MikroAct: Designing to Mobilize Collective Urban Actions

MikroAct: Designing to Mobilize Collective Urban Actions

Authors: Prof. Nitin Sawhney, Shriya Malhotra, Christo de Klerk University: The New School, New York

Contact: Nitin Sawhney, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Media Studies The New School for Public Engagement

2 W. 13th Street, Rm 1214, New York, NY 10011

tel: 212.229.5600 x4302 | fax: 212.229.5357

E-mail: sawhneyn@newschool.edu

ABSTRACT

The challenges of engaging communities to act for common good in their own neighborhoods requires a deliberative process of decision making, seeking out shared values (or differences) and supporting creative forms of mutually-beneficial problem solving. How can one facilitate emerging patterns of co-design, tactical action, and self-organizing for neighborhood change?

In our experience, engaging community actors towards shared problem-solving, requires recognizing modes of trust and diverse stakes, activating social capital and neighborhood resources, while exploring out-of-the-box design interventions or urban tactics. Based on fieldwork conducted in the neighborhood of Troparev-Nikulino in Moscow, Russia, we discuss key challenges and lessons emerging through a pilot initiative and prototype platform developed in July-August 2012. It was conducted with the participation of a local activist group, Partizaning, students from Strelka, an urban design institute, and a cross-section of inter-generational members in the local community. The pilot included use of a prototype online platform, community de-briefings, and a network of mailboxes installed in the neighborhood to engage participants in the process of revealing problems, resources and solutions.

Based on this exploratory fieldwork and co-design project, we devised a more comprehensive approach and online platform, MikroAct (www.mikroact.org), which leverages a combination of technology, interactive design, social media and local processes of cooperative action, to support neighborhood level self-organization based on principles of do-it-yourself (DIY) culture, grassroots activism, collectivism, and participatory action research. MikroAct is being designed and piloted in selected neighborhoods in Moscow and New York City, to offer comparative insights as a scalable platform for use across

community contexts. We expect that the site could also serve as a means for participatory research on neighborhood activism, and shift the focus from municipal to citizen agency.