy in the context of regenerative homemaking, place, placemaking and placemarking and in turn, the context of developing new and evolving understandings.
Thus it is most likely to be a somewhat 'fungus like' [link] and rhizomatic network of cultural musers researchers and research networks – individuals, institutions, museums, organisations, groups, cultural producers, galleries, publishers, collectors, et al – and one devised to be:
• A vehicle via which place oriented cultural landscaping, scholarship and endeavour can be acknowledged, interrogated, honoured and shared;
• An entity that celebrates and interrogates cultural sensibilities and sensitivities and cultural production in all its diversity and machinations;
• An agency through which research capital, data and understandings can be acquired, built upon and invested in;
• A research network via which the network's cultural and scholastic collateral related to 21st C understandings of 'home, making, culture and placedness' can be exploited, built upon and published to diverse and distinct communities in multidimensional ways;
• A entity through which new and inclusive sensibilities and understandings of cultural and their social realities can be advanced;
• A research collective that facilitates and promotes scholarship and the publication of wide range of peer reviewed research outcomes that includs cultural production, that belong to, and in, diverse cultural realities via monographs, novels, anthologies, essays pamphlets, performances, video, exhibitions, websites, podcasts, etc.
PURPOSE, GOALS & OBJECTIVES
‘INSTITUTE 20217250 ‘(i2021) purpose is to facilitate research, an expansive critical discourses, relevant to more inclusive 21st C understandings and imaginings of regenerative homemaking in 21st C ‘cultural realities’ – and in many voices both harmonious and discordant.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Given that in a broad 21st C context there are evolving paradigms and new confluences that are bringing together desiloed scientific, social and cultural discourses all of which can be variously seen as being at the interface between social innovation, cultural production and social cohesion – the arts, the sciences, technology and industry etc.
The emerging discourses related to 'cultural realities, homemaking and placedness' often find themselves at the cutting edge of social development, cultural change and shifting social imperatives. Against this background, and given i2021 relative ‘newness’, and likewise the acknowledgement of evolutionary change, there are needs for more cohesive networks of researchers, to projected goals and objectives and thus i2021 might well be:
• To engage a network of researchers and cultural producers in multifaceted, multidimensional and multidiscipilined cdiscourses that explore the possibilities of interfacing concepts that define and determine current cultural realities, a sense of place (placedness), in a real world 21st C regenerative context;
• To initiate advocate innovative, sustainable inclusive understandings of ‘cultural realities’ within interdisciplinary discourses and especially so in relation to current and evolving communication technologies, social structures and cultural practice;
• To operate in collaboration, cooperation and alliance with like-minded individuals, institutions and groups and where appropriate under the auspices of one or more established individuals, insitutions and groups that have symbiotic sets of goals and objectives;
• To investigate the ways in which social and cultural realities in regional contexts interface with current technologies, social structures, cultural production and regenorative placemaking – local and international – can;
1. Relate to changing, emerging and new understandings of place;
2. Shape and/or reshape cultural and social realities in a 21st Century regenorative context; and
3. Speak in many voices across and within multiple cultural realities – see nudgebah.
• To be proactive in the initiation of projects that engage researchers and cultural producers – writers, design practitioners et al – with the wider community towards developing new understandings of ‘cultural placedness’ and the interfaces evolving in diverse cultural realities in a 21st C context;
• To facilitate the development of new interactive networks towards the promotion of pioneering technologies, innovative social structures, cultural outcomes and/or community cultural enterprises informed by regenorative sensibilities that define and redefine cultural realities see nudgebah.;
• o be proactive in the publication and dissemination of the outcomes of individual, cooperative and collaborative research and cooperative community enterprises relevant to the institute’s raison d’être;
• To seek funding and in-kind support for scholarship in a broad context plus projects, conferences, symposiums, seminars and education programs that advance the the institute’s raison d’être and vision plus promotes more inclusive understandings of the layered ownerships relative to place.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Against the background of a world that is in the throes of dynamic socio-political change driven by the evolution of innovative technologies and the spectre of global pandemics, regional conflicks and environmental degradation, an entity such as ‘INSTITUTE 20217250 ‘(i2021) should focus upon and be mindful of:
• A need to proactively embrace change while being engaged with researchers and cultural producers of all kinds, and the wider community, in critical discourses that explore the possibilities and parameters of shifting sensitivities, sensibilities and belief systems in the context of new technologies, changing ecologies and regenorative cultural landscaping and homemaking in a real world 21st C context.
