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[Electronic beat]
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[Enda:] Welcome to Futures Conversations,
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the Edinburgh Futures Institute podcast
that showcases
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all the wonderful research taking place
at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
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Research at the Futures Institute
is challenge-led and interdisciplinary
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addressing many of the greatest challenges
we face in the world today.
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I'm your host, Enda Delaney,
the Director of Research at the Futures Institute.
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[Electronic beat]
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[Enda:] In this episode,
I'm joined by Professor Liz McFall.
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Liz is professor of Sociology of Markets
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and Director of the EFI
Data Civics Observatory.
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Liz, just to get our discussion going,
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could you tell us a little bit
about your background, where you grew up,
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who inspired you,
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what values were important to your family
and wider social group?-
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[Liz:] So I'm from Broxburn,
which is a small former shale mining town
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about nine miles west of Edinburgh.
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On my father’s side, my history
traces back to Irish immigrants
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who came to work the shale mines,
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the shale oil industry.
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Broxburn was a boom town for about
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just under 100 years,
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it was the biggest crude oil manufacturer
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in the world for that period of time.
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But the significant part of that for me,
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erm...
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growing up
there was that university wasn't really
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a thought for people of my background,
people at my school.
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So Edinburgh University
was obviously something we knew about,
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and you knew of people who went there,
but it wasn't really a thinkable thought.
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Even though I would say
from about the age of 13 or 14
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I knew I had some level
of academic ambition.
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So I went from school at the age of 16,
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I wasn't quite at my 17th birthday,
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to Queen Margaret College, which was then
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in the second year of launching
a degree called Communication Studies.
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I remember one of the nuns,
Sister Immaculata, saying to me,
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“central institution degrees are not worth
the same as university degrees”, but
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they had the same name, Bachelor of Arts,
so I didn't really understand that.
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I think my biggest
understanding of university was from
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watching University Challenge,
and I did not identify.-
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[Enda:] And what was this route to academia
for you?
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You're obviously- you're a professor
of Sociology now at Edinburgh University,
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you know,
how did you get from Queen Margaret to-
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to where you are today?-
by a very convoluted route.
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[Liz:] By a very convoluted route.
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So I was less than 17 years old
when I started my first degree in 1982.
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By 1985, I had dropped out.
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And it took me till 1987 to realise
that was a bad idea.
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So I had to finish the degree,
which I did.
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But that left me with an ordinary BA degree
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at a time when
I was increasingly thinking
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I want to get back to academic work.
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So in about 1990,
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I signed up for a master's degree.
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The only master's degree I could get funding for
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was one that included
Information Technology,
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which the Scottish Office
was then funding master's degrees for.
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This is immediately pre-internet,
so the information superhighway
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was beginning to be talked about.
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But no one really knew what that was.
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And as someone
who wasn't really a technical person,
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I didn't really understand
what it was either.
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And it was interesting enough,
even though at least 50% of it was
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a struggle for- for me to understand things
like the engineering of networks
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that was starting to happen
and the little bits of coding on expert system shells
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that I had to do,
which was probably
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the worst three weeks of my life.
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But there was a part of it
which was to do with
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information technology or innovation policy,
which I did get very interested in.
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That's why I did my dissertation in,
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and the route that I took was about
the social and cultural determinants.
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At that time, everyone was talking
about Japan, or to some extent, France,
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as being exemplars
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of how you support an innovation policy
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that can enable economic recovery
to pick up really quickly.
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And I had the sense
that this simply wouldn't work here
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because you could see the cultural
and social determinants of
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why that works in other places,
but wouldn't necessarily work here.
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And I think that was probably
one of the things that reminded me
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that the sociocultural dimensions
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of economic policy
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was kind of where my interest really lay.
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I was always interested
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in the kind of cultural
and promotional side of communication.
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So I'd been very interested
in advertising,
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but I was kind of interested not just in
how it looked, but how it worked.
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So I started teaching in further education
in what was then called
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Jewel and Esk Valley College,
and I was teaching marketing and
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basically anything they asked me to teach
[laughs]
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and this was a route for me to try
and figure out if I wanted to teach.
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And around that time, I was hired by
the Open University as a part time tutor,
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teaching
an Introduction to Social Sciences.
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And this was really kind of
enlightening for me
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because I remember in the early sort of,
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staff development workshops
being asked: “well, what was my discipline?”
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And I didn't have an answer,
I didn't know.
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[laughs]
So it took about three years of teaching
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on that course to realise that
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if I had a home,
it was more sociology than anything else,
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but I still considered myself
a very kind of unconventional,
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sociology-adjacent type person
in a kind of academic disciplinary way,
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if not an intellectual way.-
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[Enda:] I started my academic career
in the Open University as well, and
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I mean, I'm interested to know if you
you feel that the values of,
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of the Open University, that you've sort
of carried them with you through-
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throughout your career, their emphasis on
social inclusion, diversity of learning,
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different cohorts of people that they attract?-
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[Liz:] Oh, absolutely.
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The Open University, certainly
as it was when I joined in the early ‘90s,
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has absolutely shaped my values
and what- what
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I hold most sacred,
if you like in higher education,
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and that is to do with accessibility
to all.
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It's also to do with making content
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that is going to work
on a variety of different levels,
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for a variety of different abilities
and a variety of different backgrounds.
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The way that the Open University did that,
certainly in the social sciences,
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was to present dimensions
of everyday life to students.
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So you're meeting students
where they already are.
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You're kind of engaging them with things
they already know,
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and just pushing a bit further
to try and think about
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aspects of everyday life,
making the familiar strange.
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And at that time, you had people
like Stuart Hall and Doreen Massey
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on Open University broadcasts,
which were still happening on BBC2
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late at night,
but also on more mainstream
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programs like The Late Show, expressing
and communicating these ideas.
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And this kind of blew me away
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because I hadn't thought about
disciplines in that way.-
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[Enda:] This emphasis on the everyday, I think,
fits very much into what you do at EFI,
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running the Data Civics Observatory,
which I know has being inspired by the
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the great town planner and polymath,
Patrick Geddes.
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Could you tell us a little bit about what
the Observatory does, what-
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what its purpose is
and how you see that, er,
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informing policy, society more generally?-
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[Liz:] When I first heard about
the Edinburgh Futures Institute, I was blown away
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by how much this kind of geographical site
had changed.
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And the ideas for the Edinburgh Futures
Institute
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at that moment
were just mind blowing to me in terms of
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what looked
like a commitment to doing-
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to doing education a bit differently,
to making, as the saying goes,
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a more porous-walled university.
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So it was much less cut off from the city,
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and that went on to inform
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the ideas behind the Data Civics Observatory.
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When I first encountered
the work of Patrick Geddes,
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it was when I came back to Edinburgh
and did that thing
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that people often do when they've left
the city and returned 20 years later,
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I was looking at it with new eyes
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and trying to map together
what the city I had known and loved,
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actually all my life, but particularly
in the ‘80s and ’90s when I lived here,
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to the changes that had taken place,
and to try and
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look for, probably for the first time,
at how the city functioned technically
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and materially.
