The Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network
Grow Where You Are
Founded in 2015 by Betsy Taylor (anthropologist), Mary Hufford (folklorist), Julie Maldonado (anthropologist), and Landra Lewis (civic leader and artist), the Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network (LiKEN), our newly formed non-profit, grows out of decades of work with asset-based, community development. Addressing a critical gap in data and services to frontline communities affected by extractive industries, LiKEN is a link-tank for sustainable livelihoods to connect communities, organizations, scholars, and policymakers. Seeking open and transparent government, we provide knowledge hubs for regions impacted by boom and bust, mono-economies (for more information, We design our programs as "collaboratories" – virtual and face-to-face laboratories for collaboration between citizens and scholars to create a knowledge-sharing network that tackles particular research projects.
Our inaugural project, the True Cost Collaboratory, seeks to develop research tools to support frontline communities – those most affected by extractive industries – in long-term planning. This collaboratory brings community youth and leaders together with organizers, government representatives, and scholars to develop and field-test data toolkits and interactive web platforms. The goal is to integrate key data about community assets into user-friendly interfaces so that frontline communities can imagine, and debate, diverse scenarios for sustainable development, poverty alleviation, and livelihood creation. Our long-term goal is to look critically at government agencies and policies to see whether communities are provided the data they need to sustain the life they value.
The initial phase of the True Cost Collaboratory includes:
- presenting important facts from credible data sources (official government, peer-reviewed science, widely respected think tanks and citizen science),
- feedback from forums in frontline communities on the format and design of the True Cost Collaboratory website, and
- evaluation by Citizen Reviewers and Scholarly Review Board to: a) assess the site's utility in solving real-life problems; b) identify inadequacies in official data; and c) raise questions unaddressed by existing data.
The second phase of the True Cost Collaboratory, beginning in the spring of 2016, will include education for many stakeholders about major federal citizen data toolkits, and collaborative research to provide constructive and critical feedback. During this phase, the True Cost Collaboratory will also provide a platform for extractive industry-affected communities to explain the questions they want answered, and, to share stories, photographs, music, art, and social media.
The third phase of the True Cost Collaboratory, starting in the summer of 2016, will tie into our umbrella organization - LiKEN - to work with partners to do community-based participatory action research to identify the sets of causal factors and indicators that communities and citizen scientists decide are most useful to meet their needs.
We want to work with others to build a platform that is helpful for communities to explore questions such as:
- How many jobs? Are jobs for local people, and are they secure?
- What are impacts on local and traditional livelihoods that are dependent on the land, like gardening, gathering, fishing, hunting, etc.?
- What happens to income, wealth, landownership, poverty rates?
- How much public revenue comes from extraction and how is it used?
- What are effects on crime, substance abuse, violence against women, corruption, and other social problems?
- How are schools, education, and health impacted?
- Can we measure the impacts on culture, values, way of life?
To answer such questions, we seek to compare the true cost of coal, gas, oil, solar, wind, and geothermal industries in the U.S. over 100 years (when available). Our website provides mapping and data query tools, and ways to share stories. We invite you to join us in cultivating communities of shared inquiry across many divides -- geographic, disciplinary, sectoral, and more.
Julie Maldonado (PhD, anthropology), is LiKEN’s Director of Research. She also works as a consultant for the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals working with tribal communities to facilitate the development of climate change adaptation plans, is a lecturer in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and co-organizes Rising Voices: Collaborative Science with Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Solutions.
Betsy Taylor (PhD, anthropology), is LiKEN’s Executive Director. Over the past 20 years, she has worked for community-driven development in Appalachia and South Asia. She is a research faculty member in the Appalachian Studies program at Virginia Tech, and chairs the Human Rights / Social Justice Committee of the Society for Applied Anthropology. In 2012, the Secretary of the US Department of Interior appointed her to the U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s steering committee.
Mary Hufford (PhD, folklore) has worked over the past three decades in government, academic, and local community settings. She is a senior research scientist in Virginia Tech’s Appalachian Studies Program. As folklife specialist at Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center (1982‐2002), she led projects in the New Jersey Pine Barrens and southern West Virginia coalfields. From 2002‐2012, she served on the graduate faculty of folklore/folklife at the University of Pennsylvania, directing the Center for Folklore and Ethnography (2002-2008).