Spherical Configuration of Categories to Reflect Systemic Patterns of Environmental Checks and Balances

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Published in: International Society for Knowledge Organization. Environmental Knowledge Organization and Information Management: proceedings of the First European ISKO Conference (Sept 1994, Bratislava). Frankfurt-Main, Indeks Verlag, 1994, pp. 1-21. Portions of the text also appeared in the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential

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Abstract: To explore and illustrate new conceptual and organizational possibilities, the focus of the exercise described is on identifying 'strategic dilemmas' underlying debates on environment/development issues, such as those of the 1992 Earth Summit. These are the dilemmas which reflect such seemingly irreconcilable concerns as 'safeguarding watercourses' versus 'exploiting essential hydro-electric energy reserves'. The assumption is that as a set these local (namely issue-specific) long-term dilemmas may offer clues to new patterns of global (namely inter-sectoral) strategies and bargains. In an effort to move beyond the questionable 'linearity' of conventional representations of such categories, the information is encoded or projected onto a network derived from a symmetric polyhedral form. The network has been deliberately chosen to facilitate comprehension of global properties of the pattern of strategic dilemmas. However the global significance of the pattern, and the basis for its 'sustainability', is shown as emerging only when its form in three-dimensions becomes apparent as having spherical characteristics. Of special interest is the shift in the level of analysis from isolated problems to that of vicious cycles or loops that link a succession of problems aggravating one another across conventional categories. The concern is how these cycles interlock, defining such a sphere, in order to sustain negative environments which call for transformation. The research is based on data prepared for the 4th edition of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (1).

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1. Introduction
2. Environmental information: the neglected challenge
3. Background
4. Global knowledge organization
5. Configuring 'global bargains' through more complex structure
6. Beyond isolated bargains
7. Strategic dilemmas
8. Pattern of strategic dilemmas
9. Network of bargain arenas
10. Identifying the bargaining arenas (as 'strategic categories')
11. Re-interpreting the global bargaining challenge
12. Catalytic imagery
13. Possible interpretation refinements
14. Vicious cycles and loops
15. Cycles as a unit of analysis
16. Strategic responses to problem cycles
17. Reservations, results and examples
18. Configuring interlocking cycles

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Spherical Configuration of Categories
2. Environmental information: the neglected challenge
3. Background
4. Global knowledge organization
5. Configuring 'global bargains' through more complex structure
6. Beyond isolated bargains
7. Strategic dilemmas
8. Pattern of strategic dilemmas
9. Network of bargain arenas
10. Identifying the bargaining arenas (as 'strategic categories')
11. Re-interpreting the global bargaining challenge
12. Catalytic imagery
13. Possible interpretation refinements
14. Vicious cycles and loops
15. Cycles as a unit of analysis
16. Strategic responses to problem cycles
17. Reservations, results and examples
18. Configuring interlocking cycles
References

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1. Introduction

There is an increasing sense of urgency in the international community. This is accompanied by an increasing sense of opportunity. The urgency relates to the perception of an ever-increasing pressure from world problems and their effects at every level of society. The opportunity is associated with the many tools, insights and resources available to society, especially in the field of information.

It is easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm and hype concerning the future 'information society', the 'global village', and the 'superhighway'. It should not be forgotten that the automobile excited the same enthusiasms at the beginning of the century but led to unforeseen impacts on the environment, on quality of life and on the marginalization of those without access to such advantages. There will undoubtedly be advantages and many are already accessible to the few. But what will be the equivalents of the proliferation of roads, noise, pollution, conflicts between public and private transport, unaesthetic roadside 'furniture', road accidents, and the like? The information revolution will engender its own 'environmental' problems as can already be seen in the invasive spread of commercial and political messages.

Even vaster quantities of information are about to become widely available. It would be a grave mistake to assume that this in itself will necessarily empower people and groups to respond more effectively to the social and environmental problems of the immediate future. The enthusiasms of many information professionals and providers tend to conceal the inadequacies of the existing tools and those which are on the drawing board.

The key challenge is whether the tools will empower people to ask more appropriate questions or whether they will simply reinforce users in the pursuit of predetermined preoccupations. Will users emerge with unforeseen answers that offer them a more integrative perspective, or will mindsets that are already endangering society simply be reinforced? There should be no illusions about the marketing of information tools in a society that will be encouraged towards the highest level of information consumption. As ever, the money is to be made in providing people with responses to their immediate, short-term needs not in challenging them to reframe their needs and their approach to information about them.

The above remarks apply as much to individual end-users as to major institutions, notably those operating at the international level.

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