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I think that sort of slowly
led me to the work of Patrick Geddes,
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who appealed to me
enormously as I started to find out
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more about him for all sorts of reasons.
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But most keenly was the idea
that he was a very,
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very keen observer and a very eclectic
observer of everyday life.
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So he had been developing a whole bunch
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of different visual techniques
for watching the city, observing the city,
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trying to understand
how people lived within it,
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but trying to understand it
not just from a scholarly perspective,
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trying to understand it
because he wanted to intervene,
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taking a close watch on the city.
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But secondly,
the idea of conservative surgery,
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because this Royal Mile, this,
part of the Old Town
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that looks like it's always been that way,
actually owes much of its appearance
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to the kind of interventions
that Geddes and his, erm,
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followers and community actually made.
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So the appearance of decked access,
the little balconies
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on which you'll see plant pots,
and so forth, and the green areas around
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Ramsay Gardens,
these are a direct result of his
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quite early commitment to conservative surgery.
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Not treating, erm,
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problematic areas of cities
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as something that needed
to be completely bulldozed, modernised.
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Conservative surgery
was “let's save the important bits
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and improve them
and make them more liveable.
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Let's deal with these kind of every-
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things that everybody wants
a bit of natural light, green space,
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housing that's not dark, crowded, damp.”
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That was really appealing to me,
this kind of combined
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observatory and laboratory on the city
as a sort of thing
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that EFI might be able to sort of reinvent-
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and this sort of settlements
project reinvention, this idea that,
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well, we are responsible for the city more
than just as an employer,
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more than just as a landlord, and more than just
as an education institute.
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We have expertise
that should be intervening in the city
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and- and has the capacity with things
like the City Region Deal to do it.
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The Data Civics Observatory
basically just tries to reinvent
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Geddes’ core ideas
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for a- a contemporary context.
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Also provide you an insight to
how those cities are functioning
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how people feel about those cities,
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whether they're visitors,
short-term residents, or long-term residents.
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So we've experimented
with a number of small projects to try and
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do a Geddesian type thing of, erm,
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observing and experimenting with, well,
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how does it work to watch the city
and sort of almost play it back to it?
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So amplify the knowledge that's already
out there amongst local communities.-
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[Enda:] Maybe just be worth explaining
for the listeners the sort of
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socioeconomic context
of- of Granton Waterfront
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and what you've been involved in
doing there.-
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[Liz:] Sure, erm,
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so Granton is in an area
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that borders
the Forth, along the Firth of Forth
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after the Industrial Revolution,
it becomes very significant
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in terms of Edinburgh's transition,
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to using gas energy.
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So the train lines,
which are now cycle paths,
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stretch along the North shore
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and they end up in Granton,
and they would have fed the gasworks,
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which gradually in the 20th century,
became also places
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where a lot of early municipal
housing estates grew up.
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So you get this
dense social housing appearing,
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sometimes
under quite severe economic constraints.
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So the building- housing itself,
even though some of it was award-
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award-winning in its time, was probably not
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manufacturers
of the best quality materials.
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So flats became damp, erm,
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they became dirty,
they became hard to maintain,
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they became very cold in the winter.
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And at the same time this was happening,
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the economic fortunes
were starting to fail.
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So you had a period
where this bulk of housing,
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the density of housing,
had grown up very quickly and
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in advance of the infrastructure,
in advance of the green spaces and the shops
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and schools that you need to
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sort of, form
the social and cultural life of a city.
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To cut a long story short, in the postwar period,
areas like Granton,
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despite whatever hopes there were for them,
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became centres of a concentration
of multiple deprivation.
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And you get the same patterns,
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if you look at the
Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation,
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all surrounding the perimeters
of Edinburgh, you get the dark colours,
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the blacks that indicate
a high index of multiple deprivation.
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And it's striking how much that
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the social topography of Edinburgh
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actually resembles its natural topography,
where you have
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this volcanic peak in the centre
sloping away down to the south and the north.
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The interest in Granton
as a Data Civic Observatory project
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came from well, let's
try and understand how this has happened.
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And also particularly from,
to go back to the City Region Deal,
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the fact that the Granton Waterfront
development project had started there,
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and this is a very long-term,
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public sector-led project
designed to take a more sustained
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and comprehensive approach
to regeneration in the area.-
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[Enda:] So I wanted to move on to ask you
a little bit about the visual dimension to-
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to your work.
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There's a very strong visual, erm, dimension.
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Both in the Granton Civicscope
and also the work of the AreWeData Collective.
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Why is the visual dimension
so important for- for what you do?-
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[Liz:] I think there's all sorts of aspects
to it.
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The most obvious one is having
the background at the Open University
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The Open University
taught in a very visual way,
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because if you're not seeing students
face to face,
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you need all sorts of tools to make, erm,
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ideas come alive for them.
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It takes 20 to 40 minutes to watch
the kinds of films that
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the collective I’m involved with make,
and I hope to kind of make people feel
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something as a result of watching
these films, not just acquire facts, but
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acquire
a sort of feeling to be literally moved
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by, well, this is the history of the place
that I live in.
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This is the history of why this shop layout
is this shop layout.
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Very, very ordinary and very, very mundane.
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But how it happens is really fascinating.
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And you can tell those stories in film
in a way that you can’t, erm,
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in an academic paper,
and you certainly can't tell them
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to the sort of variety of audiences that, erm,
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I hope are out there.-
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[Enda:] I'm fascinated by your research
on the sociology of markets,
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particularly your work on the insurance industry,
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erm, can you tell us a little bit
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about the insights that’s offered
by your research on an industry
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that perhaps mightn't be seen as the most
obvious place for a sociologist to work on?-
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[Liz:] Being a sociologist of markets,
and particularly
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a sociologist of insurance,
puts you in quite a- quite a narrow group.
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And this has struck me
as somewhat bizarre.
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Insurance, in many ways, is the very first
mechanism for the distribution of risk.
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It’s how we collectivise
and share across a society.
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So it's at the very political
and social centre
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of how societies are organised
economically.
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It's fate matters in terms of
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how risk is distributed
and who pays for it in society.
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And in the last 100 years,
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there has been a fairly steady
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individualisation of that risk,
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both in terms of how individuals
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insure themselves against calamities
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or plan for their future,
in terms of their pensions.
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But also in terms of how the social
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and political infrastructures
on which we all rely are funded.
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A similar pattern can be observed
in almost every field of insurance,
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including things like, climate insurance.
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Notoriously, the capacity of individuals
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to insure homes in flood-prone areas has diminished.
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00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:33,680
And behind the scenes of that,
there's this kind of jostling between, erm
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private and public measures
for collectivising
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or individualising risk,
which are not straightforward.
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That sometimes we are towards
a more social collective solution
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and other times
to a very individual solution.
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And tracking that through tells
you a great deal about the sort of social
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and political settlement.
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I was quite simply fascinated by
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how you get people to buy products
that they don't want, like, need, understand.
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And life insurance is a fantastic example of that,
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particularly life insurance that was bought
by poor customers, working class customers.
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So the early appetite for insurance were,
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the very poorest in society
would devote a substantial proportion
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of that income, at a time
when they could barely feed the family,
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to paying for this arcane
financial product.
