Investigating the use of digital artifacts in a community project of sustainable food practices: ‘My chili blossoms’

Abstract

Research on food practices has become more common among scholars of HCI in recent years. Human-Food-Interaction (HFI) looks into the interplay of humans, food and technology. HFI, even so, has paid relatively little attention to the more collective elements of food practice, including social bonding [1]. The modest project we describe below aimed to say something about the use of digital artifacts to support community engagement for sustainable food practices. We participated, as action researchers (see [2]) in a grassroots movement that instigated a project around learning about food growing, using digital means to bring interested people together during times of physical distancing: In the project Vegetables seek a home, people from various backgrounds ‘adopted’ a chili-plant, they are invited to share what they like in a Telegram-Group, and to get learning-modules via a mailing-list. Through an analysis of the communal effort to actualize the project (video-calls, Telegram, wechange.de) and the content of the Telegram-Group for the chili-plant adopting parents and experts, we suggest some design implications for grassroots communities and sustainable food practice. In future research we intend an iterative design to support the community and its project, utilizing Holmgren's 12 principles of permaculture design.