SUMMARY: The concept of a 'Tamar Institute' is entirely speculative and one that arises out of conversations between a group of individuals based in the Tamar Region linked to, and/or working within, various institutions and networks. The 'vision' for the ‘institute idea’ is a work-in-progress and the inputs of all interested people are welcomed.

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It has been envisaged that the Tamar Region is well placed to put together a community not-for-profit enterprise  of some kind - or network of enterprises/organisations/institutions – that is designed to service the region's communities of various kinds to better enable them to deliver on their aspirations and cooperatively. Furthermore, it is envisaged that current regional groups/organisations/institutions may be better placed to deliver more relevant outcomes – fiscal, social & cultural dividends – in a 21st C context if they were to work more collaboratively/cooperatively towards mutual benefits that have a regional focus.

It is envisaged that the enterprise focus on the publication and decimation of information and cultural production in the broadest context – nonetheless regionally focused in its content. As a consequence of this it is likely that research in its broadest context will be a key concern for the institute/enterprise.

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PURPOSE, GOALS & OBJECTIVES

THE INSTITUTE'S PURPOSE FOR BEING

It is proposed that the Tamar Institute be established as a community oriented research and publication  enterprise structured to facilitate the development of, and the advocacy of, new understandings of sustainable and cooperative living in a 21st Century context.

DRAFT GOALS AND OBJECTIVES FOR THE  INSTITUTE

Given that in a broad context scientific, social and cultural discourses can be variously seen as being at the interface between technical innovation, cultural production and social aspirations  – science, technology and industry in other contexts – these activities often find themselves at the cutting edge of social development and cultural change. Against this background a projected set of  goals and objectives for a  Tamar Institute might well be:

1.  To engage regional communities, researchers and its cultural producers in a critical discourse that explores the possibilities and parameters of the interfacing concepts that define and determine  sustainable living and placedness, a sense of place, in a real world 21st C context while delivering fiscal, social and cultural dividends;

2.  To be an advocate for innovative and sustainable outcomes within the current regional economy and especially so in relation to current technologies, social structures and cultural practices;

3. To operate in collaboration, cooperation and alliance  with like-minded individuals, institutions and groups and where appropriate under the auspices of one or more established groups that have symbiotic sets of goals and objectives;

4.  To investigate the ways in which social and cultural realities in a regional context interface with current technologies, social structures and cultural production – local and international – and the broad spectrum of research can;

   •  relate to changing, and new, understandings of economies in an eco-context; and
   • shape and/or reshape cultural and social realities in a 21st Century context;

5.  To be proactive in the initiation of projects that engage researchers, innovators and cultural producers – writers, design practitioners et al – with the wider community towards developing new understandings of ‘place’ and one place’s interfaces with others in a 21st Century  context;

6. To facilitate the development of new interactive networks towards the promotion of new/pioneering technologies, innovative social structures, sustainable enterprise outcomes and/or community cultural enterprises informed by current circumstances in the region;

7.  To be proactive in the publication and dissemination of the outcomes of individual, cooperative and collaborative research and cooperative community enterprises relevant to the institute’s raison d’être;

8.   To seek funding and in-kind support for scholarship in a broad context plus projects, conferences, symposiums, seminars and education programs that advance the institute’s cause and to be of benefit to  a broad spectrum of regionally based entrepreneurial activity.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Against the background of a world that is in the throes of dynamic socio-political change driven by the evolution of innovative technologies and the spectre of environmental degradation, an entity such as a Tamar Institute should focus upon and be mindful of:

1.  A need to proactively embrace change while being engaged with researchers and cultural producers of all kinds, and the wider community, in a critical discourse that explores the possibilities and parameters of shifting sensitivities, sensibilities and belief systems in the context of  new technologies and changing ecologies in a real world 21st C context.

2.  Albeit that the ‘Tamar Region’ is not at a point that might be described as a post-consumerist paradigm, plausibly the region is on the cusp of it and thus there is a need to advocate for innovative and sustainable solutions that would fit such a circumstance.