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That seemed to me a fascinating social
and sociological problem.
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To understand how that worked.
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I should probably
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also mention that my father sold
this form of insurance [laughs]
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So from the- all through the late
1960s to the 1970s,
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I was the social accompaniment
to an agent that helped-
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I'm making this sound terrible.
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00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:50,880
I didn't help my my father on his rounds,
but it was common
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for this to be seen as a family
and community arrangement.-
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00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:57,240
[Enda:] How does this fit into the work
that you've done,
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00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:00,240
you have been a pioneer
in the field of cultural economy and, erm,
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00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:05,080
that's a really important field.
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00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:07,840
What do you think that field offers us
at the moment,
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00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:11,480
and indeed, given our emphasis
in the Futures Institute, erm,
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00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:13,920
down the line in- in the future?-
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00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:17,240
[Liz:] Cultural economy at its core is a project,
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00:19:17,240 --> 00:19:20,280
and certainly, as I understand it,
is all about
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the orchestration of technique
and sentiment,
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00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:29,200
by which I mean that you have
to understand the way that the material,
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technological, economic and financial
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forms of organisation intersect
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with how meaning is created
for the customers in that marketplace.
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00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:45,240
How does this product mean something?
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00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:48,240
If you take the example of insurance,
you're dealing with a product
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that people don't understand.
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So you need some kind of interaction
that makes it makes sense
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and makes it be meaningful.
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00:19:55,560 --> 00:19:58,960
So that is kind of trying to understand
always
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the intersections between culture
and economy.
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That culture is not this realm outside,
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that’s not this kind of purified state
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of highest civilisation
that humankind can reach.
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Culture is meaningful.
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Activity is meaningful practice.
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00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:22,600
So cultural economy is a project,
whether it's applied to high frequency trading,
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00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:24,800
climate, risk,
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data surveillance
always has that interest
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at looking at the sort of material,
political, technological
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00:20:33,120 --> 00:20:37,560
arrangements and infrastructures
of a given empirical case-
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[Enda:] One of the things I've been really struck,
Liz, talking to you
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is you've got a very strong historical perspective.
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00:20:44,080 --> 00:20:48,360
As a historian I obviously value that. And...
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00:20:48,680 --> 00:20:50,680
it's great to have, that sort of said,
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00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:53,520
why do you-
why do you think it's so important for us
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00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:57,880
to understand the past,
to inform the present and the future?-
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00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:01,400
[Liz:] For me, it's absolutely crucial
to have a perspective on the past.
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00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:04,920
I remember one of my colleagues,
Yuval Millo, was saying to me,
359
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:07,920
well, basically
all sociology is historical.
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Even if you're studying the newest form
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00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:13,360
of algorithmic trading, it's historical
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00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:18,680
because you can only look backwards
as an empirical object.
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00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:20,520
You can only look backwards.
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00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:25,800
I think if you're a sociologist
studying a present day phenomena,
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you're always kind of looking backwards
to look forward.
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00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:33,480
Understanding where we're pointing to
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in the future involves understanding
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00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:39,280
how the past
got to be the way that it was,
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00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:42,800
and what the intersection of,
whether it's regulatory
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00:21:42,800 --> 00:21:45,800
apparatus or,
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00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:50,040
economic cycles or the change in fashion.
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There is a lesson for that.
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I'm probably going to have to go back
to the industrial insurance example again,
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00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:59,600
partly because one of the things
that really killed that industry
375
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:01,760
is it became unfashionable.
376
00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:04,000
It became unfashionable to have a product
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00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:05,880
that was directed- a financial product
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00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,480
that was directed only at working class
people.
379
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:11,800
It fell out of the step-
out of step with everyday life.
380
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,880
People didn't want an insurance agent
calling at their doors anymore.
381
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,200
So everyday life,
the patterns of everyday life changed.
382
00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:21,520
And understanding that is germane
to understanding what happens
383
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:26,240
to the financial industries
in the second half of the 20th century.
384
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:30,800
Unpicking how the-
how the world was structured,
385
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:34,440
the financial world was structured then
to where we are now-
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00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:39,000
[Enda:] One thing that I think is...
a part of contemporary societies
387
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,280
is concerns about the amount of data
that private companies,
388
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:44,560
be they insurance companies, our banks,
389
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:46,680
hold about us all.
390
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:50,320
Do you think that's a legitimate
concern on the part of citizens
391
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:51,360
across the world?-
392
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:55,280
[Liz:] I think it probably is a legitimate concern,
393
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,680
but I think for me,
I come at it slightly differently.
394
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,200
I want to understand the specificities
395
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:06,720
of how data is operating in particular,
rather than just kind of
396
00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:11,880
go to the big headline
banner of surveillance capitalism
397
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:16,800
and the assumption that we are heading
towards a darker and darker place
398
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,640
I want to understand how datafied
399
00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:23,360
applications and platforms
400
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:27,840
are useful or not useful to people,
but I also want to understand
401
00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:30,520
the specificities
of how they function commercially.
402
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,520
So in my own field of, erm,
403
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:36,520
studying insurance and life
and health insurance
404
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:40,320
and how it's been affected by big data
and the drive towards
405
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:45,160
more individualisation of-
or personalisation of insurance products,
406
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,960
I think it was easy to assume,
say, with the example of the introduction
407
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,880
of self-tracking devices
having those attached to insurance policies,
408
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,720
it's easy to assume that- that this is a step towards
409
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,400
personalising risk
so that every individual is priced for
410
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:06,240
how much activity they do,
how many bags of crisps they eat
411
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:10,040
so that their individual health risk
is measured and priced accordingly
412
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,720
and they could be knocked
out of the insurance market.
413
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,040
In my own empirical research,
that's simply not what we found.
414
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:21,240
To classify and price individual
risk at that level
415
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:26,760
using these devices
just is not how insurance risk functions.
416
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,240
So in that particular example,
the incorporation
417
00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:33,800
of self-tracking products in life
and health insurance
418
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,040
has got much more to do with marketing
and attaching people to products.
419
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,880
If you give a free Apple Watch with,
420
00:24:42,120 --> 00:24:46,120
interactive behavioural life
or health insurance product,
421
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,120
people like Apple Watches,
they don't like insurance.
422
00:24:49,120 --> 00:24:52,840
So attaching the two together,
you get some brand equity transfer,
423
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:58,000
you get some, you know, sticky attachment
where people want their Apple Watch,
424
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,040
even if they don't
love their insurance policy.
425
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,440
So there's something else going on there.
426
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,200
That you don’t discover-
this is basically a defence of, erm,
427
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,520
if you've got this pressing public issue
428
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:12,120
to approach it
empirically as the best work
429
00:25:12,120 --> 00:25:16,480
in critical data studies now does,
it's like, well, what is the-
430
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:22,520
how is data being used in this particular instance
rather than the large headline stories-
431
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,600
[Enda:] My sense is that one element that you feel
432
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,840
is that this data can empower communities,
particularly local communities.
433
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:32,720
Is that a-
434
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:34,840
through use of data
435
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:39,280
in order to present cases
or socioeconomic profiles
436
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:41,960
that communities can,
in fact be empowered, rather than it
437
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,840
just being something that's imposed
on communities, if that makes sense?-
438
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:50,800
[Liz:] I mean, I think there are some intriguing
examples of that in practice.
