'One the first day of Xmas my government gave to me, a Maaori ecooooonomyyy'

The latest reports on 'our economy' are out. This one from Kinnect/MPI finds that not only is MPI brilliant at working with (selected) Maori, there remain issues over governance, scale and capability, specifically:

• a need to consolidate multiple owners with small shareholdings into mandated governance entities with effective decision making;
• economic scale to support profitable agribusiness;
• and the capability to grow agribusiness productivity and profitability.

Another report (PriceWaterhouseCoopers/MPI December 2014, same link as above) has some interesting tables on Maori land use and potential for improvement. Note over a quarter of Maori Freehold Land (MFL) is in natural forest and a further 8% in plantation forest. Conversion to dairying remains the sexy beast in the picture... 

The purpose of this report was to confirm the value of additional work into converting and otherwise innovating on Maori land (the original impetus for this came from the BERL reports of 2011 I've posted on before). The Benfit Cost Ratio of 'interventions' are tabulated below, by sector:

A figure below 1 means you technically 'lose' money by intervention.

We can quibble about methodology till the cows come home but dairying remains the go to approach for growing our/the economy (although note horticultures high BCR though against a very low percentage of MFL).

So, business-as-usual.

Given the now confirmed decline of our water quality, including our iconic beaches (remember when iwi/Maori were the risk to these strips of foreshore and seabed?!), there are considerable costs and risks associated with dairy. Further, given the urban character of our rangatahi and the struggle we have with the education system, how to we get our people into secure employment when the trend is less security?

No answers, just more patai.

Meri kirihimete tatou katoa!

Simon Lambert

 

DCD and the 'Sleeping giant' that is/was the Maori economy

But are the dogs running or sleeping?

Me and dogs.

I don't mind dogs. We got a Dalmatian last year, Lila, lovely dog, killed a massive rat in our lounge once.

And I use to fish the Tutaekuri River which ran a few minutes walk from our whare in Kauri Street, Taradale. Dogs can be kai.

looking upstream of Tutaekuri, towards the Otatara pa .

I expect to see at least two guard dogs in every truck yard I pass, like the yard on the corner of Vickerys and Washbourne Roads, back of Sockburn by the old airbase. One of the dogs there - they used Dobermans, Rottweilers, the occasional Alsatian- was three-legged. Dangerous work, if you can get it.

sunrise through the HotDip galvanising plant

the old burger bunker, a wreck before the quake...

Nice.
In Capitalist korero there is the term running dogs of capitalism...which Wikipedia tells me is a "literal translation into English of the Chinese/Korean communist pejorative zǒu gǒu 走狗, meaning lackey or lapdog, an unprincipled person who helps or flatters other, more powerful and often evil people. It is derived from the eagerness with which a dog will respond when called by its owner, even for mere scraps.


I also know to Let sleeping dogs lie, remember the film? I was somewhat stunned by the synopsis:

 Following the break-up of his marriage caused by his wife's affair with another man named Bullen (Mune), "Smith" (Neill) arranges to live on the Coromandel peninsula on an island owned by a Maori tribe. Meanwhile, political tensions escalate as an oil embargo leaves the country in an energy crisis. Tensions boil over into a civil war and guerrilla activity. However, Smith enjoys his peaceful island life and has little interaction with the rest of society.

Well, we all know what happens to Smith. (Actually, I forgot, so I had to look it up.)

What we don't know is what's happening to the 'Sleeping giant' of NZ Inc that is the Maori Economy?

With so much riding on the dairy sector, it poaka-fisted attempts to control korero on its soil management strategies must. give. one. pause. to. think.

I recall Ingrid Collins, chair of Parae Whangara B5 which took out Te Ahuwhenua, saying we/they had reached the limits of intensification, and they're mainly sheep and beef.

Pity the lowlands.

i think this water is looking for the Heathcote...near Tower Junction...

Without wanting to oversimplify, the reason I'm posting on what was an obscure chemical (albeit one developed on the very campus from which this is posted...) is that Rod Oram touches on the risk to our Maori economy, or at least that chunk still on the land. DairyNZ and Fonterra, through supporting/contracting research on technological solutions to the environmental (and hence social and market contexts), are reaching those limits, both limits to the land, the water, their ecosystems, and to people, the hours they can work, the injuries they can carry.

We've seen the invisible hand reaching to the Pacific all those years ago. Now its is grasping, pummeling, clenching, all too desperate, and all too visible if you know where to look.

I think we are seeing the extremities of the logic of accumulating capital. Maori have seen the land squeezed from our hands, the blood wrung out of us as workers but still. it. goes. on.

So this latest corporate fuck up (and perhaps more in the arrogance of the political arm rather than the technocratic) is merely the latest incarnation of capital's logic. More people are aware, more focused questions can be asked, more scrutiny of the answers is possible.

Ain't the end. Ain't even the beginning of the end. But it might be the end of the beginning.

DCP, Eco-N, and milk supply chain management...

As scandals go, it'll probably never reach great heights but for lil' ol' Lincoln campus it is a foot on the ladder.

The product - Eco-N - was developed by Lincoln researchers (led by Prof's Hong Di and Keith Cameron) has been withdrawn by Ravensdown after concerns were raised by foreign markets that the compound around which the IP was wrapped - Dicyandiamide (DCP) - was finding its way into the milk supply.

Staff received an email from the VC's office and links to a couple of press releases, one from Ravensdown (part-owner of the rights to Eco-N) and another from MPI. For MPI, the 'crux' of the issue is the lack of internationally set standards for DCD residues in the food chain: "This is because DCD has not been considered to have any impact on food safety."

Perception, of course, is everything in the premium food stakes we're NZ Inc. has staked its claim. The Wall Street Journal asks 'Is New Zealand milk safe to drink?'...



Talk in the LU staff club was around the products up-take by farmers (500 are claimed, only about 5% of the total NZ dairy estate), and efficacy. One wag said it was less effective the further you got from Lincoln campus...Researcher commissioned by Ravensdown, undertaken by Doug Edmeades, found it had 'little effect' on pasture production. And while a 'positive effect on reducing soil nitrates' was found 'but by how much is still is unknown.'