3.  Given the nature of, and the complexity of, the issues that are encompassed by the linked concepts of ‘sustainability’ and ‘cultural change’, the most likely path to relevant outcomes are collaborative. Furthermore, there are already enough organisations/institutions/networks in place that are able make a contribution to the ‘problem solving’ and with the capacity to engage with groups in the wider community. Given this, it is counterproductive to attempt to create yet another formal organisation. Rather, it may prove to be both more productive, and more likely that, like minded individuals, institutions and groups that have symbiotic sets of goals and objectives will be better placed to develop appropriate solutions – unlikely solutions even – than an individual or a special purpose group working in isolation and competitively or being insulated from others working toward similar goals.

4.  Against a background where it is envisaged that there is unsustainable competition for resources, there is a need to investigate new and/or innovative ways in which service provision, production networks and social change – and indeed cultural production – can contribute to better (new?) understandings of what ‘sustainability’ and ‘ecological realities’ entails. Indeed, what is at risk, given the realisation that regional resources are finite, and the opportunities to adapt to change are diminishing exponentially, is the ability to maintain a community's social and cultural well being.

5. Many of our mainstream institutions/organisations have been established within a different paradigm to the one of dynamic change that that is currently unfolding. Consequently, these 'bodies' may well have a great deal more invested in holding their position – maintaining the status quo – than they may in adapting to change let alone not being predisposed to being ‘change agents’. Speculatively at least, and in a 21st C context, there is a need to be proactive and innovative in developing new understandings of the concepts of what a sustainable community might look like. What is understood to constitute relevant research, viable production networks and relevant cultural production in the context of current, and emerging, cultural and social realities is best determined locally rather than from elsewhere.

6.   In the 21st Century it is clear that the status quo is no longer an ongoing and sustainable option. As was the case in the context of the Industrial Revolution where the concept of the ‘division of labour’ came to the fore and that later evolved into business concepts such as ‘vertical integration’   the facilitation of new interactive networks and technologies promise to deliver outcomes that may otherwise be unrealisable. Furthermore, as time passes new information technologies deliver new networking opportunities – social networks, cultural networking, financial networks etc. – towards realising sustainable outcomes within the diversity of research efforts, production supply chains and current cultural production in both a regional and ‘global’ context.

7.  The key element in the effective dissemination of ideas is their publication. Until relatively recently ‘publishers’ were the gatekeepers that helped keep the control that was exercised over the flow of information and its distribution – and at times the propagation of ideas. The interfaces between the information economy and the digital economy allow individuals, groups and institutions to be autonomous and proactive in the publication of ideas – thus circumventing the gatekeepers. Importantly, publication can take a greater range of interfacing formats – print media, electronic media, digital media, exhibitions and dynamic interfaces between them – that can be initiated autonomously in ways that are not constrained by external gatekeepers. This is important in regard to generating critical discourses around contested and contentious ideas. In the 21st Century the saying ”publish or perish” has a new resonance albeit somewhat removed from exclusivity of academe’s cloisters.

8. Notwithstanding the notion that an institute of the kind speculated upon here seeks to collaborate with kindred established organisations and institutions, it needs to be acknowledged that it will be making demands, unplanned for demands, on their budgets, infrastructure and other resources. Consequently, there will be a need to seek funding and sponsorship support for the projects initiated as a part of these collaborations. Given that there are mutual benefits to the collaborators, and very often the sponsors as well, it can be assumed, and with some safety, that funding agencies and sponsors who see advantages in supporting one collaborator will also see enhanced opportunities in supporting collaborative projects.

STRATEGIES

The background and guiding principles against which the proposed Tamar Institute has been framed, it is anticipated that its goals and objectives can be realised as follows:

1. Capitalising upon the established networks’ memberships and other relationships relevant to potential key participating collaborators, devise projects and programs – research, advocacy and other – that engage with a diversity of community social networks. In doing so, establish a ‘corporate entity/identity’ of some kind that will enable the entity to pursue;

•   collaborative research exploration of past and current understandings relevant to social cum cultural realities’ sustainability;

•   advocacy for production and service networks and current cultural production in a real world 21st Century context.

