​The idea of a collaboratory is not original with us but it captures the dynamic of collaboration and experimentation that we need to improve our ability to understand and see social trust dynamics more clearly.
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Our central work is to take existing data and research about social trust as well as emerging ideas and integrate that with two central reference points: Narratives and Neighbourhoods.
We focus on narratives and neighbourhoods because we believe these are the homelands of social trust - making sense through grand and fragmented stories as we move around our respective worlds.
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Human life and experience is reflected in an endless arrangement of "us." We are not solitary. We cluster in neighbourhoods and we cluster in narratives. Our compass in these social journeys is the moving needle of trust in all its forms.
We relate to each other directly but also through and within larger cultural, legal and organizational entities. Where there are relations we find the dynamics of trust. Trust is a critical species of social signaling – it has a constantly changing quality that reflects human reality.
These dynamics can, in part, be observed, evaluated, measured so that when we understand the state of trust for a given scale and context, we have some idea about a significant range of factors at work in those settings: Is a street, community or district doing well? Facing growing tension? Paying attention to trust will help us answer such questions.
What is a collaboratory?
Narratives
Pathways
Narratives represent a significant way that we make sense of the world. Stories carry meaning, they are social, highly flexible, always changing, and reflective of how we are doing.
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We have two primary dimensions in our approach to narratives. The first has to do with our physical, in-person communication with other people. The second is our virtual or distant exchanges. These are very much related to and affect each other.
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In our quest to understand and measure trust, narratives are an essential means of understanding that dynamic.
Neighbourhoods
What users provide
You know your context best. Some of our tools depend on the specific information and intelligence held in local citizens, organizations, and institutions. We work with you to discover the data available if possible and how we might generate it where it is missing. This includes:
Identification of areas of interest so that the tools and techniques can be applied suitably.
Identification of and collaboration with local and community leaders for fine-grained, higher resolution local understanding and analysis.
Access to data sources that enable tuning
The Human Context
People carry out their lives interacting with a wide range of scales. Sometimes we hear about and are affected by what is happening in the wider world. Other times we are checking in with the people in our household to see how they are doing.
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There are formal studies and measures for trust at global and country level. Big picture measures of trust are important. Very specific studies of groups within societies are also the subject of trust research. A clear need exists to continue such pursuits.
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Our scale, the context we think is critical for social trust is the neighbourhood scale - bigger than our family or workplace or street, a neighbourhood is like a village within the larger structures of our cities and communities.
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Interacting with smaller and larger scales is important. Our orientation is to get to begin with the neighbourhood and then get to the other scales through that lens.
Collaboratories
Toronto || Botkyrka || Cyprus || Bradford
Contact
Inquiries
We welcome the chance to talk with you. Contact us by email or the form below and give us a sense of what you have in mind. We'll be back in touch.
Location
Toronto ON Canada
ingenuityarts [ ] gmail [ ] com
Contact Us
Talent
If you'd like to join our collaboratory, the best place to start is to email us a one-page "Who I Am" and "Why this matters to me"