Why do we collaborate?

Paula Saldaña Fernandez

REAP-Resource Efficiency in Architecture and Planning
paulasaldanafernandez@gmail.com
Matrikel-Nr. 6016093

HafenCity University
Sommersemester 2013

[Q]uerblicke: Engagement
Prof. Dr. Regula Valérie Burri.

15.08.2013

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

□ ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY ................................................................................................... 3

□ ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................................... 3

□ INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................ 4

□ FROM COMMUNITY GARDENS TO THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE ................................................... 5

I. ECOLUTIONARY GARDENERS ............................................................................................................................ 5

II. HOPE GROWS OUT OF RAGE ............................................................................................................................. 6

□ ONLINE-GLOBAL COMMUNITIES .............................................................................................................. 8

I. TECHNOLOGY AT THE SERVICE OF THE COMMUNITY ....................................................................................... 8

□ CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................. 10

□ REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................................. 11

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□ Abbreviations and Terminology

CSO Civil Society Organization: of citizens, for citizens.

Collaboration The act of working with another or others on a joint project

Minga From Quechua: minkʼa, is an ancient tradition of community or

collective work in favour of the community.

NGO Non-governmental Organization. The term normally refers to

organizations that are not a part of a government and are not
conventional for-profit businesses.

NPO Non-for-profit Organization. Charitable missions like Amnesty

International, Oxfam and UNESCO.

□ Abstract

Why do we collaborate? Why is it that more and more people agree to share time,
effort and money in order to help a total stranger in organized associations, social
platforms and non-governmental-organizations without any form of monetary
compensation? Is this growing trend, so well supported by the current technologies, a
response to failed governments that do not provide the opportunity and solution for
individuals to fulfil their needs and aspirations? Is it a direct response to failed
economic models? Do most people all over the world actually need the support and
help from others in order to survive? This paper examines the possible motivations of
people who engage in an act of collaboration for the well being of others. It also gives
a brief overview and example of how different types of actions can evolve into global
and pluralistic actions among groups from different backgrounds, cultures and
geographic locations.

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□ Introduction

Many psychologists have often studied what motivates and generates philanthropic
behaviour. Scholars have created several types of experiments to examine why some
people are more willing to collaborate than others and what kind of actions may
trigger the will to do something for others. In an article for the Psychological Science
in the Public Interest, Dr. Carsten K. W. De Drew from the Cognitive Science Center
Amsterdam at the University of Amsterdam stated:

“… Four decades of research and scholarly inquiry across the social and
behavioural sciences has created a nuanced picture of human
cooperation, revealing when and why it emerges and breaks down. These
works teach us that cooperation is malleable and contingent upon a broad
range of traits and states that interact, sometimes in complex fashion.”

De Drew pays special attention to the work of Craig D. Parks, Jeff Joireman and Paul
A. M. Van Lange who wrote: Cooperation, Trust, and Antagonism: How public goods
are promoted. This article explains how in a series of experiments people reacted
were more inclined to collaborate if they reflected upon what was given to them in
contrast with people who were asked to reflect upon what they gave.

On another take, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Elinor Ostrom studied the theory of
common-pool resources and collective self-governance and in her article A
behavioural approach to the rational choice theory of collective action, she explained
how our ancestors undertook “collective action to solve social dilemmas” (Ostrom,
1998). The article stresses the need to teach young generations that problems or
“social dilemmas” may not only be solved by authorities or leaders, much can be
solved by individuals with more trust in one another. There is value in the sense of
empowering a person to take of control of his or her environment and dr. Ostrom
ends her article by saying that: “it is ordinary persons and citizens who craft and
sustain workability of the institutions of everyday life.”

