DRAFT Rationale and RQs - BITS-Research/MutualAid GitHub Wiki

04.21.2021 Draft:

Rationale:

As 2020 progressed, mutual aid rapidly popularized as a frame and organizing structure for communities to organize and provide assistance independent from the State during the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, as well as the black lives matter protests. This mutual aid approach, grounded in anarchist theory but heavily practice-oriented – puts itself in opposition to the bureaucratic and hierarchical approaches to assistance, which it frames as ‘charity’. Instead, mutual aid emphasizes solidarity, equity, and autonomy. The affordances of sociotechnical arrangements incentivize formalization and structure in organizations, as has been noted in information studies research on cooperatives (NOTE: CONFIRM? Also some readings would be helpful - DK). Analyzing information behavior and technology use in mutual aid groups, which explicitly critique mainstream bureaucratic structures, provides a useful lens to study tensions in information system adoption and behavior.

RQs:

  • What are the information and technology practices of mutual aid organizations?
  • How do these organizations navigate anti-hierarchical and anti-bureaucratic ethos in their information and technology practices?

OLD VERSIONS

04.14.2021 Rationale and RQ Draft:

  1. First draft of rationale:

As 2020 progressed, mutual aid rapidly popularized as a frame and organizing structure for communities to organize and provide assistance independent from the State during the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, as well as the black lives matter protests. This mutual aid approach, grounded in anarchist theory but heavily practice-oriented – puts itself in opposition to the bureaucratic and hierarchical approaches to providing assistance, which it frames as ‘charity’. Instead, mutual aid emphasizes solidarity, equity, and autonomy. Popular perspectives by mutual aid practitioners and organizations note their origins and operations in crisis and other chronic failures* of governments assistance/provision/care for their communities. Drawing from anarchist and Marxist perspectives, theory undergirding mutual aid often centers on a wholesale critique of governance broadly – not merely governance failure. Information and communication perspectives provide another lens to analyze governance failure, often centering mis/disinformation, communication breakdowns, and information provision as a lens on organizing more generally (government or otherwise). Analyzing information contexts in mutual aid , along with their sociotechnical arrangements (and hence ICT broadly defined):

  • (OPTION A) can provide best practices and alternative frames for additional academic research and theory-building.
  • (OPTION B) can lay groundwork for study of anti-hierarchical, anti-professional organizing, which has an interesting relationship to the formalizing tendencies of information systems.
Very much like the direction of this, and in particular taking a route to explore Option B. We can qualify 
the review as setting aside some already covered topics in contemporary information studies - such as cooperatives 
and instead focus specifically on what is identified as mutual aid contemporaneously.

2.First draft of RQs:

  • RQ1 - What are the information practices of mutual aid organizations? And, how have these practices evolved alongside, in opposition to, or through ICTs?
  • RQ2 - What are the themes of technology (ICT) as it relates to mutual aid? (Not sure I follow - this relates to the formalizing tendency described above?)
  • RQ3 - Mutual Aid and Academic Partnerships (discuss in person) – I suggest removal or switch to different project. Most academic partnerships would fall under ‘charity’ model as mutual aid defines it. Yes - Agree... and above is actually probably enough - in fact one of the conclusions I imagine us coming to is that an ethics of mutual aid adjacent research is not well established and should be