• Albeit that many communities and cultural entities are not at a point that might be described as a post-consumerist paradigm, plausibly many are on the cusp of it and thus there is a need to advocate for innovative and sustainable solutions, and more inclusive understandings/imaginings of 'placed regenorative cultural realities', that would fit such circumstances.
• Given the nature of, and the complexity of, the issues that are encompassed by the linked concepts of ‘place, regenorative cultural landscaping and socio-political change’, the most likely path to more inclusive outcomes are likely to be collaborative and cooperative.
• Furthermore, there are many 'corporatised' institutions – universities and museums et al – in place that are able make a contribution to the ‘discourse’ relative to emerging andvregenorative cultural realities albeit in new ways – and with the capacity to engage with groups and the wider community albeit in new ways.
• Rather than add yet another entity it would seem to be more productive to work collaboratively and cooperatively. Given this, it is arguably counterproductive to attempt to create yet another formal organisation with its ‘own’ infrastructure.
• Given the nature of, and the complexity of, the issues that are encompassed by the linked concepts of ‘place, regenorative cultural landscaping and socio-political change’, the most likely path to more inclusive outcomes are likely to be collaborative and cooperative.
• Many mainstream institutions/organisations have been established within a different paradigm to the one of dynamic change that is currently unfolding and doing so globally. Consequently, these 'bodies' may well have a great deal more invested in holding their position – maintaining the status quo – than they may in adapting to, and participating in, 'regenorative change' let alone not being predisposed to being ‘change agents’.
• Speculatively at least, and in a 21st C context, there is a need to be proactive and innovative in developing new understandings and imaginings of place, cultural diversity and sustainablity in cultural landscaping.
• What is understood to constitute relevant research, viable social networks and relevant cultural production in the context of current, and emerging, cultural and social realities is likely to be best determined collaboratively and cooperatively via rhizomatic networking - networks of networks.
• In a 21st C context it is clear that what has been understood as the status quo is no longer an ongoing and sustainable option. As was the case in the context of the Industrial Revolution where the concept of the ‘division of labour’ came to the fore and that later evolved into business concepts such as ‘vertical integration’ . These things delivered outcomes that otherwise would not have been realisable. Regenorative paradigms andv sustainable resource recovery likewise offer new ways as populations grow and virgin resources becomebincreasinglyb scarse.
• Against a background where 'corporate cum bureaucratic ownerships' have evolved and in ways that typically, and increasingly, this has excluded many 'cognitive owners of place' from having a say in the ways 'their places' – places with shared and layered ownerships attached to them – are understood and managed. This is so despite the protagonists of this 'status quo ownership paradigm' is operating under the guise of 'democracy'.
• Furthermore, as time passes new information technologies deliver innovative networking opportunities – social networks, cultural networking, financial networks etc. – towards realising sustainable and inclusive outcomes within a ‘global’ context.
Arguably, there is now a changed paradigm within which place, cultural realities and regenerative homemaking can be reimagined and regenorative cultural landscaping can be embraced.
• The key element in the effective dissemination of ideas is their publication. Until relatively recently ‘publishers’ were the gatekeepers (power brokers?), the keepers and self assessed curators of ‘knowledge and knowledge systems’ that helped keep the control that was exercised over the flow of information and its distribution – and at times the propagation of ideas.This has changed and the players in regenorative sustainable homemaking are key innovators are diverse and no longer operating exclusively within formal research facilities and institutions.
• Exclusive resarch facilities ceased to be a viable imagining from the late 20th C. The interfaces between the information economy and the digital economy allow individuals, groups and institutions to be more autonomous and proactive in the publication of and the decemination of ideas – thus circumventing the gatekeepers. Importantly, publication can take a greater range of interfacing formats ... print media, electronic media, digital media, exhibitions and dynamic interfaces between them – that can be initiated autonomously in ways that are not constrained by external gatekeeping and curatorship. Nonetheless, there are new and expanding roles for formsl research institutions wininn ne mindsets.