2.  It is envisaged that via various means ‘the institute’ – albeit that it may be a somewhat abstract entity – will initiate projects and programs under the aegis of networked groups/organisations/institutions that advocate innovative and sustainable outcomes within the context of 21st C  technologies, social networks and cultural production.

3.   Establish a coalition of collaborative research teams and networks under the auspices of one or more established groups/organisations/institutions that have symbiotic sets of goals and objectives to those of the institute. By doing so, the coalition, and the teams/networks collectively, will be better placed to investigate the ways in which scientific research, cultural production and technology can contribute to changing imperatives and understandings within 21st Century cultural, social and economic realities.

4.  Using the institution’s network linkages, it is anticipated that it will be possible to initiate various projects devised to engage a diverse network of community based producers, service providers, researchers and cultural producers with each other. Consistent with this, and using the networked resources of community based researchers, the diversity and cultural producers as well as the network’s infrastructure – display spaces, sales outlets, offices, meeting places, etc. – new, and dynamically interactive,  projects and programs will be more feasible than otherwise may be possible.

5.  Fund and/or seek funding in collaboration with network members for infrastructure and facilities within the institute’s network that enhances or complements existing infrastructures and that enables the development of projects and programs in support of the institute’s raison d’être. Likewise, where appropriate, seek funding and sponsorships – cash and in-kind – for new infrastructure initiatives in collaboration/cooperation with a network member.

6. Establish a publication network – hardcopy, electronic and digital – for the publication of the outcomes of individual, cooperative and collaborative research relevant to the institute’s raison d’être. Primarily publications will be directed towards disseminating information about, and the outcomes of, projects, conferences, symposiums and seminars that advance the institute’s cause.

7.  Establish a curated virtual research collection and library network facilitated by a website that identifies objects in public and private collections, and/or in daily use in public and private situations, that demonstrate the region’s cultural and social realities and histories – plus the interfaces between the sustainability concept and current design practices.

8.   Facilitate the awarding of scholarships, residencies and fellowships that advance the study of regionally relevant issues and/or research focused upon topics of regional significance. These opportunities will be facilitated via the institute's network and ideally complemented by funding opportunities from other sources – private, corporate, institutional, national,  international.

CONTEXT

At the end of the first decade in the 21st C, it is becoming increasingly clear that the imperatives that have tended to define what might be understood as the ‘cultural and social realities’ linked to place have become somewhat more ambiguous and less defined by the compartmental and specialised thinking that largely emerged in the 19th and 20th Centuries. “Sustainability, climate change and placedness” have entered the contemporary mindset and sometimes they have become buzzwords used to invoke credibility and currency in the context of contemporary innovation. Nonetheless, these concepts are often controversial and contested ideas. For example “sustainable” and “sustainability” – the capacity to endure – are among the most corrupted and ambiguous words in the lexicons attached to various ‘disciplines’ – so much so that in many contexts they have become meaningless clichés.

The 20th C witnessed the wane of the industrial era that once seemed to promise better lives for all. For instance, the part ‘design’, in particular industrial design, was to play in this outcome was never really realised or at least not in the universal way its advocates and champions envisioned. Essentially design practice, and thus designers, saw themselves as key players, heroes of a kind, and at many levels, in the globalisation of the world’s economies. Within this worldview ecology gives way to the ‘the economy’ and relentlessly.

Interestingly, and in contrast, current design practice tends to champion collaborative and cooperative processes and practices as viable alternatives to the concept of the individual as hero that was so evident in the post WW2 industrialised world.

In David Suzuki’s  Legacy Lecture in Perth February 2011 he said, “ Even though without an Ecology there is no Economy, we as a society treat the Economy as if it was more important.” With ‘Climate Change’ and the shifting power bases in international politics and economics, it is increasingly obvious that the presumed norms of the first world in the 20th C are unsustainable'. 