There was talk of 'commercial sensitivity' and dodgy oversight. Fonterra has known for sometime and sat on the knowledge until they floated their wee shareholder scheme. Lincoln also lost out on a major collaborative strategy with Dairy NZ to Auckland. Small country, everyone knows someone.
Oh well.



As a social scientist, and one with a hankering for more Actor-Network Theory ops, this is a great case study. They need some extra arrows...

As an employee of Lincoln University, I see a hit to our credibility that may ripple on for sometime yet.

Innovation, Maori, and the Māori Economy: a flat or lumpy world?

Submitting the following paper for the upcoming Nga Pae o te Maramatanga Traditional Knowledges Conference in Auckland, June 27-30. In it I outline how innovation has been framed in contemporary Maori economic development using a simple dichotomy for landscape. On the one hand, the rapid diffusion of information communication technologies (ICTs) has ‘flattened’ the world, reducing the costs of trade but making greater wealth, and hopefully happiness, possible for those individuals and nation-states that proactively engage with the processes of globalisation. On the other hand, others decry the obvious ‘lumpiness’ of the world where poverty clearly constrains many individuals and communities from benefiting from any such engagement.




The paper pulls together disparate ideas and examples of innovation with the aim of presenting some of the history and cultures of innovation that might be relevant to Māori in navigating what is certainly a bigger world, flat or lumpy.


Innovation, Māori, and the Māori Economy: a flat or lumpy world?

Abstract

This paper outlines how innovation has been framed in contemporary Māori economic development using a simple dichotomy for landscape. On the one hand, the rapid diffusion of information communication technologies (ICTs) has ‘flattened’ the world, reducing the costs of trade but making greater wealth, and presumably happiness and security, possible for those societies and nation-states that proactively engage with the processes of globalisation. On the other hand, others decry the obvious ‘lumpiness’ of the world where poverty clearly constrains many individuals and communities from benefiting from any such engagement. This paper pulls together disparate ideas and examples of innovation with the aim of presenting some of the history and cultures of innovation relevant to Māori in navigating what is certainly a bigger world, flat or lumpy.


Keywords: innovation, Indigenous economies, science, development, Māori communities
Introduction 

Introduction

By standard indicators the NZ economy continues to underperform and its relative decline (especially to neighbouring Australia) has not abated (McCann, 2009). A significant source of future growth is seen to reside with Māori (especially iwi) ventures, particularly in the primary sector where Māori agribusinesses are framed as the ‘sleeping giant’ of the New Zealand (Lambert, 2011).

Innovation in this context is often glossed as advancing technology, the theoretical examination of which roughly begins at the time of Māori colonisation. James Stuart Mill (1848) articulated the role of technology in his Principles of Political Economy when he described four fundamental sources of national wealth (represented by ‘Y’ in the following equations), namely capital (K), labour (L), land (T) and what he labels ‘productiveness’ (p). The relationships are:

Y = K + L + T + p


In plain language, a nation’s wealth is how it combines capital, land and labour, and what has been variously called productiveness/productivity but which we now recognise as ‘innovation’. But as Kiwi economist Brian Easton (1997) points out, this ‘arithmetic residual’ and has no explanatory ability, indeed has been described as a ‘coefficient of ignorance’. For the early capitalists, this theoretical ignorance was of no importance as long as profits could be made. Science and technology were thus harnessed along with land, labour, and capital to enable the supply of new or better products or services to the market, and improvements to the processes by which such things were made or supplied. In simple terms, innovation creates or alters demand or lowers costs, therefore increasing profits.

This coupling of innovation to profit is actually a much reduced conceptualisation of innovation which is better understood as any new idea, object, or activity, or even the rediscovery of an idea, object, or activity regardless of its commercial worth. But the term ‘innovation’ as it is increasingly used in Māori economic discourse broadly follows current commercial usage as “[t]he search for and development of new or improved production, management, sales or marketing processes that have the potential to add value to a firm’s, an enterprise’s, an industry’s, or a sector’s offering to end-users and/or consumers” (Te Puni Kokiri, 2010, p. 36). The role of innovation in increasing profit was promoted by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter who considered ‘technical change’ central to modern economics and fundamental feature of capitalist economies (Schumpeter, 1928). Such change was destructive in that it consigned existing inventories, techniques, implements and ideas to obsolescence (e.g., the closure of unproductive/old abattoirs across Aotearoa/NZ) but also creative as it laid the foundations for change by forcing the reallocation of capital and resources (e.g., towards eco-tourism or software development), hence Schumpeter’s term ‘creative destruction’.

In order to arrest the apparent decline of national economies, innovative/novel products are continually developed, particularly for consumers seeking ‘quality’ attributes pertaining to environmental health, sustainability, ecological resilience issues and so on (Saunders, Allison, Wreford, & Emanuelson, 2005). Indigenous ventures, including Māori, now attempt to satisfy these relatively wealthy consumers and their values (Chapman-Smith, 2012) although the targeted ‘niche’ markets can still be very large and difficult to supply.

But many so-called markets remain unfulfilled despite considerable demand, not least in health care and environmental management. This inability of market forces to recognise and remedy future threats to national or regional economies is seen to be the primary cause of unsustainability (Becker & Jahn, 1999), further complicating the role of technological innovation which is assumed as the means to improve productivity, as the cause of uncertainty in more broadly ascribed development goals, and as the solution to these concerns.
Is the world flat or lumpy?

So, ongoing innovation is increasingly seen as vital to questions of national comparative advantage, the competitiveness of firms, long-term economic growth, trade, finance, employment, manufacturing and services, and as integral to the sustainable development of Māori resources (Lambert, 2008). Importantly, the current context for economic development is global, with geographical and cultural ‘obstacles’ interpreted as having diminishing effects through ongoing technological advances, particularly with modern ICTs. Thomas Friedman (2005) argues that cheap communication and travel have ‘flattened’ the world, making greater wealth possible for those individuals and nation-states that proactively engage with the processes of globalisation. For Friedman, globalisation is broadly interpreted as increasingly interdependent participation in extensive chains of production that compete for cheap labour and raw materials from the developing world to ‘satisfy’ demand in both the developing world (where there is a growing number of wealthy and self-consciously discerning elites) and the markets of the ‘West’.


