Course:IGS585/OK2020WT2/GuestGordLovegrove

Gord Lovegrove - UBC Okanagan Faculty of Applied Science

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	Reflection Authors and Commenters
Author	Ian Chambers	Ayla de Grandpre	Adam Kunis	Joshua Ayer	Luis Cadavid	Janna Wale
Commenter	Janna Wale	Joshua Ayer	Luis Cadavid	Adam Kunis	Ian Chambers	Ayla de Grandpre

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Ayla De Grandpre As I reflect on the notes I took during Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation, I believe the topic that intrigued me the most was the discussion on community – specifically, what makes a community and a sense of community. Before this presentation, I might have defined community through the lens of my geographic epistemic background, as a shared sense of place and social, cultural and/or spiritual identity. While this might be true, the discussion regarding this topic deepened my understanding of both the more abstract components of community. For example, we discussed how community can be interpreted as a concrete place or geographical location, but also how it relates to, as Janna reminded us with the example of her community, a way of organizing and relating amongst ourselves, as well as shared lived experiences (good or ill). I now believe that a sense of community is built upon a shared sense of and attachment to a particular place as well as access to and ability to mobilize social capital (e.g. close relationships, trust, shared identity or cooperation). Part of what I found to be valuable about Dr. Lovegrove's presentation was the way that he used boundary objects, such as community, which mean different things to different people in different disciplines, to create a rich and interdisciplinary discussion that transcends the kinds of siloed knowledge production that I have encountered in the literature. He invited each of us to comment on a topic (community) that we were all familiar with, but perhaps held different perspectives on, informed by different worldviews, perspectives and disciplinary knowledge. I was struck by the contrast between what I have read in the literature about community and the direction that the class discussion took. While our discussion focused heavily upon the social aspects of community, most of the academic papers that I read (usually relating to the topic of climate change) emphasize the physical characteristics of a community (such as the landscape and it's processes that affect humans - ie. erosion or flood). I believe that the idea of community is a good example of a complex system, as defined by Dr. Parrott in the presentation just before Dr. Lovegrove's. Therefore, I believe that we employ not only reductionistic thinking but also a holistic perspective. When assessing the sustainability and resilience of communities, like Keremeos, I feel that we need to consider not only the physical and more tangible aspects of the community, but also the less visible aspects, such as social capital, that are integral to the system but often forgotten or ignored (largely due to the difficulty of quantifying them, I do believe). There is literature suggesting that social cohesion is one of the most important determining factors in community resilience, therefore, I think it should not be overlooked. I plan to make use of what I learned in this presentation in the term project by exploring the community identity of Keremeos. The research questions I intend to ask are: what binds the people and the place together? Are there any characteristics that make this place unique physically and socially? Is there a sense of community – and if so, what is it based on? And finally, is this sense of community changing and how? Joshua Ayer I think what you draw attention to is something really fantastic about Dr Lovegrove’s presentation in that he managed to make his presentation truly collaborative and in doing so launched us into unexpected definitions of concepts we were otherwise familiar with.  To this extent I also found myself thinking about community in new ways.  You bring up the interdisciplinary nature of Dr Lovegrove’s presentation and the “boundary objects” he addressed, I also think this was a really impactful part of his presentation. Knowing about his background as an engineer, I confess I was expecting a more design and tool focused presentation but instead got this really fantastic blending of multi-disciplinary reflections that, I agree, pulled all of our perspectives together in a mutually benefitting way.  The questions that you are asking at the end of your reflection are great, as is your emphasis on the role of social capital in a community’s resilience.  The more that we meet and discuss these themes in class, the more I think that a strong social capital substantially determinates a community’s resiliency.  Relating this to Keremeos, the question of what sort of social cohesion exists there is provocative given the unusual nature of its demographics. I agree that this is something crucial to understanding about Keremeos, though as you note, it is also difficult to gauge because it is ‘less visible.’ I wonder how accurately we can construct the community’s characteristics from documents, or whether this is something that we will ultimately have to rely on the guest speakers for.