De Drew also says that cooperation is not an inherent human conduct and
unexploited cooperation leads to “ineffective management of common resources
such as fossil fuel, failures to negotiate necessary budget reforms, and inadequate
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leadership behaviour that crowds out rather than promotes cooperation among
followers.” Perhaps the question we should be asking is not “why do we collaborate?”
but “why not collaborate more?” This paper presents some examples of community-
level changes promoted by individuals with very different motivations that have a
strong impact in their society.

□ From community gardens to the search for justice

I. Ecolutionary Gardeners
A few years ago, designer Ron Finley decided to plant a vegetable garden on the
sidewalk in front of his house in South Central Los Angeles, USA. He decided to grow
his own food in order to provide healthier food for himself and his family. Another
aspect of this action was that the garden was to be open to anyone willing to pick the
fruits and vegetables, at no cost. As more and more people got involved, his idea
became a movement and now he calls himself and his collaborators: “ecolutionaries”,
urban gardeners who share their produce and promote a better lifestyle by way of
eating healthy food. Three years ago he co-founded the L.A. Green Grounds
volunteer organization that installs gardens in sidewalks and empty lots in generally
low-income neighbourhoods.

“If kids grow kale, kids eat kale. If they grow tomatoes, they eat tomatoes.
But when none of this is presented to them, if they're not shown how
food affects the mind and the body, they blindly eat whatever you put in
front of them.” (Ron Finley, 2013).

After he presented his TED talk (Technology, Entertainment, Design-Ideas worth

spreading) his organization instantly gained world recognition and the movement has
spread outside of L.A. into other cities and communities in and outside the United
States. Due to the tremendous outreach in the Internet, L.A. Grounds is now an
example of how one can “build a community by growing a garden.”

Some of the motivations of Ron Finley to start L.A. Grounds are clearly stated in his
TED talk on 2013:

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“I see young people and they want to work, but they're in this thing where
they're caught up -- I see kids of color and they're just on this track that's
designed for them, that leads them to nowhere. So with gardening, I see
an opportunity where we can train these kids to take over their
communities, to have a sustainable life. And when we do this, who
knows? We might produce the next George Washington Carver. but if we
don't change the composition of the soil, we will never do this.”

Figure 1: Ron Finley in front of a side-walk garden in South L.A. (www.ronfinley.com)

II. Hope grows out of rage

Another example of meaningful collaboration comes from Lucknow, India, where a
group of young girls led by their teacher Usha Vishwakarma, decided to seek justice
by their own hands. (CNN, August 2013). After having suffered sexual abuse and
rape and seeing how the authorities did little or nothing to punish the perpetrators,
Vishwakarma and her students decided to take to the streets uniformed in red shirts
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and black scarves to expose and ridicule the men who behaved inappropriately
towards women -being groped or touched improperly is a daily occurrence for women
using any kind of public transportation in India. The group is called the “Red Brigade”
and has recently become more attention after the recent outrage for the gang rape
and later death of a 23-year-old student in a public bus in Delhi in December, 2012.

Initially 15 girls, they are now 100 members. The Red Brigade organizes self-defence
classes, provides psychological counselling all on a volunteer basis. It has become a
strong symbol of women rights in India. Their blog receives visitors from all over the
world and the brave action of a teacher and her students is now becoming a national
movement.

It is not hard to see what motivated Vishwakarma to form the Red Brigade, she had
also been a victim of abuse and impotence, anger, and rage gave her the boost to
take action. Rage can sometimes bring some of the most creative and meaningful
responses to help cope with difficult situations; the Red Brigade brings light to a very
dark aspect of human behaviour.






Figure 2: Red Brigade members at a vigil against violence (Photo: AFP 2009).


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□ Online-Global Communities

I. Technology at the service of the community

In the Q-studies seminar “Engagement” at Hafen City University we caught a

glimpse of the activities of different professionals whose work is involved in the
promotion and study of participation at various levels of society, both locally and
globally. Prof. Dr. Alenka Poplin, Assistant Professor for Computer-based Methods in
Urban and Regional Planning at HafenCity University Hamburg, gave a brilliant
example of how technology enables a broad action among people. She showed how
after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti people all over the world joint efforts instantly to
provide more accurate geographic locations of the areas affected. Dr. Alenka
explained how the existing maps were considerably improved at the public-
participation-based online platform www.openstreetmap.org and aid was delivered
more promptly because of the updated directions.