Others have decried the obvious ‘lumpiness’ of the world, evident in both developing countries, where extreme poverty constrained many individuals and communities from benefiting from the new global supply chains (Smith, 2005), and the developed world, where less dramatic but similar disparities persist. 

Māori and Innovation
Constraints to Māori participation in innovation are somewhat glaring. When innovation was theorized as residing within research, science, and technology (RS&T) institutions, Māori lacked critical mass in shaping the processes of a period characterised by the ‘science push’ concept (Fig. 1).

In this model, Māori participation has been minor and being part of any ‘value chain’ has proven difficult (Te Puni Kokiri, 2010). This model can be identified in Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) strategy lead by the Ministry of Primary Industries that has invested in programmes on wool, red meat, dairy, aquaculture, mānuka honey and forestry. Government funding is to be matched by industry investment with the aim of ‘boosting economic growth through research and innovation…to transform great ideas into research, development, and ultimately products, jobs and growth’ (Carter, 2011).

This linear ‘science push’ model was challenged by the ‘market pull’ concept in the 1970s as further empirical evidence showed the complexity of the relationship between science, technology and innovation (Martin & Nightingale, 2000). Through the 1980s and 1990s, international research revealed that the ability to innovate was deeply embedded within firms as collectives of people, capital and ideas. This included a realisation of the importance of networks, including education, localised knowledge and the role of tacit knowledge (Gibbons & Johnston, 1974).

As Fagerberg and Verspagen (2009) point out, academia has now formalised ‘Innovation Studies’ although this still amounts to a disparate collection of approaches. Some approaches have coalesced around the methodologies of geography and policy studies; others have been moulded by the ‘free-wheeling discursive voyages’ into capitalism described by Schumpeter. Beyond this, Smits (2002) notes that innovation is now linked to the emergence of a ‘porous society’ in which ‘knowledge intensive intermediaries’ have a fundamental role combining the insights and abilities of both users and producers. Metcalfe (2007) usefully distinguishes between innovation ecologies, comprised of those people that are the ‘repositories and generators of new knowledge’, and innovation systems or ‘connections between the components that ensure the flow of information necessary for innovation to take place’. This holistic interpretation of innovation has several antecedents. Wulf (2007) referred to an ‘ecology’ of innovation, comprising ‘interrelated institutions, laws, regulations, and policies providing an innovation infrastructure that entails education, research, tax policy, and intellectual property protection, among others.’ Dvir and Pasher (2004) list a number of attributes to innovation ecology, including the time and space to muse; an organisational structure with weak boundaries and a low emphasis on hierarchy; tolerance of risk; clear strategies and attention to the future; recognition and incentives; financial capital; human diversity; and conversations – the ‘unifying principle’.

While the term ‘ecosystem’ has been applied to innovation in NZ (see, e.g., New Zealand Institute, 2009), the debate is poorly informed by the research literature, dominated by various statistical analyses (often framed or emanating from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, e.g., Statistics New Zealand, 2009). Te Puni Kōkiri has released several interlinked reports that model scenarios of better implementation of science and innovation for developing the Māori economy (Te Puni Kokiri, 2010). Funding remains small and insecure; just $5 million is allocated to the Vision Mātauranga Capability MSI funding.

One approach to interpreting how Māori participate in the networks of innovation is through the active insertion of alternative cultural logics - ‘Kaupapa Māori’ - to directly or indirectly influence research, science, and technology. Consider Figure 2:

This model explicitly builds the ‘cultural environment’ into the innovation process by increasing the spectrum of creativity available for problem-solving. Where identified, it could be argued there is an opportunity for an ‘Indigenous turn’ in which localised communities and their cultures interrogate ‘outsiders’ according to cultural traditions that may include, for example, holistic interpretations of the world and self-determined strategies in which there is no ‘bottom-line’ to cultural aspirations.

But what are the implications for Māori of this ‘innovate or die’ mentality? Although the latest iteration of innovation strategies incorporates mātauranga Māori, is the landscape any smoother? It could be argued that for Māori, fundamental insights come from our communities and their ‘non-certified’ experts. Assimilating or even simply accessing their knowledge is difficult, although the rise of non-certified expertise in many areas indicates how historical boundaries between scientific expertise and a wider citizenry have been eroded (Figure 3).






Some critics have expressed either reservations or complete scepticism about the rigour or applicability of mātauranga Māori in contemporary settings. Wider ideological opponents describe Indigenous methodologies as ‘irrational’ and ‘unscientific’, standard insults against the contagion of native cultures threatening so-called rational European philosophy. However, such controversies merely emphasises the ethical, philosophical, and practical challenges posed when multiple knowledge bases collide and collaborate.

The predominant context for contemporary Māori development is one of highly fluid capital and knowledge that moves through extensive transnational networks, a feature of the modern agribusiness supply chains Māori already engage with. Participants in these networks continually re-imagine and re-orient their personal and collective involvement according to such decisions as the utilisation (or not) of natural resources, how such utilisation proceeds, and the intergenerational transfer of assets and liabilities. Much of the expansion of the Māori economy is in primary production through a number of agri/forestry/aquaculture and fisheries ventures, some of considerable size. Other ventures seek large-scale development of urban and peri-urban lands for residential and commercial uses in the face of growing ecological and social barriers (Wright, 2008).

The recently elevated ‘science and innovation’ platform on which the country might ‘close the gap’ with Australia is a dubious national goal for Māori, many of whom emigrate to Australia to close their own gaps! Again, this state strategy attempts to frame innovation for Māori without including all the people, processes or places we ourselves might bring to the table. Māori connect more dots, much like the current models of innovation that emphasise the interconnectedness or ‘ecology’ of innovation. Connecting more dots seems to be what is needed for the country’s – indeed the planet’s – sustainable development.

The personal abilities of the tactical players – often called ‘knowledge workers’ - is thus at the heart of any strategy. Serious concerns have been raised about the retention of young researchers (Ihaka, 2009; Massaro, Yogeeswaran, & Black, 2012); post-doctoral research positions are reported to have declined by 25% (Hendry, 2012). Many knowledge workers are subject to increasingly vulnerable and temporary employment conditions, and the lure of international research positions is a natural outcome of the economic model followed. Further, many Māori postgraduates are young wāhine who face additional risk factors in a work environment where chauvinist and racist attitudes persist despite the clearly negative effects on completion, outputs, rigour, professionalism, and retention. Fig. 4 represents a generic social network in which an individual student might inhabit. This network would include whānau, friends, possibly one or more Māori communities as participants, mentors, and collaborators, as well as university or wānanga staff and colleagues and possibly Crown Research Institute, corporate and industry participants. The array of issues and challenges are considerable.

