Ep. 17 | Design as Commons, Oases, and a Changing Climate | Dr. Safouan Azouzi

Episode 17

Release date: August 29, 2024

Hosts: Meryum Kazmi and Harry Bastermajian

Recording location: Media Production Center, Harvard University 

Sound engineer: Jeff Valade

Audio editing: Meryum Kazmi

Audio elements (used with permission): "Ya Nakhlet Wad El Bey" (O Palm Tree of Wadi El Bey) by Amel Hamrouni and Al Bahth Al Moussiki bi Gabes 

Photo: Gabes Cascade et Rocher de Schella Tunisie

Transcription: Otter (modified for readability) 

Meryum Kazmi  00:13

Welcome back to the Harvard Islamica Podcast. This episode is part of our series on Climate Change and Muslim Societies, in which we explore the impacts of a changing climate on some of the world’s most vulnerable and predominantly Muslim regions. In this interview, we speak to a Design researcher at Harvard about the role of Design in addressing the climate crisis and its impact on oases in his native Tunisia. 

Harry Bastermajian  00:50

Welcome to the Harvard Islamic Podcast. I'm Harry Bastermajian.

Meryum Kazmi  00:54

And I'm Meryum Kazmi, we're excited to be joined today by Safouan Azouzi, Hazem Ben Gacem Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Harvard Graduate School of Design. Welcome, Safouan.

Safouan Azouzi  01:06

Hi. Thank you for inviting me.

Harry Bastermajian  01:08

It's great to have you here.

Meryum Kazmi  01:10

So to get us started, how did you come to the study of Design, Commons, and oases in Tunisia?