439
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:55,360
And some of the urbanists
who've looked to Patrick Geddes for-
440
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,560
for example,
to- to try and make sense of how
441
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:04,120
urban life could be less
sort of a smart city
442
00:26:04,120 --> 00:26:08,880
kind of top down version
of how you manage cities.
443
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:14,360
But a grassroot- grassroots,
bottom up version have looked at the way
444
00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:18,480
in which communities
can develop their own platforms
445
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:24,440
or use existing platforms to share data
and to organise their activism.
446
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,600
One of the things that I didn't remember
to mention earlier on about an area
447
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,960
like Granton;
Granton may have scored very highly
448
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,160
in the Multiple Index of Social Deprivation,
449
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,840
for decades,
but it's also been a centre of, erm,
450
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:45,320
grassroots,
sustained activism over many decades.
451
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,840
And I think
that in the contemporary context,
452
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:54,800
there are examples starting to appear
of communities using platforms to do that.
453
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,240
You could look at very mundane things,
like the prevalence of
454
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:03,320
neighbourhood WhatsApp groups or Nextdoor,
which is an app
455
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,360
that communities use to
to share information.
456
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:12,600
But also the appearance on platforms
like Substack, which have- are beginning
457
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,960
to rediscover the power of community
458
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,960
newspapers, because that's a much,
459
00:27:19,120 --> 00:27:22,080
much more cost effective way
than actually printing a newspaper now.
460
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,240
So you get a newsletter
which circulates and shares
461
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:29,640
that kind of density of local issues
and organises
462
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,240
a sense of belonging, potentially,
463
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,600
and community ownership.
464
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:40,080
And I think that those kinds
of things, there are also
465
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:42,840
placemaking type
466
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:46,360
instances of the use of Instagram
and Twitter to kind of
467
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:51,760
just share the status
of an area of the type of where I live,
468
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,760
like Newhaven, its appearance and social media
469
00:27:55,120 --> 00:27:59,400
over the years does change the texture
and flavour
470
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,760
of that place in some positive ways
and in some negative ways.
471
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,240
So I think there is the potential there
472
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:10,560
to use new forms of data in a grassroots
473
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:15,400
organising way to type of redress
and organise
474
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:20,520
something alternative to the idea of
well the council
475
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,760
is going to make a big change, and
we're going to do community consultation
476
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,520
as a more kind- there may be people
477
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:31,120
who will never go to a community consultation exercise,
but they may well post on Instagram
478
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:35,280
or on Twitter
or somewhere else about- or Nextdoor-
479
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:37,120
about those issues.
480
00:28:37,120 --> 00:28:41,200
So if instead of demanding the resource from
481
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,480
communities and individuals to tell us
what's happening in your community,
482
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,480
councils and other voluntary bodies
can then look at
483
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,960
what are people
actually saying about this place?-
484
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,320
You've been involved in the
Edinburgh Futures Institute for a number of years,
485
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,120
being a very important person
486
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,560
in designing what the-
what the Futures Institute, erm,
487
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,560
does, and what its outlook and what-
488
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,280
what we would- would see as priorities
in terms of research.
489
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,080
What sort of future
do you envisage given your expertise?-
490
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,320
[Liz:] So that's a great huge question [laughs]
491
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:17,680
Enda, thank you.
492
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:19,320
So one of the things that I've done
493
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,800
since I've been involved in EFI is
494
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:28,240
I’ve almost finished making the second film,
which tracks what the role of institutes
495
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:32,000
like Edinburgh Futures Institutes
have in terms of managing the future.
496
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,280
And one of the jobs of those films
497
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,040
is to try and showcase
498
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:40,520
the expertise of people
499
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,520
who are trying to wrestle with these,
500
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,680
problems about the major catastrophes
or challenges,
501
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,960
wicked problems, whatever
502
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:54,200
intractable issue
the future seems to be representing.
503
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,800
But it's also an attempt
not just to showcase
504
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,360
the individual expertise,
but to better understand
505
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:07,400
why futures institutes and City
Region Deals and other forms of innovation complex
506
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:11,040
are springing up now
and what their chances are.
507
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,440
So there is this orthodoxy,
if you like, that,
508
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:20,320
interdisciplinarity, co-production
and cross-sectoral working
509
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,960
gives us the best chance of understanding
these complex, intractable problems and,
510
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,480
providing a response to them
in the future.
511
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,040
And to some extent,
that's a difficult proposition
512
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:36,560
because in terms of interdisciplinarity,
it's easier
513
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,960
to say than it is to do in a meaningful level.
514
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,680
And the same is true
of cross-sectoral work.
515
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,680
It is probably the best strategy
that we have.
516
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,200
It's a kind of modest
and pragmatic attempt to
517
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,520
mobilise and orchestrate and organise
518
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:57,080
this- the mixture of talents
that we need to discover and address
519
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,840
the specificity of problems
and what I would contrast it with,
520
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:06,160
to go back to Patrick Geddes,
is an opposition to the sort of tabula rasa
521
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,200
the blank slate
522
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,480
version of oh well we’ll wipe all this out,
523
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,640
we’ll wipe out all these problems,
and we'll start again.
524
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,120
And this kind of new techno-libertarian
525
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,040
geopolitical imaginary
that you will see,
526
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:25,840
and visions coming out of a vision like California
Forever, which is a bunch of tech billionaires
527
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:30,080
trying to engineer a new future in California
528
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:32,600
by buying up large tracts of land
529
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,720
and those kind of large scale projects of,
well, let's start again,
530
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,160
we'll have a smart city
and we'll make it sustainable,
531
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:43,800
and we'll have vertical gardens
like in NEOM in Dubai,
532
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:48,200
which are not grounded,
in the people who actually live there.
533
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:52,320
And in a way, I think that the attempt
by futures institutes
534
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,240
and City Region Deals and the others at
their best because of their-
535
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:00,640
their necessary incorporation
of a variety of interest groups
536
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,720
and their willingness to experiment
537
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:08,600
with new tools are probably-
probably about as helpful
538
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,680
and positive a response
as- certainly as I can think of-
539
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,480
[Enda:] Well, thank you very much
for an optimistic, message on which to-
540
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,520
to leave us on and indeed for,
erm, giving us these fascinating insights
541
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,880
into the work that you're undertaking
at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
542
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,640
If you want to find out more about Liz's
work, if you go to our website:
543
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,680
www.efi.ed.ac.uk
544
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,720
or follow us on social media channels.
545
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,040
[Electronic beat]
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,720
[Electronic beat]
2
00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:08,080
[Enda:] Welcome to Futures Conversations,
3
00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:11,480
the Edinburgh Futures Institute podcast
that showcases
4
00:00:11,480 --> 00:00:15,400
all the wonderful research taking place
at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
5
00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:19,720
Research at the Futures Institute
is challenge-led and interdisciplinary
6
00:00:20,080 --> 00:00:23,680
addressing many of the greatest challenges
we face in the world today.
7
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:28,800
I'm your host, Enda Delaney,
the Director of Research at the Futures Institute.