Janna Wale Reflecting on Dr.Gordon Lovegrove’s talk, while relational thinking is not necessarily new for me, I enjoyed the focused discussion we were able to participate in centred around the idea of  community. The part that really stands out in my mind and what I have been reflecting on for the past few days is the discussion we had about cohesion and relationships. These two variables are impacted by distance, traumatic or positive shared events, or even geographic location and country of origin, which is something that I have not really explored before given that most of my research and life experience is within Canada. Before having this discussion, I understood smaller communities to have similar levels of community cohesion and interrelationship, but was reminded by Luis that culture and country of origin also have a role to play in the degree of closeness or connectivity of a community. From this, this discussion has furthered my thinking as it relates to community identity, and how difficult (though meaningful) these aspects will be to factor into a resilience assessment. Having interdisciplinarity creates a more holistic understanding of subject material by having a range of opinions, skills, and lived experiences. This discussion highlighted different ways to approach an idea, and how we were able to have a productive discussion in light of our different backgrounds. An example of this is having different definitions of the “term” community, and remembering that community is not necessarily bound in physical space. By having these different views and understandings of the questions at hand, the discussion was enriched. Since community cohesion was generally agreed upon to be related to resilience, thinking more regionally or “place-based” in our analysis of communities would serve to strengthen our understanding of how the community functions as a system From my perspective and in Gitxsan culture, there is no separation between the human and natural world. This is reinforced by a strong sense of self in relation to the environment and in relation the rest of the community as a Gitxsan person. We take care of the land and each other, who in turn take care of us. Similarly, the Syilx consider themselves as part of the land. With respect to Keremeos, Dr. Lovegrove’s discussion reinforced in me the necessity of including these social aspects, such as community cohesion and relationship, in our assessment of community resilience in the context of BC. By having these strong connections, communities are uniquely positioned to be considered as valuable knowledge sources when speaking about community resilience, which is something in my experience that is often overlooked in literature. Understanding this more firmly after attending Dr.Lovegrove’s discussion, our term project assessment of Keremeos will most certainly include aspects of community cohesion and relationship, which will make for a stronger and more holistic community assessment. Ayla De Grandpre Janna, I resonated a lot with your comment – especially the way that you reflected upon the differences between your own community and Luis’. This was a really valuable learning moment for me as well. As someone who grew up in a few small communities around BC, as I had made the same assumption as you, that the majority of small communities have a similar sense of being “tightly-knit”. I agree with you in that think that these kinds of contradictions (e.g. the small-town without a sense of community) that challenge our worldview and experiences are an important part of interdisciplinary knowledge formation, and at a more basic level, our growth as tolerant human beings that do not assume that we can superimpose our lived experiences onto another context. Lastly, I really resonated with what you wrote regarding the connection of the land and the humans through an Indigenous lens. Though I did not grow up in community and lack a lot of knowledge, my grandma was Abenaki and I have been called to try and understand the perspectives of traditional Indigenous Knowledge. It’s been a gift to hear your perspectives so far, and I feel closer to understanding how Indigenous knowledge might be able to help us understand how to reverse the schism that we’ve created between humans and nature.

Adam Kunis Reflecting on Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation, I find it very hard to pick out specific facts that resonated with me; rather, Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation elicited emotional feelings of humility and self-consciousness as we evaluated what it means to trust and be a community. The first thing I found interesting about this presentation was the style of which Dr. Lovegrove took to share his perspective. The free-form nature of his presentation caught me off-guard due to my preconceived notions regarding engineers. While we did take an analytical approach in addressing his questions and the scrambled notes reminded me of other engineers I had previously worked with, the inclusivity that Dr. Lovegrove showed a class of strangers was inspiring. I could tell immediately that he truly believed in the power of his presentation material and that he had genuine curiosity regarding our input and insight. One of the major take-aways from Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation was that an engineer’s primary responsibility is to the environment and society. Dr. Lovegrove’s conviction in this statement made me wonder why more disciplines do not follow similar principles. As someone who originated from a business marketing and economics background, this concept is often dismissed. Even in academia I have seen people prioritizing the need to publish or to gain data at the expense of the communities and environments that they are working with. While not all engineers may follow this to the degree of Dr. Lovegrove, I believe that if every disciplined internalized the morality behind this statement that significant positive change would come about in the world. Regardless of discipline, to bring about positive change it requires communication and collaboration between trusted knowledge sources. The exercise where we broke down the traditional forms of trusted knowledge was interesting as it demonstrated the siloed nature that has come to accompany forms of knowledge. Primary experience, indigeneity, institutions, and science came about as the primary trusted knowledge sources, but Dr. Lovegrove did an excellent job at explaining that it is also important to understand that trust is relative. While historically indigenous knowledge has ‘beared the brunt’ as trusted knowledge, we are now seeing, particularly in the United States, a distrust in institutional and scientific knowledge. The discussion highlighted the importance of knowing where your audience or customer is coming from so that you can provide them with the relative knowledge that will lead to collaboration or project approval. In doing so, I believe it is important to remember Dr. Lovegrove’s primary responsibilities to the environment and society as “Greed, in the end, fails even the greedy” (Cathryn Louis).   While Dr. Parrot’s presentation highlighted the importance of our relationship with the environment, Dr. Lovegrove highlighted the importance of our relationship with the community. I believe that his advice of using trusted knowledge sources, communicating the value of innovation through relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability, and the importance of transparency will be instrumental in our course work with Keremeos. As a small city that is concerned about the repercussion from an influx of foreign amenity migrants, our first goal (as foreigners) should be to lay a foundation of trust as outlined by Dr. Lovegrove. Luis Cadavid Adam, I also found the presentation style was unique and refreshing. I hate to admit it but it did make me pay more attention as it was way more dynamic. My discipline in management does not do it either, it tends to be more about profit, sometimes regardless of the cost. I agree, sometimes the push to publish comes at the cost of the environment around them. At my old university some of my friends used to say “publish or die” that is the exemplification of the push to do that at any cost. I completely agree with what you say about Dr. Lovegrove doing a good job explaining trust and how it is done in different places. It gave us some great tools to embark in the Keremeos project.