This view of innovation emphasises what Māori educationalist Wally Penetito called the ‘sophistication of relationships’, an acknowledgement of fundamental influences on the success or failure of so much of our social world. It could be said that what Māori bring to innovation is the requirement that programmes and projects require occasionally intensive, possibly ongoing, intergenerational, international interaction. The challenges faced by Māori are not ours alone, although we bring our own history, culture and aspirations to the debate. Ultimately, any innovation strategy is implemented by individuals and groups with various agendas and abilities. Finding, engaging, trusting and supporting them will be as challenging as figuring out what they should do.
Smoothing out the lumps

Global extant forces now directly affect the location and practice of innovation in a way quite distinct from previous periods. The resulting economic spaces impact on the growth and influence of the Māori economy, challenging Māori as drivers, practitioners, and purchasers of innovation. The assertion of Māori cultural logics within innovation ecosystems also challenges universities, funding bodies, ethics committees, corporations, voters, and tax payers. Lumpiness as far as the eye can see!

While accusation and controversies abound in collaborative projects involving non-Māori, by accepting and using mātauranga and Kaupapa Māori – even superficially - Pākeha exhibit an essential modern skill: the skill and pragmatism to assimilate ‘all forms or aspects of social activity without exception’, to understand and apply, not only of one particular methodology but any methodology or variation (Feyerbend, 1975, p. 10).

Likewise innovators must be able to pass from one approach to another ‘in the quickest and most unexpected manner’ (ibid.). Further, good innovation is supported from above and below, is networked both here and overseas, and the benefits will be disseminated to all who have contributed, and all who need those innovations for their collective health and security. At all levels this requires understanding, vision, commitment, courage, cooperation, and perseverance, in other words leadership. Innovation will draw on iwi capital (economic, environmental, social, and cultural) through education, training and mentoring programmes, and be reliant on the sophistication of their public and private, local and global relationships. In this sense, it might be said some innovation (particularly in the environmental sciences, community sustainability programmes, biodiversity etc.) is taking an Indigenous turn to navigate what lumps exist on our innovation landscape. The challenge remains to improve the combination of land, labour, capital through social innovation to better contribute to the growth of the Aotearoa/New Zealand economy and, by a still contested association, the development of Māori society.


References
Becker, J., & Jahn, T. (Eds.). (1999). Sustainability and the Social Sciences: A cross-Disciplinary Approach to intergrating environmental considerations into theoretical reorientation. London: Zed.

Carter, D. (2011). Primary Growth Partnership nears $500m. Retrieved May 23, 2012,from http://beehive.govt.nz/release/primary-growth-partnership-nears-500m

Chapman-Smith, B. (2012, August 16). Maori cuisne cluster eyes offshore markets. NZ Herald. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/small-business/news/article.cfm?c_id=85&objectid=10827312

Collins, H. M., & Evans, R. (2002). The Third Wave of Science Studies. Social Studies of Science, 32(2), 235-293.

Dvir, R., & Pasher, E. (2004). Innovation engines for knowledge cities: An innovation ecology perspective. Journal of KnowledgeMmanagement, 8(5), 16-27.

Easton, B. (1997). The Commercialisation of New Zealand. Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Fagerberg, J., & Verspagen, B. (2009). Innovation studies: The emerging structure of a new scientific field. Research Policy, 38, 218-233.

Feyerbend, P. (1975). Against Method. London and New York: Verso.

Friedman, T. (2005). The World is FLat: A Brief History of the Twenty First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Gibbons, M., & Johnston, R. (1974). The Roles of Science in Technolgical Innovation. Research Policy, 3(3), 221-242.

Hendry, S. (2012). Budget 2012: What’s in it for science? Retrieved May 28, 2012,from http://sciblogs.co.nz/griffins-gadgets/2012/05/24/budget-2012-whats-in-it-for-science/

Ihaka, J. (2009, July 17th). Science community fading, says PM's adviser. NZ Herald. Retrieved from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10584991

Lambert, S. (2008). The Expansion of Sustainability through New Economic Space: Maori Potatoes and Cultural Resilience (Doctoral thesis). Lincoln, Christchurch.

Lambert, S. (2011). Te Ahuwhenua and the ‘Sons’ of the Soil’: A history of the Māori-Farmer-of-the-Year award. MAI Review, 6(1).

Martin, B. R., & Nightingale, P. (2000). Introduction. In B. R. Martin & P. Nightingale (Eds.), The Political Economy of Science, Technology and Innovation (pp. xiii-xlii). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Massaro, M., Yogeeswaran, K., & Black, A. (2012). Trapped in the postdoctoral void: lack of postdotoral opportunities in New Zealand forces emerging reseacrhers to exit science or seek employment overseas. New Zealand Science Review, 69(2), 30-39.

McCann, P. (2009). Economic geography, globalisation and New Zealand's productivity paradox. New Zealand Economic Papers, 43(3), 279 - 314.

Metcalfe, S. (2007). Innovation systems, innovation policy and restless capitalism. In F. Malerba & S. Brusoni (Eds.), Perspectives on innovation (pp. 441-454). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mill, J. S. (1848). Principles of Political Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy. London: J.W. Parker.

New Zealand Institute. (2009). New Zealand's innovation ecosystem - emerging conclusions. Auckland: New Zealand Institute. Retrieved from http://www.nzinstitute.org/Images/uploads/NZs_innovation_ecosystem_-_emerging_conclusions.pdf

Saunders, C., Allison, G., Wreford, A., & Emanuelson, M. (2005). Food Markets: Trade Risks and Trends (05/04): Agricultural Research Group on Sustainability.

Schumpeter, J. A. (1928). The instability of capitalism. The Economic Journal, 38, 361-368.

Smith, N. (2005). Neo-Critical Geography Or, The Flat Pluralist World of Busienss Class. Antipode, 37(5), 887-899.