8
00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:32,520
[Electronic beat]
9
00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:38,360
[Enda:] In this episode,
I'm joined by Professor Liz McFall.
10
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,400
Liz is professor of Sociology of Markets
11
00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:45,280
and Director of the EFI
Data Civics Observatory.
12
00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:48,360
Liz, just to get our discussion going,
13
00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:51,360
could you tell us a little bit
about your background, where you grew up,
14
00:00:51,440 --> 00:00:52,760
who inspired you,
15
00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:56,040
what values were important to your family
and wider social group?-
16
00:00:56,240 --> 00:01:00,840
[Liz:] So I'm from Broxburn,
which is a small former shale mining town
17
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:03,000
about nine miles west of Edinburgh.
18
00:01:03,040 --> 00:01:07,000
On my father’s side, my history
traces back to Irish immigrants
19
00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:08,720
who came to work the shale mines,
20
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the shale oil industry.
21
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Broxburn was a boom town for about
22
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:14,920
just under 100 years,
23
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it was the biggest crude oil manufacturer
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in the world for that period of time.
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But the significant part of that for me,
26
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erm...
27
00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:28,440
growing up
there was that university wasn't really
28
00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:32,760
a thought for people of my background,
people at my school.
29
00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,160
So Edinburgh University
was obviously something we knew about,
30
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:40,920
and you knew of people who went there,
but it wasn't really a thinkable thought.
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Even though I would say
from about the age of 13 or 14
32
00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:48,200
I knew I had some level
of academic ambition.
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So I went from school at the age of 16,
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00:01:53,120 --> 00:01:56,040
I wasn't quite at my 17th birthday,
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to Queen Margaret College, which was then
36
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in the second year of launching
a degree called Communication Studies.
37
00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:06,880
I remember one of the nuns,
Sister Immaculata, saying to me,
38
00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:11,720
“central institution degrees are not worth
the same as university degrees”, but
39
00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:15,720
they had the same name, Bachelor of Arts,
so I didn't really understand that.
40
00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:18,840
I think my biggest
understanding of university was from
41
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watching University Challenge,
and I did not identify.-
42
00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:25,280
[Enda:] And what was this route to academia
for you?
43
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You're obviously- you're a professor
of Sociology now at Edinburgh University,
44
00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:32,480
you know,
how did you get from Queen Margaret to-
45
00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:34,000
to where you are today?-
by a very convoluted route.
46
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[Liz:] By a very convoluted route.
47
00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:41,800
So I was less than 17 years old
when I started my first degree in 1982.
48
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By 1985, I had dropped out.
49
00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:49,440
And it took me till 1987 to realise
that was a bad idea.
50
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So I had to finish the degree,
which I did.
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But that left me with an ordinary BA degree
52
00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:58,040
at a time when
I was increasingly thinking
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I want to get back to academic work.
54
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So in about 1990,
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I signed up for a master's degree.
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The only master's degree I could get funding for
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was one that included
Information Technology,
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which the Scottish Office
was then funding master's degrees for.
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This is immediately pre-internet,
so the information superhighway
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was beginning to be talked about.
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But no one really knew what that was.
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And as someone
who wasn't really a technical person,
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I didn't really understand
what it was either.
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And it was interesting enough,
even though at least 50% of it was
65
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a struggle for- for me to understand things
like the engineering of networks
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that was starting to happen
and the little bits of coding on expert system shells
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that I had to do,
which was probably
68
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the worst three weeks of my life.
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But there was a part of it
which was to do with
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information technology or innovation policy,
which I did get very interested in.
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That's why I did my dissertation in,
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and the route that I took was about
the social and cultural determinants.
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At that time, everyone was talking
about Japan, or to some extent, France,
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as being exemplars
75
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of how you support an innovation policy
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that can enable economic recovery
to pick up really quickly.
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And I had the sense
that this simply wouldn't work here
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because you could see the cultural
and social determinants of
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why that works in other places,
but wouldn't necessarily work here.
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And I think that was probably
one of the things that reminded me
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that the sociocultural dimensions
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of economic policy
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was kind of where my interest really lay.
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I was always interested
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in the kind of cultural
and promotional side of communication.
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So I'd been very interested
in advertising,
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but I was kind of interested not just in
how it looked, but how it worked.
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So I started teaching in further education
in what was then called
89
00:05:00,840 --> 00:05:03,840
Jewel and Esk Valley College,
and I was teaching marketing and
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00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:06,400
basically anything they asked me to teach
[laughs]
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and this was a route for me to try
and figure out if I wanted to teach.
92
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:13,880
And around that time, I was hired by
the Open University as a part time tutor,
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teaching
an Introduction to Social Sciences.
94
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And this was really kind of
enlightening for me
95
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because I remember in the early sort of,
96
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staff development workshops
being asked: “well, what was my discipline?”
97
00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:31,560
And I didn't have an answer,
I didn't know.
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[laughs]
So it took about three years of teaching
99
00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:36,120
on that course to realise that
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if I had a home,
it was more sociology than anything else,
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but I still considered myself
a very kind of unconventional,
102
00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:50,320
sociology-adjacent type person
in a kind of academic disciplinary way,
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if not an intellectual way.-
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[Enda:] I started my academic career
in the Open University as well, and
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I mean, I'm interested to know if you
you feel that the values of,
106
00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:03,920
of the Open University, that you've sort
of carried them with you through-
107
00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:08,920
throughout your career, their emphasis on
social inclusion, diversity of learning,
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different cohorts of people that they attract?-
109
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[Liz:] Oh, absolutely.
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The Open University, certainly
as it was when I joined in the early ‘90s,
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has absolutely shaped my values
and what- what
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00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:28,720
I hold most sacred,
if you like in higher education,
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and that is to do with accessibility
to all.
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It's also to do with making content
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that is going to work
on a variety of different levels,
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for a variety of different abilities
and a variety of different backgrounds.
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00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:48,720
The way that the Open University did that,
certainly in the social sciences,
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00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:52,280
was to present dimensions
of everyday life to students.
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00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:55,280
So you're meeting students
where they already are.
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You're kind of engaging them with things
they already know,
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and just pushing a bit further
to try and think about
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aspects of everyday life,
making the familiar strange.
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00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,240
And at that time, you had people
like Stuart Hall and Doreen Massey
124
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on Open University broadcasts,
which were still happening on BBC2
125
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late at night,
but also on more mainstream
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programs like The Late Show, expressing
and communicating these ideas.
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And this kind of blew me away
128
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because I hadn't thought about
disciplines in that way.-
129
00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:28,880
[Enda:] This emphasis on the everyday, I think,
fits very much into what you do at EFI,
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00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:33,440
running the Data Civics Observatory,
which I know has being inspired by the
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the great town planner and polymath,
Patrick Geddes.
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Could you tell us a little bit about what
the Observatory does, what-
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what its purpose is
and how you see that, er,
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informing policy, society more generally?-
135
00:07:46,520 --> 00:07:50,440
[Liz:] When I first heard about
the Edinburgh Futures Institute, I was blown away
136
00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:54,680
by how much this kind of geographical site
had changed.
