Project description
Bridging the digital divide to empower green grassroots movements
In the fight for environmental justice and the preservation of biocultural diversity, the digital divide poses a significant threat. This divide risks excluding grassroots movements from the transformative power of digitalisation, hindering their ability to advocate for their causes effectively. While elite-driven digital innovations redefine lifestyles and futures, a stark debate persists in political ecology and environmental justice circles regarding the potential of technology to empower these movements. In this context, the ERC-funded DIVERSE project challenges conventional wisdom by exploring the intersection of digitalisation and grassroots activism. Specifically, through qualitative data collection, quantitative analysis and innovative indices, DIVERSE seeks to theorise an alternative model rooted in care, community and personal connection.
Objective
Does the digital divide deprive movements for environmental justice (EJ) and in defence of biocultural diversity from the benefits of digitalisation? DIVERSE’s hypotheses resist the idea. From drone monitoring of forests to indigenous digital media and online mapping to vindicate stories of resistance and transformation, a digital transformation from the ground up may not only be paving the way for just and diverse futures but also for an alternative understanding of digitalisation. Yet no large-scale scientific study has examined the occurrence of digitalisation in grassroots transformative initiatives (GTI) nor theorised its effects. While elite-and growth-driven digital innovations are redefining lifestyles and overall imaginaries of the future, a strong debate in the fields of political ecology and EJ involves two confronted views (celebratory vs technophobic) on the likelihood of enfranchising technologies. DIVERSE’s overarching goal is to theorise an alternative model of digital transformation rooted in relationality (care, community, personal connection) that emerges from GTI in their pursuit of diverse worlds and EJ. The ground-breaking approach combines qualitative data (from expert interviews and databases compilation worldwide, to case-studies and biographical interviews across continents) with quantitative methods and models to analyse these data (e.g. two newly created indices, transformative effectiveness and GTI digitalisation, and a first global compilation of digital practices in GTI), offering both an understanding of causal chains and a basis for generalisation. DIVERSE proposes the new concepts of “life-centred digitalisation” including both livelihoods and ecology, and “situated digital leadership”, disclosing the specific links of digitalisation with changes in material experiences, situated knowledge and place-based digital ecologies. My ultimate goal in terms of theory is to lay out the foundations of a political ecology of digitalisation.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecology
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringroboticsautonomous robotsdrones
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil society
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
08002 Barcelona
Spain