Smits, R. (2002). Innovation studies in the 21st century;: Questions from a user's perspective. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 69(9), 861-883.

Statistics New Zealand. (2009). Innovation in New Zealand. Wellington: Statistics New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.stats.govt.nz/NR/rdonlyres/4D070B56-8EFB-4DFD-A351-3C145AC7B51C/0/5511SNZinnovationreportffweb.pdf

Taatila, V. P., Suomala, J., Siltala, R., & Keskinen, S. (2006). Framework to study the social innovation networks. European Journal of Innovation Management, 9(3), 312-326.

Te Puni Kokiri. (2010). The Maori economy, science, and innovation. Wellington: Te Puni Kokiri/ Ministry of Maori Development/ BERL.

Wright, J. (2008). State of the Environment: “Prioritising Environmental Challenges: What Matters Most?”. Retrieved from http://www.pce.govt.nz/news/speeches/State_of_the_Environment_28_Aug_2008.pdf

Wulf, W. (2007). Changes in innovation ecology. Science, 316(5829), 1253.

Ziman, J. (1984). An Introduction to science studies: The philosophical and social aspects of science and technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ultra Fast Broadband: when's your whare getting wired to the rest of the world?

This map by Chorus - the UFB provider - will give an indication of when you can expect to be get a big pipe for data wired to your house. Disappointingly for me,  Leeston doesn't feature at all (i recall the governments original plan was wire-up only towns of 15,000 people and over), and the time needed for this roll- raises concerns for exactly how this government expects to change our economy (which is still largely driven by agriculture) in line with the need to realign from housing boom (and bust).

Debt-driven consumerism to the sustainable land-use that will buttress our economy in the medium-term?

One case study from my 'End-users innovation' project while working for AERU talked about her driveway being dug up for the broadband connection which she herself couldn't access!

Other info...
Koorindates website (All broadband connections) http://koordinates.com/maps/BroadbandMap/collections/#/

Otautahi kura connections: http://gcsn.school.nz/community/news/revealed-governments-broadband-plan-your-kids-school

Update on Indigenous Mapping controversy in Oaxaca

I posted on this controversy a while ago, and now thanks to Kieren McKenzie, have been sent a link of an interview with Aldo Gonzalez, the Indigenous Rights Officer of Union of Social Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO). 


The geographers' sin in this case seems to be one of omission by not informing Indigenous participants of one of the studies sponsors - Radiance Technologies -  a company that specializes in arms development and military intelligence. Resulting and data was also hoovered up by Human Terrain System, a United States Army unit, for their global database that forms an integral part of the US counterinsurgency strategy.  


Serious teko comrades.


Anyways, like Kieren says, all maps are liars so best we geographer always tell the truth.

The angle of vanishing stability

Lovely term from yet another ship's captain, via the bright box in the corner of the room, pertaining to Aotearoa's worse maritime environmental disaster.

'Tis all quite patterned by now me hearty's...

• disaster strikes (earthquake, coal mine explosion, ship wreck)
• locals rally
• leaders (actually managers) freeze, terrified of making bad decision
• Wellington dithers (see above)
• offshore expertise/technology needed, time lag till arrival
• reports surface, speaking of minimal or substandard capacity to respond to said emergency
• taxpayer foots bill

Listen to the Minister of Defence justifying the MoD's decision to delay its own report until it had digested (cribbed?) the UN report into abuses of Afghani prisoner's captured or otherwise handled by NZ SAS. How thin have we cut the State carcass?

This government's credibility ebbs by the day, and when the end comes, it'll be like any capsize: quick and deadly, sucking down all in its orbit. Over the angle of vanishing stability.

Shame.

How did it all come to this....worse Aotearoa/New Zealand maritime environmental disaster

The recent squirming performance of our Prime Minister (in response to contrary accounts of Standard and Poor's recent downgrading of NZ's credit rating), the tortured experiences of many Christchurch residents, the tragic revelations in the Pike River coalmine disaster, and now the fumbling response to the grounded cargo vessel in the Bay of Plenty leaves me feeling somewhat disturbed at the vacuum in leadership in this country.  How did it all come to this?

I can't help but feel we have reached yet another crossroads in our history.

Essentially Aotearoa/NZ is bereft of leadership, infrastructure, and vision, a perfect storm that will hopefully sideline the incompetent, the dishonest, and the corrupt and enable the rise of informed, committed, dynamic and visionary people.

This is also coming through in our research on Ru Whenua, with several informants arguing that the arrival of head office (often from Wellington) lead to a slowing in response efforts. Too many middle and senior managers just don't have the talent or the courage to make a call that others will respect and follow. Our technological and expertise capcity is seriously degraded, with many disaster responses reliant on equipment and experise sourced from offshore leading to frustrating delays in time-sensitive responses.

And our leaders seem to lack the words, the insight, and the commitment to a) solve and b) prevent future recurrences. While the Labour Party must now regret not replacing the misfiring Phil Goff a year ago, we go in to an election with little analysis, poor coverage, and few options.

But I sense a growing disillusion, even anger.

This may yet be an interesting wee election...

Check out:'Worst NZ Maritime environmental disaster'

'Iwi place rahui'

Scorched earth policy...

The ashes around the old man Tane Mahuta getting more e-play. So old (at 2,500 years) he now has the scattering of people's ashes, let alone the gentle rotting bodies of his close whanaunga.

LandCare, fronting the science, as I said below, et cetera et cetera.

Collaboration with Maori should be easier, given the current (party) political climate. But this is trumped by old skool political-economic numbers: yunno its tough when PAKEHA are broke!

Meanwhile the big block @ Te Whare Wananga o Aorangi - Forbes - is wrapped in white plastic. I'm on the third floor, or as we like to say, the pancake palace (the lower floors always squish, right?).



Like some Swiss-French art installation, or an island wrapped in cloth.



On the subject of trees, a beautiful portfolio by Cedric Pollet.



Positive I-ration.

Innovation in New Zealand

Monday, Tuesday this week I was at the International Conference on Invention, Innovation and Commercialisation at the Sudima Hotel, Chirstchurch. Presented my research on the second day, the details of which are in our report, The socio-technical networks of technology users' innovation: a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis.