  

In his Perth lecture Suzuki also asked: “What is the intrinsic value of our ecological systems? In our economic system, nature does not have any value unless it can be commoditised. The service that our oceans, forests, mountains, rivers and other natural ecological systems provide is ineradicably linked for our survival in this planet. Yet under our current economic system, these ecological systems have no value in themselves. For example, in today’s and especially tomorrow’s world rich countries may “pay poorer ones not to cut down trees”  and sell them for money.”

Rhetorically at least, what is unsustainable is being acknowledged yet precious little attention is paid to what is affordable in emergent world views; what is possible via evolving cross disciplinary understandings; and just what it is that is at risk within the new ‘eco-crisis’ paradigm – even if such mindsets are blighted with rhetoric and clichés. By way of example, the ecological cum sustainability design paradigm is the one where “eco” invokes ecology rather than economy and where there are implications for designers that many are yet to embrace.

In the First World, or so-called Global Economy, the love of and reliance upon ‘money’ as the measure of all things is striking. Some love the stuff more than God. Some even see it as God’s reward and the measure of one’s goodness and Godliness.

It is imagined that there is almost nothing on planet earth that has the clout to rob us of our affection for money. In a 20th C context it seems that globalised communities became hard wired to the ‘money paradigm’, consumerism, market forces and the relentless exploitation of the planet’s resources in the belief that in the end money will buy anything, be the measure of all things and the ultimate solution to all problems.In the end there seems to be an assumption that the planet will provide – or go on providing.

The lack of money is attributed to bringing about of plagues, pestilence and death – worse still, boredom and solitude. What could be worse than being bankrupt, except for being bankrupt all alone?

In counter to this the now famous Cree Indian prophecy tells us “Only after the last tree has been cut down.Only after the last river has been poisoned.  Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”

Once money was valued against the ‘Gold Standard’  but more recently it would seem that more importantly, money is the standard against which power might be measured. Curiously, and perhaps by no accident, gold is the possibly the most endurable, and the most recycled element, recovered from the earth’s crust.

Even knowledge in the knowledge economy is seen as valueless unless it can be converted to money. Money is the currency of terrorists aiming to disrupt First World supremacy and the borderless corporate world alike. Money is seen as the backbone of almost every political endeavour. Nonetheless, as David Suzuki reminds us, without a sustainable ecology an economy cannot be sustained.

Against this background consumerism needs to re-examine both its raison d’être and modus operandi in order to remain viable and sustainable. Arguably, the world already has enough stuff  – too much even – and increasingly the concept of “economic growth” is revealing itself to be a flawed idea in a world with exponential population growth and demand in a world that has finite resources.

Tasmania, as an island at the edge of this world, and at the periphery, curiously is at the cutting edge of the political, social and cultural discourses that are emerging within this paradigm shift. Given Tasmania's histories, demography, geography and social cum cultural realities – perhaps not uniquely  placed but nonetheless poignantly placed – the island may well be a valuable vantage point from which to consider the questions that are currently arising.

Indeed, in Tasmania communities appear to be willing to assert their cognitive ownership of, and interests in, place – wilderness, cultural landscapes, environments, landliteracy concept – which in turn makes the island something of a social cum cultural laboratory in which contentious   ideas might be tested – and arguably has been for some time.  Tasmania is often cited as an exemplar of a social laboratory of some kind or another in a research context.

Perhaps the primacy, the sacredness, of ‘the individual’ and the notion of the individual leader/innovator/artist/inventor/ as saviour cum hero might well prove to be an unsustainable idea within the new paradigm if it is not already so. Arguably, in order to survive, as a society, indeed  a civilisation, individuals and communities will need to operate collaboratively and cooperatively. Conceptually, and subliminally at least, this is an idea that is already being tested in the search for sustainable ways forward in the context of 21st C realities.

BACKGROUND NOTES

In the 20th Century colonial expansion fuelled by the capitalist industrialisation of the Western world seemed to reach a turning point at the end of WW2 and the early exchanges in the Cold War. Likewise towards the end of the century, and the apparent end of the Cold War, local social and cultural realities, arguably, have taken on an importance that challenges the assumed primacy of the First World – the democratic, capitalistic and USA aligned states. The imperative of the First World enterprise focused upon globalising and the blending (homogenising?) of economies and societies – the social cum cultural imperatives plus knowledge and belief systems.

