Interactive platform

The Food Citizens? i-doc enables a virtual navigation of a selection of case studies and their comparative connections, which the research team has ethnographically investigated and audio-visually documented in the cities of Gdańsk, Turin and Rotterdam.

The i-doc connects 50 case studies, identifiable as icons on a cartography that ideally conjoins Gdańsk, Turin and Rotterdam in a single digital canvas, crossed by a stylized river symbolizing the important waterways that characterize the life and topography of each city: the Vistula and port waters of the gulf of Gdańsk, the Dora and Po in Turin, and the Rhine/Meuse estuary in Rotterdam. The case studies include community gardens, allotment gardens, food banks, (networks of) food aid NGOs, (networks of) solidarity economy groups and shops, food markets, innovative food entrepreneurs such as vegan shops and cafes in Gdańsk and the Fenix Food Factory in Rotterdam, food cooperatives and online delivery platforms among others. The i-doc allows to browse 60 videos, 70 photo slideshows, 10 sound files (soundscapes and interviews), and 10 text documents gathered during fieldwork.

Each item is described with a short text, multimedia attachments, and connects with other items in the same city and in the other two, exploring the dimensions of solidarity (what does ‘solidarity’ mean for this initiative?), diversity (how do they interpret and act upon ‘diversity’?), skill (which skills are learnt and taught and to whom?) and scale (do these initiatives want to scale ‘up’ or ‘out’, can they, and why?). These are the four categories we used to ‘slice up’ similarities and contrasts among cases and to create a comparative narrative connecting the people, places and networks we encountered ethnographically. The i-doc reproduces in digital and multimodal form the conceptual maps we drew during our collective sessions.

This is how you navigate the i-doc

You can navigate the i-doc at www.foodcitizens.eu/idoc, preferably with Chrome browsers.

Credits

The team thanks all research participants in Gdańsk, Turin and Rotterdam: this i-doc is also the result of their knowledge, contributions, and multiple forms of collaborations with us. 

All the team has contributed in different capacities and stages to the i-doc production.

Federico De Musso: Training and directing the filming team. Filming in Gdańsk, Turin and Rotterdam. Editing and post-production of the audiovisual material. Co-construction of the comparative analysis. Texts co-editor. Research and choice of the digital platform format. Ideating, designing and coding the i-doc.

Ola Gracjasz: Fieldwork, filming and photography in Gdańsk. Assistant editor. Subtitling. Collaborative identification of the interconnections between case studies, and texts about Gdańsk.

Cristina Grasseni: Project’s Principal Investigator. Training and supervising the project team. Comparative research design and research protocol. Co-construction of the comparative analysis. Texts co-editor.

Marilena Poulopoulou: research support (data management, communication, team assistance).

Robin Smith: Preparatory readings, literature review, template case studies, co-editor research protocol.

Hanna Stalenhoef: research support (data management, communication, team assistance).

Maria Vasile: Fieldwork, filming and photography in Turin. Assistant editor. Editor of the spesa SOSpesa short documentary, video interview at Piazza Foroni and video of allotments design at Orti Generali. Subtitling with Stefano Murgia. Collaborative identification of the interconnections between case studies, author and co-editor of the texts about Turin. Editor of interview excerpts, selection of documents and hyperlinks for Turin.

Vincent Walstra: Fieldwork, filming and photography in Rotterdam. Assistant editor. Subtitling. Collaborative identification of the interconnections between case studies, and texts about Rotterdam.