Safouan Azouzi  01:17

When I was younger, I had a passion for drawing and also a passion for cars. So, as a teenager, I decided to, let's say, to combine the two passions, and I wanted to do automotive design. So I did, essentially, product design. But I rapidly had ethical issues with product design, especially industrial design. And I read, for example, during my first year of studies, of Victor Papanek, he studied at the MIT, and he also taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, among others. He's the father of eco and social design. He wrote in the 70s, a book entitled, Design for the Real World. So he's essentially criticizing industrial design and graphic design, for pushing people to consume more and more. So it's a deep critique of capitalism and programmed obsolescence, stuff like that. So, and my first year of studies in university coincided with the revolution in Tunisia. So, I was much more in the streets than at school, but we did have deep discussions, it was frenzy and deep discussion, political ones, even at school, so, we had a feeling that the design we were having, like history of design is much more about a Western-centered understanding of it, because Design is born in the West and is born, is intrinsically linked with the industrial revolution and with modern capitalism. So all of this design we were taught was, in a way, accepted, but also disconnected from the reality of the country. So that's how I got to social design. So that's why I went to Italy because one of the big gurus of this design for social innovation or social design is Ezio Manzini. He taught at the Polytechnic of Milano. I went to Rome, finally, and I studied product and service design. But I focused on this social innovation part. It was deeply theorized and practiced in Italy, in a way. But I rapidly got fed up also with that social design because of these, like I said, even social design is in a way colonized, let's say, it's called the design for the other 90%. I'm coming from the other 90%, like, the idea of helper and helped. So it's like, there is a train to catch. And we are the third world, and we need to catch that train. And the West, social designers, are saviors that are coming to Africa and Southeast Asia and helping poor communities to cope-- you know, so this neo-colonial perspective, that designers aren't, don't think, in a bad way, it's just they're doing that without the real political consciousness. So it's like, we're helping the poor people without criticizing the deep roots of poverty, and geopolitical issues and all of these things. So my question during the PhD was, is there a social design from the South to the South, like with a Global South perspective? And that's how I got to reading Escobar. Escobar, he's an anthropologist, he's doing decolonial studies. And in 2020, he wrote a book, and he talks about autonomous design. So this idea of the subaltern communities of the South retaking, creatively reappropriating, design to help them cope with climate change issues, but also extractive capitalism, defending their livelihoods. So it's like, it reminds me of the concept of Martinez-Alier, talking about environmentalism of the poor. So in the Global South, we're already adapting to climate change, we're already in resilience, like talking to communities, from the Global South, about resilience in West Africa, or in the Sahara, it's in a way, it's completely disconnected from the reality of the field because they are already resilient. So the other question was also, what design in the Anthropocene? Some of the geologists are talking about a new era. We're entering in this the era of humans so “anthro,” Anthropocene. So we as humans, as a species, we became a geological force. That's the idea. So we are already modifying the ecological equilibrium of the earth. And we are accelerating this heating. So we're talking about climate change that is induced by a species, humans. We don't know if it started with the industrial revolution, or with the great acceleration after the Second World War, the economic boom, but we're considering that we are entering in this era, geological era, and Dennis Meadows and Donella Meadows from the MIT in the 70s, they did research, and they published a book called The Limits to Growth. So what they criticize is capitalism as neoclassical economics and economics as a science of growth, GDP and growth. That's it. So development and growth are two phases of the same coin. That's what Escobar says, and decolonial scholars. And so when you're talking about decolonizing design, or decolonizing economy or decolonizing anything, we're talking about this discussion around the idea of-- like there are three levels of analysis. Let's say, there is the ecological crisis, there is the economic crisis, and there is the imagination crisis. Let's say the ecological crisis is the part that we see from the iceberg. So something is wrong. It's not working. And we're going into a wall. And there is, so Dennis Meadows, I started with this name, The Limits to Growth, they did different scenarios, projections, between 1900 and 2100 and they all finish all the scenarios finish with a collapse, a global collapse. So there is this peak oil and then it collapses. And there is this biodiversity chart that goes down, and you see also demography going up. And then there's a big and the collapse. And same thing for industrial production with a collapse. So because everything is linked to fossil fuels, in our lives, modern societies, and we'd like that shooted to oil (?), and we need to just stop this drug, but there is no alternative. And this idea of Anthropocene and collapse, design. It's intrinsically linked to these processes of commodity production and pushing people to consume and it's, it's maybe not the engine of capitalism, maybe turbocharger if it was a car, so it's how can we do a different design. And in Design we talk about value creation value chain, moral values, when we design a product or an artifact or anything. We never talk about the value from an economic perspective. So that's how I got to Commons, trying to bridge the gap between design and economics. So if we need to do a different design, we need to criticize this, this idea of growth, continual growth. That's how I got interested in degrowth movements, and transition movements, and permaculture and all these, they call them, Schlosberg called them new materials movements. So these are movements in the Global South and the Global North that are anticipating the end of fossil fuels that are anticipating the disruptions of food chain supply that are anticipating this idea of collapse. And the link between all these movements is actually Commons. So my question at the end was, is there a Design for Commons or in Commons, or Design as Commons? So how can we bridge the gap between heterodox economies, Marxist economy for example, or feminist economy like Gibson Graham, they're talking about community economies, with Design and how, through this framework, how can we do differently? How can we practice a different Design? 

And then the turning point was a discussion with my grandmother actually. So I told her about permaculture as a permanent agriculture designed agriculture, the idea of something alternative to fossil fuels, fertilizers, chemicals, and monoculture of one breed of something all of like monoculture of olive oil in Tunisia, for example, or date palms or agrumes (citrus). And I also told her about Commons and the Nobel Prize of economy, Elinor Ostrom, talking about governing the Commons as a solution for local management of common pool resources. And she told me that Permaculture is only a fancy word to describe how agriculture is done in oases because I was born in an oasis, Gabes, in the southeast of Tunisia. And that I, we don't need the Nobel Prize to talk about, to tell us about Commoning and Commons, because that's how we lived. That's how the social fabric is in the oasis, or was. So that's how I got to oases. And like I said, Escobar talks about this design supporting communities from the South, the struggle for the livelihood. And Gabes, my hometown, is actually notorious for its big industry, chemical industries. So, in Tunisia, the state is extracting phosphate from another oasis in the mountains southwest of Tunisia in Gafsa and taking it to Gabes, in the coast, Southeast, to transform it into chemical fertilizers for industrial agronomy, like agri-food industry, around the world, in Europe, particularly. So the factory, the chemical group, is pumping all the groundwater, polluting the air, and polluting the sea, with tons, like 18 tons of Phosphogypsum every day go into the sea. So the locals are struggling to maintain the oasis. And it's no longer what it was. Because there is no longer water. So there is no longer water Commoning. And it's not only about the water because we have practices that are intangible that I cannot describe like I can only describe, not show. So I got interested in these practices and how Design could-- we always talk about innovation, social innovation, development, this idea, this mantra of innovation, maybe adapting to climate change issues, but also resisting extractive capitalism. It is about remembering old practices, indigenous practices, of Commoning and thinking through that lens. It's not about having a romantic idea of the past or wanting to want to go back. It's not about that. It's about combining new high-tech solutions with low-tech, ancient indigenous practices and solutions. That so that's how I got to all of this.