Joshua Ayer There was a lot I appreciated about Dr Lovegrove’s presentation, including his concern for ‘trusted voices,’ the importance of communities and relationships, and trusted tools versus ‘black boxes.’ Upon reflecting though, the key idea I absorbed from Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation is that the correct solution to a problem is as community and location dependent as the problem. There is no one size fits all solution to sustainability no matter how innovative or perfect the tool would be because the context that tool is inserted into for use determines the way it will be perceived, handled, used, etc. For instance, I would posit a technology that Dr. Lovegrove is ‘on record’ a tremendous supporter of: hydrail. Here is a technology that is efficient, sustainable, and could unite the smaller towns of the Okanagan with bigger towns and cities like Penticton and Kelowna, but its feasibility faces legitimate obstacles. The hydrail is a ‘perfect tool’ in many senses, I imagine particularly from an engineering perspective, but it faces several hindrances and though some of these are economic (it is a very expensive project to commit to) I believe the real barriers are informational, social, and political barriers. Afterall, communities often spend millions of dollars developing, why not develop something new like a hydrail? Perhaps because it is a ‘black box.’ Millions of dollars are spent on projects that do not make sense from an efficiency perspective or a sustainability perspective, but the money gets spent because those projects ‘make sense’ within the community’s discourse. Widening the highway, rather than building a miracle train makes more sense, because expanding the highway is something already in the public toolkit. One of the tensions Dr. Lovegrove identified early in his presentation was between the desire to foster more sustainable living, but also the desire to give people what they want. I thought this point really got at the interdisciplinary overlap: that you could have the right tool in one sense, but the wrong tool in a political sense. You can have the perfect solution to a community’s sustainability problems (either on a small scale or large scale), but who will vouch for it? One way I understood Dr. Lovegrove’s questions at the start regarding trusted voices was as referring to this side of the problem: you have the idea, the concept, but now who are the trusted voices in communities that will make it work? It has also made me reflect on the potential of every community to respond to their environments creatively and innovatively in constructive ways. How, as students, do we come alongside and reinforce those innovative potentials already present in a community like Keremeos? How do we advise strategies that not only work abstractly, but also fit into the niches of the communities we are talking to? The challenge is not just to find trust-worthy tools or policies whose techniques can be taught and explained, but also find tools that work discursively with the community’s goals and characteristics. Adam Kunis Josh, I appreciated your attention and reflection on the concept of black boxes. It reminds me that we have to be critical of the situational events faced by a community when reflecting on the past, as hindsight is 20/20. I think you touched on some really interesting concepts such as,' it is much easier to do as we have always don'e. As you relate this back to scale, I'm curious as to how the scale of the community impacts risk perception. I'd imagine a larger scale city has a higher risk tolerance as they have a greater capacity for funding and absorbing failure. However, if a trusted voice in a small community works to unite opinions, I believe that risk exposure could potentially be reduced through communal cooperation and coordination not along among the community, but also with those that they trust as external sources of knowledge. I think developing this alignment would help make sure the tool as you describe it works for both policy and the community.

