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Recording defense TPhD-thesis
On Wednesday, January 31, Juan-Carlos Goilo defended his dissertation 'Information Actors Beyond Medernity and Coloniality in Times of Climate Change'. Below you will find the link to watch this ceremony. Giolo opens the ceremony with the 'layman's talk', in which he briefly explains his research. This is followed by questions from the professors.
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Article
PhD-thesis: Information actors beyond modernity and coloniality in times of climate change
In his dissertation, Mr. Goilo developed a cutting-edge theoretical framework for an Anthropology of Information. This study compares information in the context of modernity in Amsterdam and coloniality in Curaçao through the making process of monitors and develops five ways to understand how information can act towards sustainable futures. The research also discusses how the two contexts, that is modernity and coloniality, have been in informational symbiosis for centuries which is producing negative informational side effects within the age of the Anthropocene. By exploring the modernity-coloniality symbiosis of information, the author explains how scholars, policymakers, and data-analysts can act through historical and structural roots of contemporary global inequities related to the production and distribution of information. Ultimately, the five theses propose conditions towards the collective production of knowledge towards a more sustainable planet.
Goilo, J-CME. (2024). Information actors beyond modernity and coloniality in times of climate
change: A comparative design ethnography on the making of monitors for sustainable futures
in Curaçao and Amsterdam, between 2019-2022. [Thesis, fully internal, Universiteit van
Amsterdam]. -
Collection
Information as Actor (finalised)
This collection is part of Juan-Carlos Goilo's doctoral research. Here you will find various sources that provide insight into the building blocks of the research.
Here you will find the full thesis: 'Information actors beyond modernity and coloniality in times of climate change. A comparative design ethnography on making monitors for a sustainable future in Curaçao and Amsterdam, between 2019-2022.' The central research question is: How can the process of making monitors ensure that sustainable information can contribute to a future that goes beyond modernity and coloniality?
It is investigated how information is effective as an actor in the creation process of two monitors for circular economy, one in the city of Amsterdam and the other on the island of Curaçao. That is why you will find two collections with the case studies. You will also find here a preliminary thought and an artistic story of Goilo, which is included in the Values For Survival Cahier: 3.Faced with the need to act towards sustainable futures, a variety of monitors are being developed in many places around the world. By conducting a comparative case study, the research aims to understand how information organizers, such as the monitors, acquire agency and interact within local and global dynamics. It explores how these monitors facilitate transitions to what the respective local economies perceive to be a sustainable future.
The city of Amsterdam and the island of Curaçao both use the doughnut economy model, as developed by Kate Raworth, for the implementation of circular economy and to monitor the progress of their policies. Information has been pivotal to policymaking for centuries. It plays a significant role in the human domination of the world. Nowadays data, including real time data, are regularly used as feedback loops for policymaking. The scale and speed of information technology offer unprecedented possibilities in the process of policymaking. Many scholars argue that we have entered the Anthropocene, highlighting the impact our human activities have on the world. Some scholars go as far as to argue that the Anthropocene is a form of entropy enacted by human practices that are mediated and intensified by information technology.
The information-driven human practices of the Anthropocene also uphold power relations. Next to studying monitors, this research therefore revisits cybernetics and analyses how information technologies have been developing different feedback mechanism over the last centuries and connects these older insights to the current power dynamics of building and using monitors for policy and decision making. Amsterdam and Curacao explicitly provide the context for this comparison, since they have a colonial relation for centuries. At the same time, both collaborate in the change towards sustainable futures. Both are engaged in the making of local data monitors and both work with the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. As a result, the research provides a framework for the making process of monitors that act towards sustainable futures.
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Article
Information as actor for a city and an island
Climate change sometimes seems like a Star Wars battle between the Force and the Sith. Information about the relationships between people, things, the environment, and ecology has been denounced since the Club of Rome announced their findings about the limits of material growth in 1972. Their argument is crystal clear to this day – the current rate of population growth, food production, industrialisation, depletion of natural resources, and of pollution in the Earth’s water, air, and soil is serious. The ‘bigger picture’ is too big, though, and information about sustainability has a paralysing effect. Because of the trees, the forest of information can no longer be seen.
Author: Juan-Carlos Goilo
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Article
Monitor Circulaire Economie
Amsterdam wil een bloeiende stad zijn voor al zijn inwoners, binnen de grenzen van de planeet. Daarvoor is een grote verandering nodig in de Amsterdamse economie en consumptie. Om dat te bereiken is het doel gesteld om in 2030 de helft minder nieuwe grondstoffen te gebruiken, en om in 2050 volledig circulair te zijn. Het kennisniveau over de circulaire transitie in Amsterdam staat echter nog in de kinderschoenen, en structureel inzicht in de voortgang ontbreekt. De Monitor Circulaire Economie brengt hier verandering in door nieuwe databronnen te ontsluiten, inschattingsmethodes te ontwikkelen, en deze samen te brengen tot een integraal beeld van de circulaire economie in Amsterdam.
Beschrijving
Amsterdam wil een bloeiende stad zijn voor al zijn inwoners, binnen de grenzen van de planeet. Daarvoor is een grote verandering nodig in de Amsterdamse economie en consumptie. Om dat te bereiken is het doel gesteld om in 2030 de helft minder nieuwe grondstoffen te gebruiken, en om in 2050 volledig circulair te zijn. Het kennisniveau over de circulaire transitie in Amsterdam staat echter nog in de kinderschoenen, en structureel inzicht in de voortgang ontbreekt. De Monitor Circulaire Economie brengt hier verandering in door nieuwe databronnen te ontsluiten, inschattingsmethodes te ontwikkelen, en deze samen te brengen tot een integraal beeld van de circulaire economie in Amsterdam.