Harry Bastermajian  18:44

To oases. I have a few questions in mind actually, I want to ask a little bit about this idea of the Commons. I mean, personally, I mean, I'm familiar with the concept of the tragedy of the commons. And we know this for Boston, right? You know, this idea that the Boston Common was used as this dumping ground for everything in early colonial Boston. So maybe, if you could, if you could expand on that a little bit more in the context of your research. And I'm also curious how perhaps, that the, you know, you touched on the idea of a value, right and assigning value to things and we're, we often have a very capitalist structure to this. And how does your work on sort of design and, in particular, oases and thinking about the Commons and how does that perhaps inform whether we're talking about Tunisians or Europeans or what have you, it doesn't matter to how does it inform people to think differently about the value we assign to things like the value we can see in an oasis or groundwater or the air we breathe, or what have you?

Meryum Kazmi  20:07

Yeah. Do you mind also just defining Commons for us? So we understand what you mean.

Safouan Azouzi  20:11

So Commons are usually defined as shared resources that are vulnerable to social dilemmas. That's the Hardin thing. So the theme of Commons, they are understood as common pool resources, from an Ostromian point of view. So they are shared resources, natural resources, or traditional commons that are often subject to overuse or overconsumption. That's how we get to what Hardin describes as the Tragedy of the Commons. So environmental degradation to be expected when many people use this scarce resource income. And that's how we talk about oases because they are traditional Commons. And I say, I described them as Commons in crisis. Because it's no longer-- there is no longer Commons in there, like we can no longer talk about Commons. So what we are living in in the oasis is the Tragedy of the Commons actually. And, but from concrete observations, Ostrom, she developed an analytical framework, and also institutional work and describes like there are eight necessary design principles to manage the Common pool resources. But this is the first definition. We'll also talk about new Commons. So when we talk about open source, Creative Commons licenses as when we talk about internet-- but the definition I'm interested in is a third one. It's a third conception of Commons. That is activist slash political is with a Commons not as a service, shared resources only but as relational qualities as a, yeah, something as a relation. So it focuses much more on Commoning as a process. And here, scholars that are interested in this understanding of Commons we're talking about autonomist Marxists like Antonio Negri, or feminist economists like Gibson and Graham De Angelis. These are talking about Commons as an alternative to capitalism. So we're talking about a post-capitalist, capitalist economy, through the Commons. So it's a principle for social, ecological, economic and political change. It's not there, we're not there yet, but I think we need this new narrative, economy from this narrative. The communist narrative didn't work. The old state-managed economy didn't work. Capitalism isn't working. It works, but it's a suicide. It's like-- so we need a new narrative. And Commons could be like, could fill these spaces that neither the state nor the markets are solving. And you told me about the value, right?

Harry Bastermajian  24:10

Yeah, and just so to take that, to connect this idea, right, of post, sort of post-capitalist Commons, and I think it's interesting that you say that it's something that is relational, right? And so when I think of things being relational, I also think of, I mean, there has to be some sort of value system there. And so maybe if you could touch on how those connect?