• It is important in regard to generating critical discourses around contested and contentious ideas. that blind peer reviewing tests emerging concepts and ideas. In the 21st Century the old saying ”publish or perish” has a new resonance albeit somewhat removed from exclusivity of academe’s cloisters. Indeed, all this is an indicator that at least at a subliminal level new understandings of 'ownership' are being embraced and tested – sometimes asserted.
• Notwithstanding the notion that an institute of the kind speculated upon here seeks to collaborate with kindred and networked individuals, groups, organisations and institutions, it needs to be acknowledged that it will be making demands, many times unplanned for demands, on their budgets, infrastructure and other resources. Consequently, there will be a need to seek funding and sponsorship support for the projects initiated as a part of these collaborations. Given that there are mutual benefits to the collaborators, and very often the sponsors as well, it can be assumed, and with some safety, that funding agencies and sponsors who see advantages in supporting one collaborator will also see enhanced opportunities in supporting collaborative projects. Interestingly here, Wikipedea serves as a workable model for 'changed paradigm thinking'.
STRATEGIES
Given the background and guiding principles against which the ‘INSTITUTE 20217250 ‘ has been framed, it is anticipated that its goals and objectives may be realised:
• By capitalising upon the established networks’ memberships and other relationships relevant to key participating collaborators. And in doing so:
- Devise projects and programs – research, advocacy and other – that engage with a diversity of community social networks;
- Generate pilot projects and 'Proof of Concept' installations that demonstsate the regenorative homemaking opportunities ;
- Develop publication platforms to promote outcomes.
• Proactively establish the entity ‘INSTITUTE 20217250 ‘ to enable it to pursue collaborative and action research exploration of past and current understandings relevant to social cum cultural realities linked to regenorative homemaking in cultural PLACEscapes. While doing these things – and in a real world 21st Century context – play an advocacy role for a broad spectrum of research networks and cultural producers engaged with the interrogation of:
- Emerging cultural realities;
- Cultural production and cultural landscaping;
- Placedness, regenorative homemaking, cultutral lanmdscaping and placemaking.
• Establish an alliance of collaborative researchers – individuals, teams and networks – under the auspices of one or more established groups, organisations or institutions that have symbiotic sets of goals and objectives to those of the institute. By doing so, the coalition – and the teams/networks collectively – will be better placed to investigate the ways in which research, cultural production and emerging technologies can contribute to changing imperatives and shifting understandings within 21st Century cultural, social and economic realities.
• Using the ‘INSTITUTE 20217250' linkages, it is anticipated that it will be possible to initiate various projects devised to engage with a diverse network of researchers and cultural producers. Consistent with this, and using the networked resources of community and institution based researchers, the diversity and cultural producers as well as the network’s access to infrastructure – display spaces, meeting places, publication platforms and infrastructures, social media, etc. – develop dynamically interactive, projects and programs - conferences, forums etc.
• Fund and/or seek funding in collaboration with network members for infrastructure and facilities within the institute’s network that enhances or complements existing infrastructures and that enables the development of projects and programs in support of the institute’s raison d’être. Likewise, where appropriate, seek funding and sponsorships – cash and in-kind – for new infrastructure initiatives in collaboration/cooperation with network members.
• Establish a ‘publication network’ – hardcopy and digital – for the publication of the outcomes of individual, cooperative and collaborative research relevant to the institute’s raison d’être. Primarily publications could be directed towards disseminating information about, developments tin te field and the outcomes of, projects, conferences, symposiums and seminars that advance the institute’s cause.
• Establish a curated virtual research collection and library network facilitated by websites et al that identifies 'place oriented' cultural production focused on regenorative homemaking in public and private collections, and/or in daily use in public and private situations.Do so in ways that demonstrate the cultural and social realities and histories linked to placescapes, placemaking and cultural landscapes.
• Facilitate the awarding of scholarships, residencies and fellowships that advance the study of regenorative homemaking that is regionally relevant and/or research focused upon the layered ownerships to be found in, and defined by 'place'. These opportunities will be facilitated via the institute's network and ideally complemented by funding opportunities from other sources – private, corporate, institutional, national, international.
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