(Re-)Distributional Food Justice: Negotiating conflicting views of fairness within a local grassroots community

Title of the Paper

(Re-)Distributional Food Justice: Negotiating Conflicting Views of Fairness within a Local Grassroots Community

Bibliographic Information

• Subject Area: Sustainable HCI, food sharing and fairness in grassroots communities
• Keywords: food sharing, surplus food, grassroots communities, community building, distributive justice, fairness, sustainable food practices

Research Background and Problem

• Identified Issues or Challenges:
  • Differing participant interpretations of "fairness" (e.g., based on charity, equality, contribution).
  • Conflicts between fairness and distributive justice in food-sharing activities.
  • How to leverage information and communication technologies (ICT) to support food-sharing practices in grassroots communities while fostering community building.
• Significance:
  • Food waste is a critical issue in the field of sustainable development, and grassroots food-sharing movements can address this problem by redistributing surplus food.
  • Conflicts arising from differing values may hinder community building, and resolving these conflicts can provide guidance for transforming global food systems.
• Research Motivation:
  • To develop community-oriented food-sharing practices and explore how ICT tools can address fairness conflicts.
  • To foster collaboration and community building while addressing ecological and social challenges.

Solution

• Proposed Methods or Solutions:
  • Employing an action-oriented research approach to collaborate with grassroots communities and analyze food-sharing practices.
  • Focusing on the community-building process and encouraging diverse participation aimed at long-term goals.
  • Supporting the negotiation of fairness conflicts, as well as the sharing of knowledge and resources within the community, through ICT tools.
• Innovative Aspects:
  • Introducing five concepts of fairness: charity-based, contribution-based, equality-based, waste-reduction-based, and system-transformation-based fairness.
  • Emphasizing the resolution of value conflicts through negotiation within grassroots communities rather than relying on external solutions.
• Implementation Steps and Key Technologies:
  1. Fieldwork and Participant Observation: Interacting with community members to document challenges and opportunities in sharing activities.
  2. Evaluation of ICT Tool Usage: Studying the use and challenges of platforms like Telegram, Facebook, and Foodsharing.de.
  3. Workshops: Inviting community members to discuss fairness issues and collaboratively establish sharing rules.
  4. Design and Iteration: Introducing new mechanisms (e.g., memory card games) to organize sharing sequences in a fair and engaging manner.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Results:
  • Identified five fairness concepts, which exhibited significant conflicts within the community.
  • Sharing activities evolved from simple food distribution to community building, resource sharing, and educational activities (e.g., community gardens, collaborative cooking).
  • ICT support improved community coordination efficiency, with Telegram particularly enhancing the dissemination of real-time food-sharing information.
• Advantages over Existing Solutions:
  • Moving beyond individual behavior optimization, the study proposed a systemic solution focusing on collective practices and community building.
  • By using diverse tools, the approach accommodated varying levels of digital literacy among members, creating a flexible technological foundation for grassroots innovation.
• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  • Telegram was more user-friendly than the Foodsharing.de platform, fostering better communication and collaboration among community members.
  • New queue mechanisms (e.g., memory card games) reduced competitive behaviors and enhanced the entertainment and fairness of activities.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • Grassroots communities still require long-term cultivation of awareness regarding food production and systemic fairness.
  • ICT tools need to further support knowledge transfer to ensure the project's long-term sustainability.
  • Future developments could focus on creating more sophisticated yet user-friendly ICT tools to meet the diverse needs of community members.

Conclusion

• Community-oriented food-sharing practices can promote grassroots community building while encouraging profound systemic change.
• ICT tools play a crucial role in coordination, information dissemination, and supporting fairness negotiations.
• By negotiating different concepts of fairness, grassroots communities have the potential to expand from food sharing to broader practices of resource and knowledge sharing, paving the way for more sustainable transformations of local and global food systems.