Safouan Azouzi  24:45

So when we think about economy, now, we think about a salary in a market, where with a neoliberal understanding of economy, the state is always getting back. So it's like leaving the market, managing itself. But we saw it in 2008, that we needed the state like, all the state rushed to save banks. So like I said, we need a new narrative. And in a globalized world, money is-- so we need to discuss money, practically. And we have these so there are many trials. But what Gibson Graham, I keep stating these two feminists economists, because they describe the economy as an iceberg. And what we see from the iceberg is the capitalist understanding of economy,

Harry Bastermajian  26:06

and very-- just the top that sticks out of the water,

Safouan Azouzi  26:09

And all of the others are Commoning practices. So when you help your neighbor, it's an economy, but can we value like can we give it the value with money? When you do when you do zakat in the mosque or when you help someone or I don't know if-- the work of women at home, co-ops, associations, all of these are economy. So it's about, I think it's about scaling down and re-localizing economy and value is in this. So barter is an economy. But can we do only barter? No. But how can we rethink all of this? And the first step is, like I said, scaling down and relocalize economy and thinking, what Manzini calls cosmopolitan localism. So it's the idea of interconnected communities that are mutually supporting each other. So I think it's interesting because in my case, when you think about oases, usually there is this idea of an oasis as a Garden of Eden. You know, this colonial idea, it's a colonial-- like seeing the oasis as an island of greenery in the middle of nowhere is a colonial understanding of it, because it's a place of struggle, you need to continually work the land and maintain moisture. What locals, they call moisture, they call it richness. The local dialect, the local word, actual word for moisture, is richness in the south of Tunisia and in the oasis. So it's all about this, maintaining this oasis effect, this microclimate, but it's a struggle, it's not something you go in there, it's a tourist point of view of-- or old colonial postcards, French postcards, put oasis as a place to relax. And also, like I said, this understanding of the economy of the oasis as an autarcique (self-sufficient), autonomous place. But in a way, this is an artificial, 100% manmade built environment. It's, it's there for millennia. In North Africa, we're talking about 2000 to 3000 years old. In the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, we're talking even about 4000 to 5000 years. But so, the economy of this hyper-productive node in the network, we need to understand this the oasis as a hyper-productive place. And trade is an essential part of it. So when we see them, trans-Saharan routes, all the intersections are oases. And we need palm trees, but we also need water. But if we have palm trees and water, it doesn't make an oasis. We need the trade part, like I said, this idea of connection with other places. So I think it's interesting from a design point of view to think about it. We're talking about Internet of Things. We're talking about this internet, digital platforms and apps and all of these and that's essentially what an oasis is. It's a Common on like-- we're talking Commons are a heritage in these places, so locals know about it, or remember it. And this idea of connection, when the French came, they made clear borders, like closed borders, and they focused on each oasis as an island. And they introduced individual property and they dispossessed the local communities from water management. So we had before, we had a water chief that is elected and he distributes water on an hourly rate between farmers and water is something for free, but it's a scarce resource. So it's managed wisely. And the oasis is maintained in a closed, let's say frontier of greenery, because of the scarcity of the resource. But when the French started pumping the water from the deep ground water, we had this abundance of the resource. But what they did is they replaced the water chief with another figure appointed by the state that is distributing the water between the farmers. After independence, the Tunisian state continued the same processes of dispossession and put this GDA (Groupement de Developpement Agricole / Agricultural Development Group). So these are groups of agricultural development. They are appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture. And these are- they represent the state in a way, but they're also from the community. So you have this new figure that is not water chief, but in a way is distributing the GDA is distributing the water. But farmers are paying now for water. And the GDA is struggling to pay bills, electric, because they're pumping. So we had these from the 70s, these illicit extensions in Nefzaoua region in the southwest. This is the main date-producing region in Tunisia, and Tunisia is always between the five first date exporters in the world. And so the state is exporting illicit dates because it's not recognizing these illicit extensions. These illicit extensions are made. So there is a land-grabbing processes in there. These land-grabbing processes are happening over tribal land, that is a Common between the communities in there. So in Arabic Commons is al-musha'. It's not the waqf. Waqf is charity, charitable endowments