Design Fictions and Beekeeping

This is a repository copy of Beebots-a-lula, Where's My Honey?: Design Fictions and Beekeeping. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/106823/ Version: Accepted Version Proceedings Paper: Edwards, L., Maxwell, D., Pillatt, T. et al. (1 more author) (2016) Beebots-a-lula, Where's My Honey?: Design Fictions and Beekeeping. In: NordiCHI '16: Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. NordiCHI '16: Game-Changing Design, 23-27 Oct 2016, Gothenburg, Sweden. ACM New York , New York . ISBN 978-1-4503-4763-1 https://doi.org/10.1145/2971485.2993924 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. 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[email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Beebots-a-lula, where’s my honey?: Design Fictions and Beekeeping Liz Edwards Deborah Maxwell Toby Pillatt Lancaster University University of York University of Sheffield HighWire CDT Theatre, Film and Television Department of Archaeology Lancaster, UK, LA1 4YW York, UK, YO10 5GB Sheffield, UK, S1 4ET [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Niamh Downing Falmouth University School of Writing & Journalism Cornwall TR10 9FE [email protected] ABSTRACT challenges such as climate change “require new design The honey bee is a powerful cultural motif that remains an approaches informed by different value sets and important symbol for the future. Their role as pollinators, knowledge” [24]. Food security is one such challenge, with alongside a myriad of other species, is critical to the pollination, and the honey bee in particular, attracting continued diets of humankind. This Future Scenario significant attention. The honey bee also operates as an explores a possible near future where human intervention indicator for environmental health [35]; this may become poses new risks to their survival. Drawing on folklore and vitally important when we consider that, according to the contemporary beekeeping practices, Mr Shore’s Downfall British Beekeepers Association (BBKA), “one in three tells a tale of discovery and loss as a young beekeeper is mouthfuls of the food we eat is dependent on pollination at introduced to the world of honey bees. Three imagined a time when a crisis is threatening the world’s honey bees”. artefacts are revealed through the story and discussed with Changing post-war agricultural practices in the UK, have consideration of their cultural context, desirability and led to a reduction in hedgerows along with the amount and relation to socio-economic factors. Themes from Mr variety of forage available for pollinators,. The use of Shore’s Downfall are examined, and the potential of writing pesticides may also have profound implications for the practice for design fiction practitioners is considered. honey bee and other pollinators [48], potentially contributing to colony collapse disorder (CCD). Recently Author Keywords proposed UK legislative changes to allow limited use of Design fiction; future scenario; design artefacts; neonicotinoids [9] generated much media debate. beekeeping; environment; design methods. Beekeeping itself has changed radically since the advent of ACM Classification Keywords the varroa destructor (a parasitic mite), with beekeepers H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): adopting more proactive management practices to combat Miscellaneous. disease. These conditions correlate with a rise in new narratives and practices among beekeeping communities. INTRODUCTION This paper presents a future scenario, Mr Shore’s Downfall, Our world is changing, and the role of design and designers that draws on and extends such narratives, infusing them is changing too – from problem solvers to problem seekers with folklore and archive material, to envisage a world [6, 13] and in adding value across supply chains and where the honey bee is central to social, economic and complex value constellations [41]. Global societal cultural value systems. We present three conceptual design Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for artefacts arising from this world: Loc-Bands, TanGo, and personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are Pherodrones; situating them in past and present beekeeping not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies and technological practices. bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be BACKGROUND & RELATED WORK honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or Contemporary studies on bees are often the province of republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior science, such as Karl von Frisch’s work on bee specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. communication [47]. However, bees and beekeeping are also popular subjects in the arts (e.g. [15, 22]). Yet bees are NordiCHI '16, October 23 - 27, 2016, Gothenburg, Sweden Copyright is steeped in folklore too – the well known practice of ‘telling held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM 978-1-4503-4763-1/16/10...$15.00 DOI: the bees’ meant colonies being told of deaths in the http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2971485.2993924 beekeeper’s family to prevent them swarming or getting The design fictions and future scenario documented here sick. Another example is ‘tanging a swarm’ by making emerged as part of a multi-method research project that metallic and/or banging noises to attract a swarm of bees to took a Research through Design [18] approach to better land nearby. understand how knowledge is produced and passed on in UK beekeeping communities. It explored creative ways to The authors’ engagement with Scottish beekeepers (via codify and repackage beekeeping knowledge as imagined interviews and codesign workshops) found such tales still in future folklore prototypes in order to stimulate reflection on in existence, along with new stories being shared by word beekeeping in the past, present and future. of mouth. Oral culture is by its nature mutable [16], changing to reflect new values. Traditional beekeeping The multidisciplinary research team worked with Scottish knowledge is also changing, with the rise of urban beekeepers and a community partner (Tay Landscape beekeeping, hive inventions (e.g. the Flow Hive [14]) and Partnership). Data was collated in the form of 1) archival new books about beekeeping (e.g. [4, 46]). The Bee Lab material on beekeeping management practices, folklore and Project [32], used an Open Design process with beekeepers creative texts; 2) qualitative interviews and participatory to construct and iterate the development of open source observation with beekeepers across Scotland; 3) a series of hive sensor kits, enabling the gathering and sharing of data . codesign workshops with beekeepers and traditional We argue that design, design fictions, and imagined storytellers in Scotland. The knowledge generated in this artefacts offer a way to think through and reflect on the phase fed into a series of workshops with beekeepers, changing values and knowledge systems of beekeeping. designers, storytellers and other participants. Through storytelling and making activities, the codesign generated Coined by Sterling [43], Design Fictions often centre concepts to develop as interpretation at public events. around diegetic prototypes that attempt to reveal or question accepted thinking [5, 13]. Franke describes Fictional This immersion in the world of beekeeping and folklore Design as a “medium for articulating a possible world,” provided a rich context for the authors to reflect, from a [17] where design objects prompt reflection beyond the design perspective, on what the future of beekeeping might object itself to wider societal issues. This is in contrast to be like [26]. Furthermore, in this paper we ask: How might “Visionary Design Objects” [17], “Visioning Film” [25] existing scientific and tacit knowledge and beekeeping and “vapour fiction” [25] which are seen as “thin” [36], and management practices be deployed as a design fiction? lacking “diegetic texture” [25]. The former is driven by an intent to explore via the fictional world and its objects, and METHODS the latter presents a dislocated and sterilised vision that We adopted an agile, iterative and cyclical writing process projects desires onto an audience. Auger [3] uses the term to produce our future scenario, which we considered as a “speculative design” due to its connection with the present; Research through Writing component of our broader speculation must refer to the place and time from which it is Research through Design (RtD) collaboration. We engaged

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