CoffeeFutures · Coffee Futures at Risk from Climate Change: game-based group modelling and Hybrid Intelligence analysis for Knowledge Coproduction on Intangible Cultural Heritage of food systems

The objective of the CoffeeFutures project is to develop a game-based tool for knowledge coproduction on social-ecological systems, blending group modelling and participatory data collection with AI analysis. It will focus this Hybrid Intelligence on the problematic task of defining and assessing Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of coffee cultures, which face uncertain futures due to climate change, exacerbated by social, political and economic drivers. Intergovernmental biodiversity and climate change agencies list cultural ecosystem services provided by food, celebrating traditions, customs and practices, yet acknowledge a lack of adequate assessment methods. Furthermore, ICH of coffee is not all positive; its production is rife with conflict and ambivalent heritages, such as unsustainable agroforestry practices, postcolonial legacies of labour exploitation, and gender discrimination. CoffeeFutures will extend proven stakeholder engagement potentials of games with digital data collection and advanced computational analysis to unpack this complexity, co-create knowledge, and foster awareness of shared values, vulnerabilities and risks from climate change. Field studies in Italy and India will deploy the game to gather diverse participants' perspectives on coffee cultures, creating a knowledge system that can be queried to arrive at new understandings. CoffeeFutures will be enacted over 24 months at UniBZ Faculty of Design and Art with AI training at Faculty of Engineering, and ETH Zurich Department of Environmental Systems Science, building on the applicant's extensive experience facilitating game-based group modelling workshops and published works on participatory sense-making for social-ecological systems research. This work will give voice to coffee producers in a pluralistic discourse with consumers, acknowledging the challenges they face while promoting fair trade and specialty coffee and contributing to climate science and ICH research communities.