in English and under Islamic law. Waqf can be a Common, but not necessarily, but al-musha' is the Common and we say, locals say, ard 'ala-l-shiya', so it's a land a Common land. So what's happening is, let's say you are from this family and you have this land, 'ala-l-shiya', like I said, and someone like a big investor comes to you and says, I want to buy this land. He cannot, because it's the family land. But let's say you decide to take a part of it. It's your right and to write it on his name and he can go in there and plant palm trees, monoculture of deglet noor, this variety of dates, and this is the process that is happening in there. So you have locals that are doing little extensions of one to five hectares. But you have big investors from outside the region that are coming in there and investing a lot in these extensions. So each one has his own well and is pumping his own water. Some are pumping it with gas oil motors, engines, others are using the wealthy one are using solar panels to pump water at noon. So 45% of the water is actually evaporating. And so these processes, I think it's an extreme response to the over-centralized state policy. And we're talking about the imminent collapse of Tunisian oases. But it's not only in Tunisia, it's the same in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, also in Arabian Peninsula. So not talking about 2050, 2060. We're talking about 2030s. It's now. it's happening now already. And I met researchers from the Institute for our regions, in Tunisia, and it's scary, like the water, the groundwater is going down by three to five meters each year. These extensions are, when you see it from satellite, satellite, you see that? It's becoming one big oasis, like one big expanse of greenery. And you can think, oh, we're greening the desert, so that's a good thing. It's not, because what's happening is, there is, we passed from water Commoning before colonization to now a water contest, like a race for water. But this happened gradually. Like I said, it happened, I think, with modernization. It's the end of the Ottoman Empire, but it's not the Ottoman Empire in Tunisia already. It's the Husayni dynasty. So it's a saliane, they call it-- it's a state that is paying a tax to the Ottoman Empire, but it's somehow autonomous. So we had in 1864, a revolt of the inland populations against the central state in Tunis. But the French were already very-- in a way, it wasn't a French protectorate yet, but yes, so these started from the, yeah, 19th century, second half of the 19th century, I think. And like I said, introducing this, the idea of individual property, over the resource of because we had private lands, private lands are in there, I know that's my land, that's your block, that's my block. But water is the Common, and water goes from a neighbor to a neighbor. So that's what maintains the social fabric. And that's how we have other Commoning practices. So if I'm doing my like, if I'm building my fence, all my neighbors would come and build it with me. If we're gathering peaches, we will do al-raghata, that's the name of it. And we would gather and go to my field altogether and gather the peaches. But if I'm planting tomatoes, my neighbor wouldn't plant tomatoes, he would put onions because we will exchange the product. So that's how it was. That's how elders remember. And in Gabes, for example, we have like three different oases. And Gabes is from Landscape Architecture point of view, is perpendicular to the sea. It's the only coastal city of Tunisia that is perpendicular to the sea, because it's following the wadi path. So, we have three different oases that are linked together by this stream of water. And once a year before the monsoon, they would gather, altogether, the three communities and start from downstream, from the third coastal oasis, follow the stream and clean the bed of the river. And the second community would host the first one and then they go together to the third one until they arrive to the water source, ra's al-wad, so the head of the river, let's say, and there they would rebuild the falling dam, they call it the falling dam, it has to fall, because when the monsoon comes, it will-- the water, we have flash floods. And when the water is too much, it can-- when the dam is done with rocks, or if the dam doesn't fall, let's say, the water would overflow the oasis. So it has to fall and the water goes into another stream. It's divided. They divide the river into two streams. So this folklore like this, this whole festival, it's a festival around this reconstruction, rebuilding of the dam that was maintaining the social fabric. That's Commoning. That's an economy. That's what the values I'm talking about-- So should we turn back to that? No. Was it perfect? No, we had slavery for a long time period. And it was one of the main income resources for these oases. But if we think about now, irregular migration to Europe, or to North Africa, it's all happening through these old routes, with the old trans-Saharan routes that are between oases, so if we need to think from a designerly point of view about the future of oases, because that's what I'm talking about-- so usually, neoclassical economics, they reduce design to the mere production of commodities. That's it. But it's much more about expanding futures and thinking about future scenarios. And this is, if we think about climate change, we need to adapt. We need to rethink, replan, redesign the landscape in there.