137
00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:58,320
And the ideas for the Edinburgh Futures
Institute
138
00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:02,760
at that moment
were just mind blowing to me in terms of
139
00:08:03,720 --> 00:08:06,000
what looked
like a commitment to doing-
140
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,320
to doing education a bit differently,
to making, as the saying goes,
141
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:13,400
a more porous-walled university.
142
00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:17,400
So it was much less cut off from the city,
143
00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:21,840
and that went on to inform
144
00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:25,400
the ideas behind the Data Civics Observatory.
145
00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:28,080
When I first encountered
the work of Patrick Geddes,
146
00:08:28,080 --> 00:08:31,720
it was when I came back to Edinburgh
and did that thing
147
00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:35,280
that people often do when they've left
the city and returned 20 years later,
148
00:08:35,280 --> 00:08:38,080
I was looking at it with new eyes
149
00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:42,240
and trying to map together
what the city I had known and loved,
150
00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:45,920
actually all my life, but particularly
in the ‘80s and ’90s when I lived here,
151
00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:49,760
to the changes that had taken place,
and to try and
152
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:54,400
look for, probably for the first time,
at how the city functioned technically
153
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and materially.
154
00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:01,480
I think that sort of slowly
led me to the work of Patrick Geddes,
155
00:09:02,120 --> 00:09:05,240
who appealed to me
enormously as I started to find out
156
00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:08,040
more about him for all sorts of reasons.
157
00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:11,360
But most keenly was the idea
that he was a very,
158
00:09:11,360 --> 00:09:15,280
very keen observer and a very eclectic
observer of everyday life.
159
00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:18,360
So he had been developing a whole bunch
160
00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:21,760
of different visual techniques
for watching the city, observing the city,
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trying to understand
how people lived within it,
162
00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:28,960
but trying to understand it
not just from a scholarly perspective,
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00:09:28,960 --> 00:09:31,640
trying to understand it
because he wanted to intervene,
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taking a close watch on the city.
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But secondly,
the idea of conservative surgery,
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because this Royal Mile, this,
part of the Old Town
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that looks like it's always been that way,
actually owes much of its appearance
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to the kind of interventions
that Geddes and his, erm,
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followers and community actually made.
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So the appearance of decked access,
the little balconies
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on which you'll see plant pots,
and so forth, and the green areas around
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Ramsay Gardens,
these are a direct result of his
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quite early commitment to conservative surgery.
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Not treating, erm,
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problematic areas of cities
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as something that needed
to be completely bulldozed, modernised.
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Conservative surgery
was “let's save the important bits
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and improve them
and make them more liveable.
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Let's deal with these kind of every-
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things that everybody wants
a bit of natural light, green space,
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housing that's not dark, crowded, damp.”
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That was really appealing to me,
this kind of combined
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observatory and laboratory on the city
as a sort of thing
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that EFI might be able to sort of reinvent-
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and this sort of settlements
project reinvention, this idea that,
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well, we are responsible for the city more
than just as an employer,
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more than just as a landlord, and more than just
as an education institute.
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We have expertise
that should be intervening in the city
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and- and has the capacity with things
like the City Region Deal to do it.
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The Data Civics Observatory
basically just tries to reinvent
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Geddes’ core ideas
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for a- a contemporary context.
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Also provide you an insight to
how those cities are functioning
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how people feel about those cities,
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whether they're visitors,
short-term residents, or long-term residents.
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So we've experimented
with a number of small projects to try and
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do a Geddesian type thing of, erm,
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observing and experimenting with, well,
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how does it work to watch the city
and sort of almost play it back to it?
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So amplify the knowledge that's already
out there amongst local communities.-
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[Enda:] Maybe just be worth explaining
for the listeners the sort of
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socioeconomic context
of- of Granton Waterfront
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and what you've been involved in
doing there.-
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[Liz:] Sure, erm,
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so Granton is in an area
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that borders
the Forth, along the Firth of Forth
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after the Industrial Revolution,
it becomes very significant
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in terms of Edinburgh's transition,
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to using gas energy.
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So the train lines,
which are now cycle paths,
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stretch along the North shore
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and they end up in Granton,
and they would have fed the gasworks,
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which gradually in the 20th century,
became also places
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where a lot of early municipal
housing estates grew up.
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So you get this
dense social housing appearing,
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sometimes
under quite severe economic constraints.
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So the building- housing itself,
even though some of it was award-
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award-winning in its time, was probably not
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manufacturers
of the best quality materials.
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So flats became damp, erm,
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they became dirty,
they became hard to maintain,
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they became very cold in the winter.
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And at the same time this was happening,
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the economic fortunes
were starting to fail.
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So you had a period
where this bulk of housing,
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the density of housing,
had grown up very quickly and
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in advance of the infrastructure,
in advance of the green spaces and the shops
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and schools that you need to
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sort of, form
the social and cultural life of a city.
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To cut a long story short, in the postwar period,
areas like Granton,
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despite whatever hopes there were for them,
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became centres of a concentration
of multiple deprivation.
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And you get the same patterns,
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if you look at the
Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation,
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all surrounding the perimeters
of Edinburgh, you get the dark colours,
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the blacks that indicate
a high index of multiple deprivation.
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And it's striking how much that
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the social topography of Edinburgh
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actually resembles its natural topography,
where you have
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this volcanic peak in the centre
sloping away down to the south and the north.
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The interest in Granton
as a Data Civic Observatory project
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came from well, let's
try and understand how this has happened.
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And also particularly from,
to go back to the City Region Deal,
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the fact that the Granton Waterfront
development project had started there,
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and this is a very long-term,
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public sector-led project
designed to take a more sustained
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and comprehensive approach
to regeneration in the area.-
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[Enda:] So I wanted to move on to ask you
a little bit about the visual dimension to-
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to your work.
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There's a very strong visual, erm, dimension.
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Both in the Granton Civicscope
and also the work of the AreWeData Collective.
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Why is the visual dimension
so important for- for what you do?-
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[Liz:] I think there's all sorts of aspects
to it.
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The most obvious one is having
the background at the Open University
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The Open University
taught in a very visual way,
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because if you're not seeing students
face to face,
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you need all sorts of tools to make, erm,
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ideas come alive for them.
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It takes 20 to 40 minutes to watch
the kinds of films that
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the collective I’m involved with make,
and I hope to kind of make people feel
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something as a result of watching
these films, not just acquire facts, but
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acquire
a sort of feeling to be literally moved
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by, well, this is the history of the place
that I live in.
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This is the history of why this shop layout
is this shop layout.
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Very, very ordinary and very, very mundane.
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But how it happens is really fascinating.
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And you can tell those stories in film
in a way that you can’t, erm,
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in an academic paper,
and you certainly can't tell them
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to the sort of variety of audiences that, erm,
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I hope are out there.-
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[Enda:] I'm fascinated by your research
on the sociology of markets,
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particularly your work on the insurance industry,
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erm, can you tell us a little bit
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about the insights that’s offered
by your research on an industry
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that perhaps mightn't be seen as the most
obvious place for a sociologist to work on?-
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[Liz:] Being a sociologist of markets,
and particularly
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a sociologist of insurance,
puts you in quite a- quite a narrow group.