Highlights for me were the TUI peeps themselves whose stories are inspiring, scary and enlightening. Also enjoyed Enrico Tronchin's presentation on Disruptive innovation for sustained economic growth: Why New Zealand’s innovation system should be open, distributed and inclusive of innovative users, and Manthyan Janodia's paper on Generating innovation in developing countries: policy formulation and its implications'. Manthan gave some fascinating insight into Indian innovation, check out the website. Products include an amphibious bicycle...

Innovation flat in NZ - latest report...

New figures just released for NZ innovation, showing some interesting stuff. First, the headlines - Innovation resilient in face of global crisis - is an admission of failure: you need MORE innovation in a financial crisis.

Research I'm currently working on that looks at technology users as innovators confirms the difficulties for inventors in this country, lack of finance being the main obstacle (confirmed in the SNZ report). Within the results (Table 1) we see declining innovation activity over three financial years (2005, 2007, 2009)...less money = less innovation = less money = less innovation...

Our flagship sector (agriculture, fisheries and forestry) which between them contribute 5% of GDP with an innovation rate of 32%. I recall from somewhere our farming sector was ranked 15th or 16th in the world for innovation, a case of resting on our laurels (and indicative in the ongoing malaise of the meat and wool sectors).

Not good....

Gallagher's HQ, Hamilton. Started with Bill Gallagher, Waikato farmer and inventor of electric fencing, and an old horse that kept rubbing up against Bill's truck...

Science and Technology Studies (STS)

At the end of last year I attended the "Towards STS networking in the Asia-Pacific", a two-day meeting at Victoria University of Wellington, 1-2 December 2008.
There were 45 participants from China, Japan, Singapore, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and a total of 24 papers were presented (including keynote and plenary talks), representing a wide range of STS perspectives and research approaches. The organisers released a report on several concrete outcomes that resulted from this meeting.

1. A special journal issue of selected papers from the workshop will be pursued by the workshop organisers, in the first instance through the newly established East Asian Science Technology and Society Journal.

A call for papers will be set in motion in February 2009, following the themes from the workshop, with the aim of publication in late 2010.

2. A regional STS Network is to be set up, with a convening group. A/Prof Richard Hindmarsh (Griffith University, Brisbane) was invited by workshop participants to be the inaugural Convenor (for 2009), with advisors Dr Karen Cronin and Virginia Baker (ESR, Wellington), and support contacts in China (Dr Ma Huiduan), Japan (A/Prof. Tomiko Yamaguchi), and Singapore (Dr Sulfikar Amir). However, as A/Prof Hindmarsh is also the organiser for the next STS workshop in Brisbane in November 2009, he has passed on the role of Convenor to Karen Cronin but remains on the committee as Deputy Convenor. Karen’s employer (Environmental Science and Research Ltd) is extending its capability in the STS field and has kindly agreed to provide support for the Network e.g. through hosting web pages, contact database.

3. Format for the Network. Rather than creating another professional association, it is envisaged that the Network will be an informal group, aimed at developing collegial relationships in the Asia Pacific region. It would operate primarily though an annual workshop, along with an email contact list and a website. There will be no formal membership, committee structure, or fees. The annual workshop will be self funding through registrations, grants and sponsorship. To share the workload, the Convenor role will be rotated on an annual basis [to December]. The Convenor will co-opt support from among the Network members, including appointing an organising group for the annual workshop.

The Network will be open to those with an interest in STS research, theory and practice in the Asia Pacific region, and it will be complementary to existing formal associations. Many network participants already belong to established national or international STS/HPS associations. The Wellington meeting agreed to investigate the options for a complementary support relationship with a potential regional chapter of 4S, but upon investigation this option is not available.

4. It was agreed to hold the next STS networking workshop in Brisbane, in late November 2009, with Richard Hindmarsh as the organiser. The Centre for Governance and Public Policy at Griffith University, of which Richard is a member, is kindly providing primary funding support. Special features of the Brisbane meeting will be a focus on the environment and on indigenous issues.

5. Network members are also looking forward to meeting again in August 2010 in Japan, at the 4S annual meeting in Tokyo. This will be an opportunity to extend our contacts in the Asia Pacific region and potentially present joint papers or sessions.

6. The Wellington meeting was honoured to have the participation of Professor Chen Fan, Chief Professor at the Innovation Institute of Philosophy and Social Science for STS Northeastern University, China and President of the Chinese STS Society, along with his colleague Dr Ma Huiduan. Prof Fan kindly offered to host a future regional STS networking meeting in China in 2011 or 2012.

7. Website information on the Wellington workshop was hosted on a blog. Following the workshop, the blogsite is being updated with a photo of participants, the programme, keynote and plenary speakers’ details, and the abstracts.

The full workshop presentations and future information for STS networking will be set up soon on a permanent web page, hosted by Environmental Science and Research (ESR) on its STS pages.

Finally, we would like to thank once again all our speakers, and in particular our sponsors: Environmental Science and Research (ESR), the Victoria Management School at Victoria University of Wellington, the Building Research Capacity in the Social Sciences Fund (BRCSS) in New Zealand, and the Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University in Brisbane.

STS Conference, Wellington, Dec 1-2, 2009

For those observers out there, no I haven't done anything for a long time...apologise to Kumara Rob who sent a message: your email address bounced by response (I've sent a mihi through the MAI forum site).

Upcoming is the inaugural Science, Technology and Science Conference, Wellington, December 1st and 2nd. In attendance will be Profs. Richard Hindmarsh and Frank Fischer.

I've sent in a paper, the abstract of which is below...

Abstract: The return of indigenous land to a productive role in the so-called Knowledge Economy entails the innovation and diffusion of technologies relevant to the sustainable development of this land and the broader socio-ecological resilience of indigenous communities. Such innovation is emerging in tandem with concerns for cultural diversity as political-economic strategies in the Knowledge Economy converge within a global economic space. Indigenous development is often framed in terms of participation, whereby indigenous communities are enticed, assisted or just forced to participate in various ascriptions of modernity. The research tools available in examining this phenomenon have struggled to adequately unpack the degree of participation, its particular form, and the subsequent effects upon development, however that development is defined.