Meryum Kazmi  43:47

Can you talk a bit more about climate change and how it's affecting oases and, I think I kind of understand, but can you just clarify what's causing the scarcity of water?

Safouan Azouzi  43:59

Okay. So there is a big-- how do you say, nappe phreatique? Well, is it groundwater- how do you call the?

Harry Bastermajian  44:13

The aquifer?

Safouan Azouzi  44:14

The aquifer, yeah. Okay. So we have two big aquifers in the Sahara, like in the Western Sahara part like North Africa, if we talk about Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, we have one big aquifer, I think it's called continental and doclet intercalaire or something like this, Intercalary Continental aquifer, something like this. This is fossil water, like this is prehistoric water from when the Sahara was green. And there are conventions between the three countries that they wouldn't be pumping the water from there, but no one is respecting that. Algeria is doing big statal initiatives in there in the southeast, on the border with Tunisia. So that explains how why Tunisia is the central state is closing an eye to the, on the illicit extensions we're having in there, in Tunisia. And that's a big amount of water, so locals, when you go and talk to them, they would say, we have plenty of water. Like, why are you stressed out, like, we can go in deep and go like 2000 meters and get that deep, hot groundwater. But the thing is, the other aquifer is, like I said, going down by three to five meters everywhere, every year. So imagine that's a bottle of water or glass of water, and everyone is putting a straw, and we're all pumping. That's it. So what we need to change is this imaginary of growth and development. So because what's happening with modernization is that locals forgot about Commons. And they, for example, now we want houses with balconies, we want air conditioning, we want-- we're using bricks instead of mud bricks like before or other materials. Locals were semi nomads. So there is this idea of ephemeral. I don't know, in my, in Gabes, for example, they would stay six months, six months in the in the Sahara, this the old village, and they would live on the fields on their plots, the six other months on ephemeral barracks, houses. So that's also another critique of the Eurocentric understanding of the responding to climate change issues. Because in French, we talk for example about development durable, it needs to be durable. Why, like why sustainable should be durable? Maybe it should be ephemeral. And we could have less impact on nature. So in Nefzaoua, they would go six months into the desert with their dromedaries and other animals, because there is grass in the desert, in some places. Not grass, like in here, but plants, let's say. And six months, they would go to the oasis because it's summer, it's hot. And so this, all this changed. We're not turning back to these, but what I'm saying is that they had we now have ill-suited houses, we need to consume more electricity, we need more water, we need, we need to rethink all of this, how we are building the our houses, our settlements, how we are doing agriculture. So before we had these three layers, when we talk about agriculture and the oasis, we have these three layers of greenery. We have the palm tree that is shading, the fruit trees that are shading vegetables, and that's how we have this microclimate called the oasis effect. It's the evapotranspiration of plants and this moisture, the richness, that is maintained in that semi-tropical weather or climate in the oasis. But if we do mono culture, we don't have the actual three layers. We have only the palm trees that are much more vulnerable to diseases that are also they need more water because there is no moisture and someone told me in Nefzaoua I was doing ethnography in there, we are no longer farmers, we are date producers. And he was saying that sarcastically because he said we are now working for big industries up north, because the big exporters are not in the South, in the northeast of Tunisia, in the Cape Bon region. So, yeah, we're exporting our dates, we're exporting our water in the form of dates, I think, and in also olives, olive oil. Same thing for the whole agricultural system in in Tunisia. So if we, if we need to adapt to climate change, we need to rethink all of these issues. So how we pump the water, how we manage the water, how we do agriculture, how we-- what do we want to focus on, how we build our houses? And so now there is a focus on the this idea of "save the oasis." So it depicts the oasis as a vulnerable, fragile system that needs to be saved. So it's like the helper and the helped, like in designs and social design. And as if it's overlooking the social and economical part as always, and focusing only on the agricultural part, and only on the environmental aspect of it. And now, for so for 40 years, the state said, We need monoculture fertilizers, chemicals, insecticides, all of this. And then now it's saying, Oh, it's an unsustainable way of doing and we need to save the heritage. And now because there is this tourism on heritage things-- and so I think we should go beyond the classical traditional understanding of heritage conservation when we talk about oasis. So there is a lot of money from the FAO, from the World Bank initiatives in there. But it's always on this traditional versus modern, state initiative, illicit individual initiative, talking about these extensions. I don't know, there is this, always this division. There is no longer traditional oases as we knew them before. Are we talking about traditional when we talk about the three layers? Or are we talking about the Commoning of the water management? So this idea of traditional versus modern isn't working. We need to go beyond that. And