Crisis Landscape — For navigating a crisis we need a map
This blogpost introduces the Crisis Landscape (CL) — a test methodology developed as a part of the Rapid Transition Lab project. The CL aims to capture the entanglement and dynamics between the Covid-19 crisis and the Swedish food system through data-based visualization. The methodology includes a creation of a constantly evolving database with systemic trends captured through qualitative research methods i.a. interviews with food system actors, or literature review.
The draft methodology is intended to deal as a base for mapping of the multiple cascading and future, unknown crises.
As a part of the exploratory research of the Rapid Transition Lab and preparation for the strategy workshop with the Swedish food system actors, the working team developed an array of analytical mappings and working templates. These aimed at helping to navigate through the complexity of the crisis as well as to be used as a tool for the participatory workshop itself.
Feel free to explore the WIP map in kumu — click HERE for full screen
Method
Based on the literature review, interviews with food system actors, previous research (e.g. trend analysis from the Mistra Food Futures project), as well as the learnings from the scenario workshop, the crisis landscape map has been developed through a collaborative mapping process using Miro, Google sheets, Kumu, and multiple discussions. As the core of the project focuses on the impacts of Covid-19 on the Swedish food system as well as the resulting barriers and opportunities for transition, the change landscape has been coded according to the following node categories:
- Covid-19 related i) trends, ii) opportunities and iii) risks
- Other than Covid-19 iv) trends, v) opportunities and vi) risks
Additionally, the war in Ukraine and its effects on the Swedish and planetary food systems urged us to include as well:
- War-related vii) trends, viii) opportunities and ix) risks
To find an appropriate backbone, as well as to help navigate the vast complexity of the map all the nodes representing the food system dynamics were categorized and clustered according to two layers; value chain (production, transport, branding, consumption, waste) and contextual domains (CD -environmental, geopolitical, institutional, economical, technological).
The mapping process — not the map
The mapping process enabled crystallization of four main narratives across the crisis landscape (please see the REPORT). These formed strategic goals identified as main areas of the food system which have been affected during the Covid-19 crisis as well as simultaneously constituted domains rich in systemic barriers, opportunities for change, and transformational potential.
The workshop participants, were presented, therefore with the following strategic directions:
A — Increasing Sweden’s food self-sufficiency — less reliance on long supply chains and import.
B — Creating a culture and practice of deeply regenerative farming — where the farmers are highly paid, and the farmer’s profession is highly attractive; where the farming process cares for the soil’s, plants’ and animals’ long-term health, and an idea of waste is turned into resource.
C — Using food for preventative health — making the population’s resilience towards disease, ill-health, and mental ill-health stronger through food.
D — Accounting for the true cost of food while increasing affordability of a planetary health diet.
The strategy workshop participants where then encouraged to decide which strategic goal they would like to tackle.
Critical reflection
- How can a system map constitute not only a mere means of representation but also an integrated tool for research?
- What role visual tools can play in analyzing, communicating and navigating the changing food system conditions and their feedback effects on the environment, society, human health, or economy?
- How can we best analyze the systemic, societal, economic, logistical, regulatory, and ideological interdependencies, obstacles as well as enablers for the food system transition towards a more healthy, just, and sustainable future?
- How can the developed theory, methodology, and participatory processes serve as a platform to support expert, and non-expert debate, strategy making, and eventually, action and effective governance?
These are only some of the questions which accompanied us continuously in the Rapid Transition Lab research endeavors.
Throughout the mapping and visualization process, several notions about the power of making things visual became evident, predominantly that mapping and visualization allow the structuring and highlighting of systemic interdependencies not possible by other means of analysis and communication, such as text. The project, therefore, adopted visual means of knowledge production as research tools leading to a deeper and more fine-grained understanding of the system dynamics and implications of the crisis on the Swedish food system.
On the other hand, system maps might not be the best story-tellers. From our experience, they serve mostly to capture either the impression of complexity, which could be useful to make the audience aware of the interdependencies, or to inform the cartographer herself. The stor-telling capacity of system maps can be enhanced through further visual means — a 1 by 1 node narrative or challenging of the abstractness of the visual language through more figurative representations (please see e.g. Actor-Network / Territorial Mapping of the Danish pig industry — Testing Data Visualization Approaches To Complex Data Problems).
Can we design an interface which can better combine the benefits of the system maps, the story-telling capacity of more figurative visual means, and participatory engagement?
The crisis landscape was another attempt to see how system maps can serve us as a tool for collaborative sense-making process (see e.g. our other blogpost Breaking the Silos Through Participatory Systems Mapping)
Finally, although attempting to visualize the food system dynamics, risks, trends, barriers, and enablers of change as accurately as possible, we do acknowledge the subjective nature of every mapping endeavor — therefore all maps created are treated as not finished products but ongoing processes in context (see also: post-representational cartographic theory).
In the coming projects, we will continue exploring the questions and ideas raised in this blog. We invite you to reach out if you would like to collaborate or contribute as this needs to be a multi-actor endeavor — Aleksander Nowak aleks@darkmatterlabs.org.
This provocation is written by Aleksander Nowak with contributions both to the text, mappings and the whole Rapid Transition Lab project from — Dark Matter Labs: Linnéa Rönnquist, Juhee Hahm, Heather Griffin, Chloe Tager & Indy Johar, Stockholm Resilience Center: My Sellberg, Per Olsson, Jenny Norrby, Garry Peterson and Vinnova: Alexander Alvsilver,
The text is a part of the Rapid Transition Lab, a collaboration between Stockholm Resilience Center, Dark Matter Labs, and Vinnova, which you can read more about here.