This paper demonstrates Fuzzy-set/Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) in articulating the causal conditions of sustainable development for Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand and shows how Actor-Network Theory (ANT) can contribute to understanding the various participations involved in such development. fsQCA is an approach that enables the rigorous investigation of small-N studies (common to collaborative approaches used by researchers when working ethically with marginalised groups) and identifies necessary and sufficient conditions towards goals supported by indigenous collectives. ANT was effective in extending the analysis and provided greater insight into the set-theoretic approach of fsQCA.

Ready, SET, Go...

A new FRST contract has started within the Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit at Lincoln University. Under the rubric of Innovation Governance, the research team will be investigating the conditions under which socio-technical networks best foster technology development, adoption and commercialisation. The aim is to substantially improve innovation outcomes and innovation governance by providing this critical knowledge to enhance policy decision-making by key sector organisations and government, leading to increased development and uptake of innovative technologies within New Zealand.

The research addresses Theme 2, Priority 2 of the Foundations SET portfolio – Enabling sustainable technology development through understanding technologies in context. The three year study will undertake an international comparison, examine three sectorts (energy, building and Maori agribusiness) and also closely investigate selected innovations.

On a personal note i have been engaged as a fulltime Research Officer for this project, and hope to contribute a greater understanding of the technological context for Maori development. At a recent workshop on New Maori Ventures hosted by FOMANA Capital Ltd., the arena of innovation governance was fleshed out by Professors' Mark Ahn and Michael Meeks. The worksshop outlined the broader commercial context of innovation - Angel investors, Venture Capital - and presented case studies of successful and unsuccessful commercial innovation. This context is the important front-end of innovation. What we in the SET project are wanting to describe and analyse is the all-important end-user, the farm labourer who has to dress the pastures with nitrogen-inhibitors, check stock health, or the builder who chooses the insulation method (or not).

Anyways, the workshop was great fun, a good group, and everything to play for! Nga mihi nui ki a koutou!

Technology Transfer: The Diffusion of Advanced Biotechnologies and Maori Horticulture

Okay, here's draft number three - the link is through to the conference site. I've scored free registration: as the rangatahi say, 'Big Ups' to the organisers. Formatting is lost, and so are the nifty diagrams.

Abstract
The role of technology in any society is difficult to isolate. First, it is all pervasive: no society lacks technology (although some certainly lag in their attempts to acquire specific technologies). Secondly, it is constituted of tangible innovations – pots, metal implements, buildings – and intangible knowledge – pottery, metallurgy, architecture. Innovative technologies are indicators of ‘civilisation’. They are also integral to contemporary development, now promoted in terms of a ‘Knowledge Economy’.

The sheer pace and scale of technological change has meant that although technology is ‘intentionally and systematically’ put in place, it is now experienced as a somewhat ‘alien and uncanny force’ (Rapp 1981). The very ‘success’ of certain technologies (revealed in their comprehensive diffusion) is implicated in threats to the sustainability of various communities and even humanity itself. How can sustainable technologies to be diffused in order to ‘avoid, remedy or mitigate’ adverse effects on the environment?

In this phenomenon, indigenous peoples are almost generically described as 'laggards': that is slow to adopt new technologies. While remaining the originators of (acceptably quaint) traditions, indigenous peoples are incessantly targeted as potential receptors of new and therefore beneficial technologies. In this paper I present data from a research project revolving around the innovation of sustainable biotechnologies to Maori horticulturalists. These technologies are distinguished from unsustainable technologies in a number of ways, not least the requirement that they be comprehensively diffused in order to ‘work’.

Inputting this data into a classical diffusion model reveals the phenomenon of ‘reverse cascade’ diffusion where the initial sources of innovation are Maori acting as case studies and/or collaborators. The flow of subsequent innovations appears to be mediated by neo-liberal markets, hindering the vital diffusion of sustainability on to Maori land.

Keywords: technology transfer, diffusion of innovation, sustainable Maori development.

Introduction
This paper treats innovation as any idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new: it can also be the rediscovery of an idea, practice or object. Adoption is the singular decision - whether by an individual, institution, firm or other ‘adoptive unit’ - to take up an innovation. Diffusion is the process whereby the adoption of an innovation is transferred through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.

Given the absolute importance of diffusion in the ultimate success of any technology, the lack of diffusion of sustainable technologies, where they exist, speaks of their failure regardless of their efficacy in isolation. This fact must be kept in mind during the following discussion.

The term ‘technology’ itself is difficult to define. Heidegger (1977) begins his thesis on modern technology with accepting it as a means to an end and a human activity: “…to posit ends and procure and utilize the means to them is a human activity (p 4). He goes on to say that “The manufacture and utilization of equipment, tools and machines, the [artefacts] themselves and the needs and ends they serve all belong to what technology is (p 4-5). This description is echoed by Rogers (2003: 12) who considers technology to be the “…design for instrumental action that reduces the uncertainty in the cause-effect relationships involved in achieving a desired outcome” (Rogers 2003). For Maori growers it will include all the strategies and tactics employed to reduce the vulnerability of their crops.

The Diffusion of Innovations: Models and MethodsThe S-curve is commonly to describe diffusion (Fig 1). It seems to have been initially promoted by French sociologist Gabriel Trade (1903) who saw the task of the sociologist as tracing “…the curve of the successive increases, standstills or decreases in every new or old want and in every new or old idea, as it spreads out and consolidates itself, or as it is crushed back and uprooted”. History for Trade “…is a collection of those things that have had the greatest celebrity…those initiatives that have been the most imitated.” (cited in Katz, p 149).
The early exploratory works of Gabriel Tarde and others were revolutionised by Torsten Hägerstrand, a Swedish geographer who attempted to model the spatial characteristics of adoption and diffusion with new (to geography) quantitative techniques (Hagerstrand 1952; Hagerstrand 1967). He utilised the analogy of a wave (adoption and diffusion) spreading across a pond (society) after a pebble (innovation) had been thrown in. In this model, the timing of adoption is a function of a person’s distance from the first innovator.

Many researchers have focused on information as the key variable (Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971; Rogers, 1983). For Hägerstrand, communication is the key mechanism in diffusion; the spatial pattern was the result of a ‘contagious’ process, which he called the ‘neighbourhood effect’. Tarde had also acknowledged the importance of simple (but not simplistic) communication.


