For this course’s purposes, we can assume people know a place to which they are intimately connected better than an external geodesign team. Even if they are not directly connected, they have a better sense of place than a non-resident might. Notably, it is for this reason that a local consultant is often encouraged to contribute to project. We can call this information “local knowledge. “
How the geodesign team taps into local knowledge is often related to the context of the study. Consider two polarized problems. If the study is highly localized, its people are individualized and the design team becomes correspondingly externalized – they are outsiders. For example, a geodesign team that is providing a new idea to a small town could quite naturally be seen as outsiders seeking to educate the town residents. If the study is highly globalized, it becomes increasingly difficult for the geodesign team to separate itself from human patterns and knowledge – the team is part of the human processes it is observing. At the largest scales, the team is as much a stakeholder as anyone else in the landscape.
The big idea is that there may be things the geodesign team does not know that local people do know. While this seems like an obvious assumption upon entering into a project, it is easy to fall into the trap that a mastery of science and technology will enable the geodesign team to adequately understand a place. In reality, without local knowledge and timely feedback from people, the study itself may cease to be fit for a place. The geodesign process specifically addresses local collaboration in phase of the process called Decision Models. This topic will be covered in greater depth in future lessons.