Week 1 Reflections: Collective Systems and Individual Journeys
A warm welcome to you!
Welcome to my very first Knowledge Integration and Project Planning (KIPP) blog. As well as forming a key component of my Masters Degree Programme in Data Inequality and Society, this space offers a welcomed opportunity for me to regularly pause, reflect, recalibrate, share and learn.
There is no “I” in team, but there is in soc(i)ety?
September has been a month of several transitions for me, riddled with rich learning experiences and new perspectives… and with this, much food for thought. A notable change for me in the last few weeks has been moving to the West Coast in the United States. Particularly in the last two weeks, the passing of Her Majesty, The Queen has spurred many conversations among our American neighbours and friends. Interestingly, many shared their views about The Queen as part of the monarchy as opposed to their perception of her personal character. This encouraged me to revisit a thought I had during the pandemic on how much (or little) we appreciate individual stories within collective systems.
On June 4th 2020, a few days before my birthday I wrote a short-written word in a desperate attempt to express the multitude of thoughts that were keeping me awake. George Floyd had been brutally murdered at the hands of the police in the United States. Meanwhile in Nigeria, a close relative was being forced into an unwanted marriage and in England COVID-19 restrictions had been eased only for members of the public to soil the parks with many thanks in the form of litter. Whilst my sleepless night was fuelled by three different frustrations, in three different parts of the world and at three different levels of impact to my direct life- each felt personal and I could not help but feel a sense of frustration with the role of society as a collective in each.
Last week I revisited an article written by Bill Gates in April 2021 (via Gates Notes) about the documentary called Time. Gates talks about its unique nature in that the screenplay moves away from details about the trials and tribulations faced by a family navigating difficult circumstances, and instead hones in on the human feelings of all parties involved and how these are affected by the people around them. Notably, Gates mentions that the documentary uncovers “how impersonally and inhumanely the system treats everyone caught up in it, including the offenders and their families, and how much time and energy are required to navigate it”. This statement resonates deeply with me, particularly having recently experienced the US healthcare system. As I begin my preparation for the Exclusion and Inequality intensive days, I hope to apply this lens whilst engaging with key readings.
A final note/food for thought
I would like to end each blog post with a final food for thought. This week’s is inspired by the Interdisciplinary Futures session I attended earlier today. When thinking about a key issue of 2050, a common theme seemed to be problems that will arise as a result of excess whether this be in processes (e.g., unsustainable use of resources), outcomes (e.g., information asymmetry), personas (e.g., hyper-individualism) or something else. There also seemed to be a trend that suggested a move towards simplification in the future to counteract some of this. Assuming this direction is taken, how do we ensure we do not exhibit excess in this simplification process?
Thank you for reading my first weeks’ reflections. I look forward to engaging with you all on the Data, Inequality and Society programme and hearing your reflections too 🙂
Goodness, Maryam, it sounds like you’ve had quite the September. I can see how the messiness of so much change could lead you to ruminations on the simplification process within collective systems. I also feel like there seems to be this push to view clean, streamlined, efficient systems as the future when so many problems in the present come from systems labeling something (or someone) an outlier and thus too small, complicated, or messy for consideration. It sounds like you had quite the discussion in Interdisciplinary Futures!
And have you watched Time, already? That sounds fascinating. I can’t wait to see what topic ideas you’re toying with for this project.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Theresa- this idea of recognising that personal (and messy) human stories cannot be neatly confined within structures as would be ideal, is certainly a theme I came across again and again in my readings this week.
I watched ‘Time’ a little while back but I seem to forget movie storylines (no matter how much I enjoy them) soon after watching them . It’s a pet peeve of mine! I do intend to go back and watch it again though. If you end up watching it at all, I’d love to hear your reflections.
Looking forward to sharing this journey with you and will most certainly start sharing project ideas soon!
Hey Maryam, what an interesting commentary 🙂
Firstly ‘ “how much (or little) we appreciate individual stories within collective systems” – what a thought. I’ve been reading the ‘Chronic Poverty – concepts, causes and policy’ book ahead of the Exclusion & Inequality sessions and so far the book seems to be circling around this idea too – that poverty measurements are really pointless without personal stories as how can we know what is pushing people out of (and into) poverty by just looking at point-in-time metrics. And you’ve put it so succinctly. Love it.
Secondly, I really enjoyed how you’ve summarised the themes that came out of the Interdisciplinary Futures session as ‘excess’ and the idea of simplification as a solution. I’m quite interested in cash transfer programs, like UBI or MIG and really at the heart of these is simplicity – people know what they need best so just give them the base mechanism (in this case cash) and let them get on with it. At it’s heart that is a huge simplification of so many excessively bureaucratic structures from social housing to monetary benefits to all the services that exist to support those who have had poor outcomes due to poverty (homelessness, ill health, food insecurity, crime etc.). But thinking about how we avoid excess in that scenario really is food for thought. For example, would we need mechanisms in place to protect people from everything suddenly going up in price to meet the cash payouts (e.g. if everyone gets £2k month most rent would probably become £2k a month)? – would we just end up with excess of rules to control the cost of everything to balance the cash injections? It could easily get out of control…
I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent so I’ll stop now – but thanks for sharing your thoughts, it definitely got me buzzing!
Thank you so much for sharing your reflections! I love how you’ve been able to apply the concept to your own world. Honestly speaking, we need more of this if we’re actually going to get anywhere with making a difference. It’s so inspiring to see your change maker mind buzzing away 🙂 The ‘need’ for structure/systems/institutions/rules for direction and harmony vs the ‘need’ for the same structure/systems/institutions/rules for control, politics and power is an interesting one to ponder over. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and leaving me with more to ponder over