Doelstelling
Het doel van de Monitor Circulaire Economie is om een integraal beeld te bieden van de circulaire economie en de circulaire transitie in Amsterdam. Hiermee stellen we beleidsmakers in staat om datagedreven beslissingen te maken en gericht circulaire interventies te ontwerpen. Onderdeel van het integrale beeld zijn onder andere materiaalstromen en hun sociale- en ecologische impact in de keten, maar ook de bewustwording onder Amsterdammers.
Looptijd
Dit project biedt sinds 2020 doorlopend ondersteuning aan Team Circulair bij Ruimte en Duurzaamheid, in ieder geval tot 2026.
Opdrachtgevers
Team Circulair, Ruimte en Duurzaamheid
Aanvullend materiaal
De publicatie: Dossier: Circulaire Economie | Website Onderzoek en Statistiek (amsterdam.nl)
Datasets: Dataset: Materiaalstromen in Amsterdam | Website Onderzoek en Statistiek
Code: gitlab.com/os-amsterdam/monitor-circulaire-economie
Bronvermelding
Onderzoek & Statistiek, Monitor Circulaire Economie (2022). Gemeente Amsterdam.
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Article
Report: Implementation of the SDG's in Amsterdam
As the first municipality in the Netherlands, Amsterdam presented a report on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are 17 goals set by the member states of the United Nations in 2015, which function as the new global sustainable development agenda for 2030.
The report, a so called Voluntary Local Review (VLR), maps out 6 of the 17 goals in total. In order to make these studies into specific goals possible, we first looked at the broader framework, at the way in which the goals of the UN can be linked to Amsterdam's principles in the field of sustainable economic development and broad prosperity.
The research, carried out by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences on behalf of the municipality, is presented to the SDG Netherlands on September 27 during the SDG Action Day.
Colofon:
Amsterdam, June 2022
The Municipality of Amsterdam;
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
Centre of Expertise for Economic Transformation
(CET) and Centre of Expertise for Urban
Governance and Social Innovation (UGSI);
AMS InstituteResearch team AUAS (authors):
Maarten Hogenstijn
Marie Morel
Karin de Nijs
Willem van WindenCity core team (authors):
Gerard den Boer
Tamara Grujic
Juan-Carlos Goilo
Sabine Gimbrère
Otto BuurmaCity working group (reviewers):
Jeroen Grooten
Jeroen Slot
Kees Dignum
Johanna Lagarde
Pieter Leendertse
Rita Molenkamp-Szucs
Arjan Ploegmakers
AMS Institute (reviewer):
Lieke Dreijerink
Art Direction & Design:
van Lennep Amsterdam
Silvia Sani
Beatrice Tonetto
Hugo Zwolsman
Till Kramer
Still life photography:
Annegien van DoornThe city team has written the introduction of the report. The research team has written all data chapters in this report. The chapters on constructing the VLR and the conclusions and re'ections are jointly written by the research team and the city team. The City Working Group and the AMS-Institute have reviewed the report.
Six students participating in the AUAS minor programme Entrepreneurship for Society provided input for texts: Roché Mahase, Samil Sariaslan & Leon Schulte (SDG 8), Pieter Jacobs, Soufiane Tahiri & Bryton Wolff (SDG 13).
Special thanks to Eline Vermeer at the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) for providing a draft overview of relevant local indicators; to Lieke Willemsen at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for advice on connecting to the Voluntary National Review (VNR); and to both for advice on constructing the VLR.
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Project
VLR Sustainable Development Goals
De gemeente Amsterdam zal in 2022 voor het eerst een Voluntary Local Review uitbrengen op het gebied van de Susainable Development Goals. In samenwerking met de HvA zal volgend jaar april/mei het rapport opgeleverd worden.
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Article
Chapter 22: Everything & Nothing
Story by: Juan Carlos Golio
Images by: Francis Sling
The PDF below may take some time to download because of the large size of this document. Scroll down to find the download link of this PDF. -
Article
Design Sprint Monitor of Circular Economy
After launching the strategy, the monitor circular economy developed a steady basis for further research, using governmental data sources: national import/use/export and waste management statistics, information about the total number of branches and employees in circular jobs as well as local surveys on the perceptions about the circular economy. The next step is connecting these insights with those of key players. In other words, the monitor aims to develop partnerships with citizen science, business R&D's and other forms of city science to create win-win scenarios on how Amsterdam can work towards 50% reduction of primary raw materials by 2030, full circularity by 2050, as well as enter the "sweet spot" of Kate Raworth's doughnut model. In this session the monitor circular economy was presented, and a co-design session was organised.
This session was moderated by Mesiha Tepic and Juan-Carlos Goilo.
In the virtual co-design session, the following challenge was chosen to work on in the session: Develop services for different stakeholders, so they can recognize themselves in the material streams. The other possible challenges can be seen in photo 1.
Photo 1
Subsequently, design requirements were formulated for this challenge:
- Include subsectors (hotels, citizens, etc.)
- Interactive communication (people can bring in ideas)
- Provide info on main actors per stream
- Develop personas for different stakeholders
- Consensus on data points across subsectors of a value chain
- More detailed information about the commodity groups
- A system where local companies/districts/streets can upload data (to contextualize the data)
- Focus on just one value chain
- The frequency of informational needs
Subsequently, these design requirements were further grouped and linked to an inspirational example (see photo 2), including the Together against food waste initiative, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the AMS session on organic waste on 17 February.
In conclusion, the importance of stakeholder involvement was emphasized. The city cannot develop a monitor in isolation. Value chains are dynamic and the necessary data can only be obtained through stakeholders.
Photo 2