Hierarchy Model and Gravity Theory
In this paper I examine the transfer of sustainability to Maori land by utilising the model of hierarchic diffusion. This occurs “…through a regular sequence of order, classes, or hierarchies” (Haggett: 299). Such diffusion is generally assumed to be ‘downward’, for example from large to smaller cities and towns. However, examples of a ‘reverse cascade’ occur where innovations diffuse ‘upward’, from smaller to larger centres. Figure 2 below represents these phenomena in a simple schema. The term gravity theory is also used to describe hierarchic diffusion (inviting the term ‘anti-gravity’ for ‘reverse cascade’).

The relationship of indigenous peoples to modern technology is commonly treated as a development problem - how to transfer appropriate technology to indigenous groups - or an ethical dilemma where indigenous culture is somehow threatened by new technology and yet cannot be wholly protected from its influence (Stephenson 1994; Grim 2001). In the words of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report (2003) “A common feature…of all successful economies is the degree to which innovation – in the widest possible sense – permeates everything people do.” This report goes on to say that Maori openness to innovation may be constrained due to the “…strange influence of traditions, culture and spiritual values.” The inference is that Maori are slow on the uptake.

The diffusion of innovative crop protection methods through the ‘social system’ that is Maori horticulture is critically evaluated in this paper so as to map the pathways by which sustainable crop protection might be achieved. Obstacles to this diffusion are identified and remedies offered.

Case Study: The National Centre for Advanced Bioprotection TechnologiesThe data on which this paper is based has been gathered from within a network established for the innovation of agri-biotechnologies. The National Centre for Advanced Bioprotection Technologies (NCABT) won funding set aside for the establishment of Centre’s of Research Excellence (CoREs) in the 2002 budget. This Lincoln-based CoRE is comprised of four themes: Biosecurity, Biocontrol, Agri-biotechnology and Matauranga Maori Bioprotection. This last theme is to be conducted in accordance with Kaupapa Maori and Participatory research principles (Zealand; Harris 2003; Environment 2004). The transfer of NCABT technologies - promoted as ‘sustainable’- is an explicit objective.

The process of diffusing sustainable technologies to Maori horticulture is modelled below. This hierarchy will be further described with respect to type of innovation, its source and direction of diffusion.


Case Studies
TBA (okay, that's a cop out... I'm still writing the paper, like everyone else)




Analysis
Hägerstrandian diffusion sees the motive power of diffusion reside within the spread of information: other cultural variables are interpreted as obstacles. This assumption was not overtly challenged by his fieldwork in rural Sweden, which as Blaut (1977) points out is a culturally uniform space whose pool of potential adopters were in possession of the necessary technical and economic prerequisites for adoption of a set of innovations of demonstrable utility. ‘Information’ was, in these circumstances, quite reasonably the ‘missing element’, the arrival of which would initiate the adoption/diffusion process.


Conclusions
Maori are now returning to the proactive adoption/diffusion practices of the 19th century. In health (Durie, ; ), education ( ), and business (TPK, 2002; NZIER, 2003), Maori individuals and groups are seeking new ways of doing things. A willingness to embrace innovation in horticulture is also evident (Lambert 2004; Roskruge 2004). This involves interacting with ‘traditional’ actors, that is government and its agencies and private corporations. It also involves increasing interactions with new research institutions such as CoREs, and their strategic positioning of matauranga Maori themes.

The promotion of information as a key variable elevates knowledge as the primary causal element in development. However, there are quite clear transfers of innovation, as represented by specifically Maori ides, symbols, terminology and so on, and professional affiliation across disciplines, institutions and projects. This flow is also dynamic,


References
Environment, S. a. D. D. (2004). Maori values infuse agriculture project. Environment, Society and Design Division Research Profile: 12-13.
Grim, J. A., Ed. (2001). Indigenous Traditions and Ecology. Cambridge, Ma., Harvard University Press.
Hagerstrand, T. (1952). "The propogation of innovation waves." Lund Studies in Geography B: 4.
Hagerstrand, T. (1967). Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process. Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press.
Harris, N. (2003). Team presentation. T. F. colleagues. Chirstchurch.
Lambert, S. (2004). Indigenous Research Ethics and Agro-ecological Development: Raising the IRE in Biotechnology Transfer, Te Papa, Wellington.
Rapp, F. (1981). Analytical Philosophy of Technology. Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Company.
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations. New York, The Free Press.
Roskruge, N. (2004). Snapshot of Maori Horticulture. Te Ohu Whenua, Massey University.
Stephenson, R. A. (1994). 'Traditional Technologies' Structures and Cultures of the Pacific: Five Papers from the Symposium "Technology and Cultural Change in the Pacific". Technology and Cultural Change in the Pacific XVII Pacific Science Congress, Honolulu, University of Guam/Micronesian Area Research Centre.
Zealand, R. S. o. N. Selection Criteria for Centres of Research Excellence. 2004.

Lincoln University's IP debate

Discussion on Lincoln University’s policy for intellectual property – deemed worthy of its own acronym IP (also IPR where the ‘R’ stands for ‘Rights’ which perhaps indicates the, um, sensitivity of the issue) – is wending its way through the bureaucratic labyrinth. Maori students are invited to engage in this debate as contributors, mediators and kaitiaki of matauranga Maori or Maori knowledge. Of course whether we (and our whanaunga) can engage in such a debate in a manner cognisant with our needs and wants is perhaps too tortuous a challenge for students and staff to take up (again).

What is clear is that IP originates from what German philosopher of technology, Friedrich Rapp, calls the ‘psychological event’ of invention, a separate phenomenon from the concrete embodiment, i.e. the construction (and sale) of things with ownership rights defined in patents, copyright etc. Debate following the recent (and most excellent) Post Graduate Conference revolved around this subtle change, from intellectual ‘capital’ to ‘property’. Post-grad students have a significant role as researchers and therefore inventors of IP and (potential) wealth which, as history does record, can be variously and viciously appropriated.

There seems to be an unspoken assumption that our physical science colleagues are the ones to be most affected by any policy. I think any such a process is surely worth the professional attention of any social scientist worth her salt. Who gets what, and how is such a decision reached? Well, once German philosophers are involved, we can assume that clarity is akin to an earthy suspension in dihydrogen oxide.