I like Vincent Battesti, he is French, he is a geographer, and he defines oasis as an eco-social landscape. And so, usually, when we talk about traditional versus modern, we talk about polyculture and monoculture or the oasis is the one that is traditional with the three layers and the palm grove is the monoculture extensions that were of the ability nor (Fr) variety. But what Battisti (?) says is an oasis is both the settlement and the greenery. So, if we see it like that, the palm grove is the green part, the city or settlement or village or because now we have cities, we have no longer small settlements, but the city combined with the palm grove, creates the oasis. So even if we have monocultural expenses, extensions, if we consider these with the city with this actual settlement, we can talk about an oasis, and that could help us to rethink the planning of the whole area of Nefzaoua, the Nafzaoua region, because we're talking about 58,000 hectares of greenery. It's seems infinite. So when you see all these localities that were physically disconnected, like you had points of greenery in the desert, and now they're all merged in one green expanse so that could be one big oasis. That's what the designer now is thinking of, like, how can we do that? And what I started doing is going in there and meeting locals and trying to create a sharing space between activists, farmers, researchers, and the municipalities to create this dialogue because, like I said, designers go in there for two months, or for one week, or something like this, and they speculate for the others after. So it's much more for me, the decolonial part of my process is, I shouldn't speculate for the others. So it's about participatory design. And what we did is a future workshop and where elders and youngsters, women, men, activists, and state officials, farmers, and artisans could be there and speculate for themselves. So, like Escobar says, reappropriate Design, and this Commoning process. But what's new is, okay, we shouldn't think through a capitalist lens. Let's think from a community level, community economy, Commoning lens. Let's say if water, like it is a common, like before, but we have climate change issues, we have salinization, we have diseases, we have all of these, but what do we need to do? And we have these scenarios, they talked about an ethical charter between locals based on mutual trust, pooling land to solve heritage division problems, because they have these issues, in the oasis. So when the grandfather dies, the land that is less than one hectare or 300 meters is divided between all his sons and daughters, and then everyone gets a palm tree. That's like-- we need and the land is abundant then or we have this anarchic urbanization. So if someone prefers building something in there using that land, because it's not suited, no longer suited for agriculture. And that's why they do the extensions. So they want to maintain the land, but it's a family land now and then I need my own extension. So how can we rethink all of these dynamics through the Commoning lens? Like before, but with new tools? So they propose smart cards for pumping the water, they talked about Internet of Things smart oasis, with sensors detecting-- because they know about climate change. They know much more about climate change than we do they live it. So how can we support locals? How can we-- cannot do Adaptation and solve like the-- we cannot confront climate change issues only without confronting the real issues of water and land dispossession. So engage us they are dispossessed by the state, because the chemical industry is a state owned company. And that is pumping the water So they're actually like practically dispossessed by their water, like this same thing in Gafsa in southwest, in the mountains in the southwest, but you will also have enough as our region. This race for water and water dispossession, like I said, by the state always that is putting in place these GDA, these local cooperatives that are not working like it's not working, they're struggling to pay bills. And in, in the read region, and the other part, always in the southwest, you have tourism. So heritage, conservation, tourism, this, this idea of going to relax in the oasis and consuming all the word. So we need to confront economic issues, social issues. And, like, alongside environmental issues, if we only focus on environmental issues, we're not solving the problem, we're only closing and I like, like the whole discussion about mitigation and adaptation to climate change. So the countries of the Global South are the one that are affected the most by climate change. If we talk about West Africa, Southeast Asia, North Africa. And these countries are already living collapse. I remember this discussion with the disease network. It's a design network of social design and a Brazilian designer. She said to Europeans, there wasn't like a bunch of European designers, and all it was all about collapse. And being afraid of this perspective, and she said, we are already living collapse in the Global South, why are you so afraid? Like, we are already resilient, we're already adapting. So maybe there are lessons to be taken from the Global South. Because that's what will happen to the global north countries, what's happening now we're seeing it more and more, but the they are less affected. And that's why all the money goes to geoengineering solutions of cloud harvesting crystals in the air to, I don't know what, CO2 capitation, that are technologies that will be ready in 2060, 2070, 2080. It's already done, like it's already-- So the Global South needs to adapt. And we need to focus much more on this adaptation process. And when we have authoritarian countries, states, it's much more difficult to deal with that.