Figure 3: OpenStreetMap of Port Au Prince, Haiti, before earthquake (OSM, 2010).

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“Within 48 hours high resolution imagery taken post-earthquake became

available. Within the first month over 600 people added information to
OpenStreetMap in Haiti. It became the default basemap for responding
organizations such as Search and Rescue teams, Humanitarian mapping
NGOs like MapAction and iMMAP, the United Nations and the World
Bank.” (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, 2011)

Figure 4: OpenStreetMap of Port Au Prince, Haiti, just a few hours after the earthquake (OSM, 2010).

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□ Conclusion

Even if the specific brain circuits that motivate charitable action are still well under
study and no purely scientific answer can be found today as to what motivates
individuals to help one another, we may identify some external reasons why
individuals take part in collaborative action. Some of these reasons may provide an
overview and draw a map of possibilities to promote more cooperation and insight on
how the work in the name of the common good can be re-interpreted and benefit
future generations.

Because of the evident failure of current economic systems that benefit the few over
the many, civil societies are not only inclined, but also compelled to organize in new
systems of existence. Social Media and Internet play a vital role in the organization of
group effort today. From the Arab Spring to the donation of money or clothes to
charitable organizations, Internet has given a whole new dimension to the act of
collaborating. A local action like the urban gardeners in Los Angeles can affect a
needy community in Angola by way of example and funding advice. Help may be just
an email away, either to give a hand or to receive it.

One aspect that should be further studied is how collaboration is viewed in different
parts of the world. In Andean communities in South America “minga” is a traditional
practice in which communities get together to perform communal labour like
harvesting and organizing festivals. In general, a minga is a local system that
promotes a sustainable use of resources. Similar practices of communal order can
also be found in Mongolia where people maintain a high productivity due to the
respect and collaboration among neighbours. Renowned scholars, like Dr. Ostrom,
have promoted this type of activities as a viable model of development, a bottom-up
approach instead of the top-down, uniformed model that has failed the majority of the
people in the world.

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Figure 5: Midwives prepare the ground for planting mint. Minga in Cotacachi, Ecuador (Photo: Cock, A.).


□ References

Armstrong, P. (August, 2013). Meet Indiaʼs Red Brigade: The teens fighting back
against rape. CNN International. Retrieved August 14, 2013 from
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/13/world/asia/india-red-brigade

Collins English Dictionary (2012). Complete &Unabridged 11th Edition. Retrieved

August 14, 2013 from www.collinsdictionary.com

De Dreu, C. K. W. (2013). Human Cooperation: Challenges for science and practice.

Psychological Science in the Public Interest. 14, 117-118. Retrieved August
08, 2013 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2585925

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (2011). Haiti. Retrieved August 8, 2013 from

http://hot.openstreetmap.org/projects/haiti-2

Nobel Prize. (December, 2009). Prize Lecture by Elinor Ostrom (28 minute Video
file). Retrieved August 8, 2013 from
http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1223

Ostrom, E. (1998). A behavioural approach to the rational choice theory of collective

action. American Political Science Review, 92, 1-22. Retrieved August 08,
2013 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2585925

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Parks, C. D., Joireman, J., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2013). Cooperation, trust and
antagonism: How public goods are promoted. Psychological Science in the
Public Interest. 14, 119-165. Retrieved August 08, 2013 from
http://psi.sagepub.com/content/14/3/119.full.pdf+html

TED Ideas Worth Spreading. (February, 2013). Ron Finley: A guerrilla gardener in
South L.A. (10:45 minutes Video file). Retrieved August 4, 2013 from
http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la.
html

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