Places like Launceston embody most of the value systems of what is now understood as the First World. Clearly Launcestonian sensibilities by-and-large still spring from the circumstances of the colonisation of Tasmania. Launceston was amongst the earliest colonial settlements to successfully embrace the concept the Mechanics Institute that has since been translated into its library, museum, art gallery and the various manifestations further education in the city and region.

Against this background local imperatives and local understandings of ‘place’ have taken on more importance as First World imperatives – typically determined and defined remotely – are questioned and challenged.  Launceston and the Tamar Region is close to being a quintessential exemplar of a place where 19th/20th Century understandings of place and the world are contestable in a 21st C context. Yet Launceston seems to imagine itself as comfortably isolated, and insulated to some extent, from the tensions and conflicts being played out globally – albeit that Tasmania is an epicentre of a kind in regard to conflicting, and emblematic, discourses to do with ‘the environment’.

In Nevil Shute’s novel ‘On the Beach’ Melbourne was envisaged as being simultaneously at the edge and the end of the world as a consequence of a nuclear holocaust and ‘The First World’  and ‘The Second World’  simultaneously losing the Cold War. It’s conceivable that Launcestonians, indeed Tasmanians,  might see themselves as being somewhat more safely placed – and in a splendid isolation of a kind notwithstanding the perceived  inescapability of ‘Climate Change’.

In contrast, towards the end of the 20th C the specialisation of knowledge systems began to be questioned and to be increasingly challenged aided and abetted by the democratisation of knowledge and the ubiquitous Internet.

As the complexity of the ways the world’s interfacing knowledge systems became more obvious their significance, individually, and in isolation, became less and less homogenised – less blended, less blanded. Once the siloing of academic disciplines was championed but at the end of the first decade of the 21st C it increasingly presents as an outmoded idea with questionable application and sometimes of dubious value – universally at least.

In the 19th C places like Launceston – colonial outposts and located somewhat at the periphery – were nonetheless relatively quickly shaped/reshaped by the social, economic and cultural imperatives of the enlightenment, European colonial expansion and the ultimately the Industrial Revolution with its consequent industrialisation of the colonised world in particular – and oftentimes celebrated in the context of Launcestonian placedness. Against this background it is unsurprising that Mechanics Institutes became an integral part of a region’s cultural landscape and the social sensibility of the time.

Mechanics' Institutes in Tasmania, and later Australia, took their inspiration from the first institute founded in Edinburgh in 1821. Australia's first Mechanics' Institute was established in Hobart Town just six years later in 1827 but unable to repay its debts it folded in 1871.

Interestingly, Tasmania’s most successful Mechanics' Institute was established in Launceston 15 years later in 1842 with the support John West  – Congregational minister, journalist, editor of The Examiner and later the Sydney Morning Herald and historian. Eleven years later a branch of the Royal Society of Tasmania was formed in Launceston in 1853. It lapsed but was reconstituted in 1921 and has continued since then.

Even in its relative isolation Launceston, perhaps better thought about in its historic and colonial context as say the Tamar region, ‘the place’ has never in fact been truly insulated from the imperatives of the times.  Rather, from Launceston’s earliest days there has been a community of  'innovators’ in the region who were far from being disconnected from social and scientific advances elsewhere.

William Russ Pugh (1806–97) being an exemplar of Launcestonians connectivity given that on June 7 1847 he is credited with administering the first surgical anesthetic in the southern hemisphere. An enthusiastic experimenter, he produced coal gas to light his house, and the ether for his anesthetics.

Interestingly, Pugh’s use of ether  in surgery was less than a year after the first published demonstrations of its use in the USA in dentistry and surgery at Massachusetts’ ‘Ether Dome’. Arguably, Pugh was not only up with the pace in his field but also a leading innovator internationally, albeit from the extremities of empire, at the cusp of what might be thought of as the first wave of globalisation as European colonial expansion was reaching its zenith. 