Meryum Kazmi  1:03:11

So you had a project in Chenini? Yeah. Is that something that you can get to see what you're talking about just now. So can you give some examples of how they're trying to adapt?

Safouan Azouzi  1:03:24

Oh, it's-- so like I said, now we're talking about the collapse of oasis, like even the adaptation is on an individual level. So we need to I think we need to have a bottom-up process. So where I started was-- started during my PhD is going around these oases. So I went to Chenini in my hometown, Gabes, is one of the three oasis that I talked about. And they're protecting indigenous seeds, ancient seeds, talking about food sovereignty issues. They're trying to, on an individual level, each one to maintain that land, but it's already lost in a way against the state company, producing fertilizers. In Gafsa, it's the same case with the company of phosphates in this. So now, the state is recognizing this and is sounding the alarm, but we're not seeing any practical thing on the field. So, if the question is what are next steps, I think these participatory processes should be implemented on a bigger scale. And we should have this bottom-up process to have policy guidelines that are starting and that are being done on a local level by introducing the locals into the design process. So, maybe, I don't know, maybe an observatory of oases where the state, the activist farmers, the researchers, planners would meet and have these reflections. And they would work on three levels, I think, on the protection, on the management, and on the planning. And you cannot do that only from a state perspective, you cannot do that by focusing on an extractive economy, exporting economy, you cannot do that without the activists or without the local population, and without, I think, thinking through these two lenses of the connectivity of oasis, and of the Commons and Commoning practices.

Meryum Kazmi  1:06:31

I guess just as a follow up is there I know people are talking about like permaculture and things like this. So is there on any large scale an attempt to go back to older practices or older technologies at this point

Safouan Azouzi  1:06:49

You mean Tunisia? So there are many voices criticizing the agro-industry model in Tunisia, and they're talking about food sovereignty. And I joined them in this because, we can produce our own food, but it's not only-- food sovereignty is not only about having your own food, being autonomous, it's to be sovereign. So it's to have your own independence. There is no real independence, and in this model, we are perpetuating the same exporting models that were put in place by the French colonizers. These hyper-specialized agriculture on dates in the south, olive oil in the center, agrumes (citrus) in the northeast, grain in the northwest so this needs to be questioned. I feel like there is laws in Tunisia before and after independence, especially after independence. And from the ‘80s when there was this neoliberal policies put in place, they are favoring big producers, big landowners. And I think we need to go back to family scale agriculture. So what's being done is, for example, there is this Tunisian association of permaculture that is trying to create these consumer producers short-- localize these productions and consumption networks. Having these, applying the permaculture principles, but we have also others having other initiatives, like I said, maintaining the seeds or trying different solutions, but it's not a system, it's not yet a systemic thing, what is becoming in a way systemic is this new rural social contract. So, there is all these movements that seem to be social, on land issues or on oil production, for example, in Tataouine, in El-Kamour in Tunisia, there was this movement, called Winou al-petrol, Where is the Petrol? Because we need to know, we are producing petrol, not that much, but we don't know anything about it as citizens. So, where is the petrol? Where does the money go? Phosphate, why does Gafsa not profit from the entries (revenue) so the money that-- so I think these movements are there is a beginning of a political ecology in Tunisia. So, they seem to be only social, but there is the environmental part that is essentially in there, because they're fighting for their livelihoods. So these are now in the-- how can we say, they're not planned, they're movements that are

Meryum Kazmi  1:10:54

Grassroots?

Safouan Azouzi  1:10:55

Grassroots movements, yeah, organic. This is not systemic yet. But that's, that's what we need to do. So that's where, where maybe the idea of design supporting these movements comes along.

Harry Bastermajian  1:11:14

Well, this has been great. Thank you so much, Stefan for sharing your research.

Meryum Kazmi  1:11:28

Thank you so much, Safouan. This is really interesting.

Safouan Azouzi  1:11:30

Thank you for the invitation.