Co-participation

Co-participation

Does SmartBarrow provide opportunities for active participation in the system, which may result in the production of social capital?

The system is designed with a focus on user generated content and differing levels of entry by all user groups. This is based on the philosophy of Etienne Wenger in Cultivating Communities of Practice that in order to cultivate a community of practice, the system must allow for differing levels of participation (Wenger 2002).  This tactic has been applied to the participation within all levels of the system.

• Provenance

Each signed up farmer has a profile on the website they can update, when needed and link to their own website and social networking sites. This system allows them to direct their customers to this information through the QR tag and therefore. Some Farmers we spoke to mentioned that they saw “blogging, tweeting, telling stories” as an essential part of their marketing process similar to “day-to-day contact with local consumers, previous generations of farmers had, had when selling milk door-to-door or running their own vegetable stall.

• Collaboration

There are also different entry levels for participation by consumers:
For example

1. a low level participation in the system is the purchase of local food and making a profile on the website
2. a medium level of participation would be volunteering for the co-operative, helping a farmer pick potatoes or contributing information to the website
3. a higher level of participation is possible through providing expertise and knowledge to the system, for example building/modifying hard/software and through volunteering for less skilled tasks

Through providing differing levels of co-participation the system has the potential to cultivate a community of practice. One of the possible outcomes of a community of practice is seen by Wenger as social capital. Therefore the co-participation in the system is essential to developing community cohesion and supporting the system.