Luis Cadavid Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation was one that brought a lot of emotions. His reflection on a community brought back good and bad things to mind. The first is the daily struggle my company and I face with individual members of an identity-less community. Challenges that force us to navigate what is expected from us in a society where companies are expected to provide things for the community. In other words, they are expected to act patrons, just like in the old colonial days. Dr. Lovegrove led me to reflect on why the community works a certain way in times of peace. Why people might not like being there and are immigrating to larger urban centers. We have faced the challenge when trying to bring more sustainable practices mainly around water and health and how they have all failed because of lack of support by trusted voices. Many initiatives that benefit the community have fallen through in this specific community and many others because there was no coalition of support by local members. The second is the anger and joy of October 2019. When the violent indigenous protests took hostage, some of my family members and co-workers, this indigenous group from another community, came by force and took over certain regions and for a couple of hours deprived people close to me of their liberty. The same community that we struggle with every day kept them safe and eventually secured their release and secured safe passage back to our installations. This showed me how when things got hard, the community got together based on a geographic boundary and acted in their best interest. They came around key members who they saw as trusted voices in the community and protected their own. Shortly after this incident, the community closed its borders with physical boundaries such as barriers and large tree trunks. It remained more peaceful, focusing on their own internal needs and not the general forced protest lead by some indigenous leaders. Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation has left a lot to think about in terms of community and relations. Ian Chambers I can only imagine how difficult it must be to function in what you call an identity-less community, both as an individual and a corporation. It must be incredibly frustrating trying to navigate that landscape and get initiatives through such as the practices around water and health that you mentioned. In any community support is necessary for change and not being able to connect with other members of the community would undoubtedly be a large hurdle to overcome. I wonder how a sense of community could be developed here. Although you refer to the community as identity-less, reading your experience in October of 2019 makes me think there is some very basic sense of community. They were able to put their differences aside and work together to secure the return of your loved ones and colleagues. Dr. Lovegrove mentioned the difference between needs and wants in his presentation, and I think individual liberty is one of the most basic needs. Clearly your community recognized that as evident in the actions in October 2019. Perhaps meeting basic individual needs such as food, shelter water and liberty are the foundation upon which a sense of community can be built.

Ian Chambers I was really struck by Dr. Lovegrove’s commitment to the principles of his professional field laid out in the engineering oath. As the son of two engineer’s, I have heard many discussions regarding this oath, and the principles engineers must uphold within their work. However, before Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation I did not know that this oath included a commitment to the environment. Hearing Dr. Lovegrove say “to serve humanity by making the best use of earth’s precious wealth” really resonated with me. This oath seems to indicate that the earth’s resources are in fact limited, and that to best serve humanity these resources should be treated as precious and used carefully and wisely. This really resonated with me because I know many engineers hold a strong conviction to this oath, however this environmental aspect often seems to be forgotten. Hearing Dr. Lovegrove’s passion and commitment to the entirety of this oath was inspiring. I also really connected with Dr. Lovegrove’s discussion regarding community. Perhaps given current global circumstances regarding coronavirus and the vast social changes that we have undertaken to prevent the spread of this virus have caused me to lose sight of what it means to be a part of a community. Dr. Lovegrove’s discussion reminded me of the many aspects of community I have taken for granted, especially over the last year. One of the aspects of community that Dr. Lovegrove discussed was trust, trust in your community, and in those that hold power in the community such as policy makers. Dr. Lovegrove tied into this discussion a segment about wants versus needs, stating that often those in power favour providing the community with what they want rather than what they need. I found this statement especially suitable to our collective response to the coronavirus situation. Relating this back to the environmental aspect of the engineering oath, I question whether providing communities with what they want over what they need is the “best use of earth’s precious wealth.”. The message of Dr. Lovegrove’s presentation, cultural change for sustainability, I also really connected with. It appears to me that our idea of community is rather anthropocentric, only including the environment in ways that it serves humanity. Perhaps expanding our sense of community beyond only the human aspect to include the environment would be beneficial. Where meeting the needs of the community, both human and environmental, takes priority over our wants. Unfortunately, cultural change is a slow process and not an easy feat, however Dr. Lovegrove’s passion and commitment inspire me to stick to my convictions to help foster this change. Janna Wale Ian, Like you (though I am not the daughter of engineers) I was struck by the engineering oath. Not knowing about the existence of the engineering oath, I was also surprised to hear that it included a commitment to the environment. I also really resonate with your discussion on being a part of a community and how that feels very distant in the midst of the global pandemic. It is very difficult to feel a part of anything right now, and I appreciated your acknowledgement of that. Finally, I agree with your assessment of our use of the environment as anthropocentric - using it as it serves us. While this is not something that exists in my worldview, your articulation of this idea of using the earth is entrenched and perpetuated within our education system - my undergrad was focused entirely on the extractive potential of our resources. I agree that Dr. Lovegrove helped me to feel a little less hopeless, as there are passionate and committed people in all disciplines who are seeking real change.

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