Along with the specialisation of knowledge systems Mechanics Institutes and Schools of Arts took on new forms and changed into public libraries; museums and art galleries; public institutions delivering technical and further education; and democratised universities – all of which have tended to advocate the siloing of specialised knowledge systems. All of this is evident in Launceston along with the evolution of place specific groups with interests in celebrating the region’s histories (natural & social), geography, heritage, etc.

the region defined by its geography and social cum cultural realities.

Internationally, the lessons that might be learned from the Tragedy Of The Commons – a term coined by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968 – seem not to heard or heeded. Tasmania seems to offer a laboratory of a kind within which this and kindred issues can be interrogated – especially so in relation to the 'environment' and 'wilderness' debates that have been raging in Tasmania for decades.

Immediately there may be some profit in exploring sustainability issues via a 21st C institute that is a network of networks auspiced by organisations and institutions that have evolved in the region. Such an ‘institute’ might well be a coalition and/or alliance of groups engaged in an exchange of ideas focused on place – its geography plus social cum cultural realities.  

RELATIONSHIP CHART

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OFTEN ASKED QUESTION & ANSWERS

 In framing this paper and in particular the proposal for an 'institute' of the kind described in the paper, a number of questions have arisen.  

Questions:

1.  Why wouldn't it be appropriate for the institute, or whatever it may be called, to be formally constituted and incorporated as a not-for-profit body?

•  It may be appropriate to formally establish the institute as a separate legal entity. However, it need not be separate in this way as there are a number of institutions and organisations that may be willing to auspice it, or an element of it,  If the issue of legal liability were to arise incorporation may then be an issue. The desirability of legal incorporation or otherwise will need to be determined at some time in the future, and by the constituents of the coalition, that will be the institute's membership – Community of Ownership & Interest. That will be necessary should the formation of the institute/alliance/cooperative proceed.

2.  In practical terms what is involved and implied by ‘auspiced’ in the case of the proposal to establish an "institute"?

•  'Auspiced'  typically refers to an organisation, action group, whatever, that exists under the patronage or guidance of another entity –especially in the phrase "under the auspices of". The 'auspicing body' here usually takes responsibility for financial accountability while the 'auspiced entity' carries out its program and projects.

3.  Who will the members of the institute be and how is it proposed that they be selected or appointed?

•  'Membership' can be determined in a variety of ways but the working assumption is that the membership will typically be in some way representative of the coalition/alliance that comes together to establish the institute and ultimately determine its purpose and objectives. Beyond that it will be that membership that will determine the issue of membership, roles, etc.

4.  How will the institute find a coalition or an alliance of organisations/people to enable its formation ?

• Clearly there will need to be an action cum advocacy group established to progress the concept and the membership of such a group is open to suggestions.

5.  How will the institute be funded ?

• Once the institute has a clear purpose, a credible set of goals and a relevant auspicing body or network of auspicing bodies/organisations, it will be possible to seek funding from agencies  and corporations etc. that support the kind of projects/programs requiring funding or in-kind support. However, it is anticipated that its 'membership' may well be able to find financial and in-kind support from within its networks. Funding will ultimately be determined by the institute's credibility and importantly, its accountability – not the least the projects it delivers.

6.  What is meant by the term "placedness" ?

• Placedness refers to an understanding of 'place' determined and/or defined by social and cultural imperatives. It is also linked to the understandings linked to cultural landscapes and the concept of placemaking – a term used by architects and planners to describe the process of creating squares, plazas, parks, streets and waterfronts that will attract people because they are useful, pleasurable, interesting, sustaining. In relation to the institute it is used in a similar way albeit with a different focus

7.  Why has the concept of the 'Mechanics Institute" been used as a model for the institute given that it is an outmoded idea?  

• Mechanics Institutes were historically 19th C style educational establishments formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men. Typically they were established to meet a local need and to fit a local circumstance. Later they turned into museums, libraries and colleges that have a more general rather than local focus. It is being speculated that in a 21st C context the kind of starting point that spawned Mechanics Institutes  may again be useful in developing a 'local institution' devised and designed to fit local circumstances, or at least pay attention to local issues even if it is simultaneously within a global circumstance  ... read more here

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