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And this has struck me
as somewhat bizarre.
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Insurance, in many ways, is the very first
mechanism for the distribution of risk.
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It’s how we collectivise
and share across a society.
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So it's at the very political
and social centre
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of how societies are organised
economically.
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It's fate matters in terms of
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how risk is distributed
and who pays for it in society.
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And in the last 100 years,
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there has been a fairly steady
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individualisation of that risk,
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both in terms of how individuals
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insure themselves against calamities
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or plan for their future,
in terms of their pensions.
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But also in terms of how the social
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and political infrastructures
on which we all rely are funded.
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A similar pattern can be observed
in almost every field of insurance,
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including things like, climate insurance.
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Notoriously, the capacity of individuals
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to insure homes in flood-prone areas has diminished.
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And behind the scenes of that,
there's this kind of jostling between, erm
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private and public measures
for collectivising
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or individualising risk,
which are not straightforward.
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That sometimes we are towards
a more social collective solution
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and other times
to a very individual solution.
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And tracking that through tells
you a great deal about the sort of social
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and political settlement.
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I was quite simply fascinated by
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how you get people to buy products
that they don't want, like, need, understand.
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And life insurance is a fantastic example of that,
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particularly life insurance that was bought
by poor customers, working class customers.
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So the early appetite for insurance were,
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the very poorest in society
would devote a substantial proportion
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of that income, at a time
when they could barely feed the family,
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to paying for this arcane
financial product.
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That seemed to me a fascinating social
and sociological problem.
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To understand how that worked.
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I should probably
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also mention that my father sold
this form of insurance [laughs]
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So from the- all through the late
1960s to the 1970s,
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I was the social accompaniment
to an agent that helped-
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I'm making this sound terrible.
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I didn't help my my father on his rounds,
but it was common
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for this to be seen as a family
and community arrangement.-
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[Enda:] How does this fit into the work
that you've done,
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you have been a pioneer
in the field of cultural economy and, erm,
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that's a really important field.
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What do you think that field offers us
at the moment,
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and indeed, given our emphasis
in the Futures Institute, erm,
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down the line in- in the future?-
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[Liz:] Cultural economy at its core is a project,
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and certainly, as I understand it,
is all about
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the orchestration of technique
and sentiment,
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by which I mean that you have
to understand the way that the material,
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technological, economic and financial
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forms of organisation intersect
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with how meaning is created
for the customers in that marketplace.
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How does this product mean something?
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If you take the example of insurance,
you're dealing with a product
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that people don't understand.
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So you need some kind of interaction
that makes it makes sense
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and makes it be meaningful.
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So that is kind of trying to understand
always
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the intersections between culture
and economy.
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That culture is not this realm outside,
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that’s not this kind of purified state
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of highest civilisation
that humankind can reach.
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Culture is meaningful.
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Activity is meaningful practice.
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So cultural economy is a project,
whether it's applied to high frequency trading,
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climate, risk,
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data surveillance
always has that interest
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at looking at the sort of material,
political, technological
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arrangements and infrastructures
of a given empirical case-
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[Enda:] One of the things I've been really struck,
Liz, talking to you
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is you've got a very strong historical perspective.
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As a historian I obviously value that. And...
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it's great to have, that sort of said,
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why do you-
why do you think it's so important for us
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00:20:53,520 --> 00:20:57,880
to understand the past,
to inform the present and the future?-
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[Liz:] For me, it's absolutely crucial
to have a perspective on the past.
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I remember one of my colleagues,
Yuval Millo, was saying to me,
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well, basically
all sociology is historical.
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Even if you're studying the newest form
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of algorithmic trading, it's historical
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because you can only look backwards
as an empirical object.
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You can only look backwards.
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I think if you're a sociologist
studying a present day phenomena,
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you're always kind of looking backwards
to look forward.
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Understanding where we're pointing to
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in the future involves understanding
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how the past
got to be the way that it was,
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and what the intersection of,
whether it's regulatory
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apparatus or,
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economic cycles or the change in fashion.
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There is a lesson for that.
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I'm probably going to have to go back
to the industrial insurance example again,
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partly because one of the things
that really killed that industry
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is it became unfashionable.
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It became unfashionable to have a product
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that was directed- a financial product
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that was directed only at working class
people.
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It fell out of the step-
out of step with everyday life.
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00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,880
People didn't want an insurance agent
calling at their doors anymore.
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00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,200
So everyday life,
the patterns of everyday life changed.
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And understanding that is germane
to understanding what happens
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to the financial industries
in the second half of the 20th century.
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Unpicking how the-
how the world was structured,
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the financial world was structured then
to where we are now-
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[Enda:] One thing that I think is...
a part of contemporary societies
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is concerns about the amount of data
that private companies,
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be they insurance companies, our banks,
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hold about us all.
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Do you think that's a legitimate
concern on the part of citizens
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00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:51,360
across the world?-
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[Liz:] I think it probably is a legitimate concern,
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00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,680
but I think for me,
I come at it slightly differently.
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I want to understand the specificities
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of how data is operating in particular,
rather than just kind of
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go to the big headline
banner of surveillance capitalism
397
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and the assumption that we are heading
towards a darker and darker place
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I want to understand how datafied
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00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:23,360
applications and platforms
400
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are useful or not useful to people,
but I also want to understand
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the specificities
of how they function commercially.
402
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:33,520
So in my own field of, erm,
403
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:36,520
studying insurance and life
and health insurance
404
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:40,320
and how it's been affected by big data
and the drive towards
405
00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:45,160
more individualisation of-
or personalisation of insurance products,
406
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,960
I think it was easy to assume,
say, with the example of the introduction
407
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,880
of self-tracking devices
having those attached to insurance policies,
408
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,720
it's easy to assume that- that this is a step towards
409
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,400
personalising risk
so that every individual is priced for
410
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:06,240
how much activity they do,
how many bags of crisps they eat
411
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:10,040
so that their individual health risk
is measured and priced accordingly
412
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,720
and they could be knocked
out of the insurance market.
413
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,040
In my own empirical research,
that's simply not what we found.
414
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:21,240
To classify and price individual
risk at that level
415
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:26,760
using these devices
just is not how insurance risk functions.
416
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,240
So in that particular example,
the incorporation
417
00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:33,800
of self-tracking products in life
and health insurance
418
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:38,040
has got much more to do with marketing
and attaching people to products.
419
00:24:38,880 --> 00:24:41,880
If you give a free Apple Watch with,
420
00:24:42,120 --> 00:24:46,120
interactive behavioural life
or health insurance product,
421
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,120
people like Apple Watches,
they don't like insurance.
422
00:24:49,120 --> 00:24:52,840
So attaching the two together,
you get some brand equity transfer,
423
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:58,000
you get some, you know, sticky attachment
where people want their Apple Watch,
424
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,040
even if they don't
love their insurance policy.
425
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,440
So there's something else going on there.
426
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,200
That you don’t discover-
this is basically a defence of, erm,
427
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,520
if you've got this pressing public issue
428
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:12,120
to approach it
empirically as the best work
429
00:25:12,120 --> 00:25:16,480
in critical data studies now does,
it's like, well, what is the-
430
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:22,520
how is data being used in this particular instance
rather than the large headline stories-
431
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,600
[Enda:] My sense is that one element that you feel
432
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,840
is that this data can empower communities,
particularly local communities.
433
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:32,720
Is that a-
434
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:34,840
through use of data
435
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:39,280
in order to present cases
or socioeconomic profiles
436
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:41,960
that communities can,
in fact be empowered, rather than it
437
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,840
just being something that's imposed
on communities, if that makes sense?-
438
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:50,800
[Liz:] I mean, I think there are some intriguing
examples of that in practice.
439
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:55,360
And some of the urbanists
who've looked to Patrick Geddes for-
440
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,560
for example,
to- to try and make sense of how
441
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:04,120
urban life could be less
sort of a smart city
442
00:26:04,120 --> 00:26:08,880
kind of top down version
of how you manage cities.
443
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:14,360
But a grassroot- grassroots,
bottom up version have looked at the way
444
00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:18,480
in which communities
can develop their own platforms
445
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:24,440
or use existing platforms to share data
and to organise their activism.
446
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,600
One of the things that I didn't remember
to mention earlier on about an area
447
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,960
like Granton;
Granton may have scored very highly
448
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,160
in the Multiple Index of Social Deprivation,
449
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,840
for decades,
but it's also been a centre of, erm,
450
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:45,320
grassroots,
sustained activism over many decades.
451
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,840
And I think
that in the contemporary context,
452
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:54,800
there are examples starting to appear
of communities using platforms to do that.
453
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,240
You could look at very mundane things,
like the prevalence of
454
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:03,320
neighbourhood WhatsApp groups or Nextdoor,
which is an app
455
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,360
that communities use to
to share information.
456
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:12,600
But also the appearance on platforms
like Substack, which have- are beginning
457
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,960
to rediscover the power of community
458
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,960
newspapers, because that's a much,
459
00:27:19,120 --> 00:27:22,080
much more cost effective way
than actually printing a newspaper now.
460
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,240
So you get a newsletter
which circulates and shares
461
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:29,640
that kind of density of local issues
and organises
462
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,240
a sense of belonging, potentially,
463
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,600
and community ownership.
464
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:40,080
And I think that those kinds
of things, there are also
465
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:42,840
placemaking type
466
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:46,360
instances of the use of Instagram
and Twitter to kind of
467
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:51,760
just share the status
of an area of the type of where I live,
468
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:54,760
like Newhaven, its appearance and social media
469
00:27:55,120 --> 00:27:59,400
over the years does change the texture
and flavour
470
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,760
of that place in some positive ways
and in some negative ways.
471
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,240
So I think there is the potential there
472
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:10,560
to use new forms of data in a grassroots
473
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:15,400
organising way to type of redress
and organise
474
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:20,520
something alternative to the idea of
well the council
475
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,760
is going to make a big change, and
we're going to do community consultation
476
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,520
as a more kind- there may be people
477
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:31,120
who will never go to a community consultation exercise,
but they may well post on Instagram
478
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:35,280
or on Twitter
or somewhere else about- or Nextdoor-
479
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:37,120
about those issues.
480
00:28:37,120 --> 00:28:41,200
So if instead of demanding the resource from
481
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,480
communities and individuals to tell us
what's happening in your community,
482
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,480
councils and other voluntary bodies
can then look at
483
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,960
what are people
actually saying about this place?-
484
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,320
You've been involved in the
Edinburgh Futures Institute for a number of years,
485
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,120
being a very important person
486
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,560
in designing what the-
what the Futures Institute, erm,
487
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,560
does, and what its outlook and what-
488
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,280
what we would- would see as priorities
in terms of research.
489
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,080
What sort of future
do you envisage given your expertise?-
490
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,320
[Liz:] So that's a great huge question [laughs]
491
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:17,680
Enda, thank you.
492
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:19,320
So one of the things that I've done
493
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,800
since I've been involved in EFI is
494
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:28,240
I’ve almost finished making the second film,
which tracks what the role of institutes
495
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:32,000
like Edinburgh Futures Institutes
have in terms of managing the future.
496
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,280
And one of the jobs of those films
497
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,040
is to try and showcase
498
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:40,520
the expertise of people
499
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:43,520
who are trying to wrestle with these,
500
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,680
problems about the major catastrophes
or challenges,
501
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,960
wicked problems, whatever
502
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:54,200
intractable issue
the future seems to be representing.
503
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,800
But it's also an attempt
not just to showcase
504
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:01,360
the individual expertise,
but to better understand
505
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:07,400
why futures institutes and City
Region Deals and other forms of innovation complex
506
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:11,040
are springing up now
and what their chances are.
507
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,440
So there is this orthodoxy,
if you like, that,
508
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:20,320
interdisciplinarity, co-production
and cross-sectoral working
509
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,960
gives us the best chance of understanding
these complex, intractable problems and,
510
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,480
providing a response to them
in the future.
511
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,040
And to some extent,
that's a difficult proposition
512
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:36,560
because in terms of interdisciplinarity,
it's easier
513
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,960
to say than it is to do in a meaningful level.
514
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,680
And the same is true
of cross-sectoral work.
515
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:44,680
It is probably the best strategy
that we have.
516
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,200
It's a kind of modest
and pragmatic attempt to
517
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,520
mobilise and orchestrate and organise
518
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:57,080
this- the mixture of talents
that we need to discover and address
519
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,840
the specificity of problems
and what I would contrast it with,
520
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:06,160
to go back to Patrick Geddes,
is an opposition to the sort of tabula rasa
521
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,200
the blank slate
522
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,480
version of oh well we’ll wipe all this out,
523
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,640
we’ll wipe out all these problems,
and we'll start again.
524
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,120
And this kind of new techno-libertarian
525
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,040
geopolitical imaginary
that you will see,
526
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:25,840
and visions coming out of a vision like California
Forever, which is a bunch of tech billionaires
527
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:30,080
trying to engineer a new future in California
528
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:32,600
by buying up large tracts of land
529
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,720
and those kind of large scale projects of,
well, let's start again,
530
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,160
we'll have a smart city
and we'll make it sustainable,
531
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:43,800
and we'll have vertical gardens
like in NEOM in Dubai,
532
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:48,200
which are not grounded,
in the people who actually live there.
533
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:52,320
And in a way, I think that the attempt
by futures institutes
534
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,240
and City Region Deals and the others at
their best because of their-
535
00:31:57,520 --> 00:32:00,640
their necessary incorporation
of a variety of interest groups
536
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,720
and their willingness to experiment
537
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:08,600
with new tools are probably-
probably about as helpful
538
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,680
and positive a response
as- certainly as I can think of-
539
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,480
[Enda:] Well, thank you very much
for an optimistic, message on which to-
540
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,520
to leave us on and indeed for,
erm, giving us these fascinating insights
541
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,880
into the work that you're undertaking
at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
542
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,640
If you want to find out more about Liz's
work, if you go to our website:
543
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,680
www.efi.ed.ac.uk
544
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:35,720
or follow us on social media channels.
545
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,040
[Electronic beat]
