Plugging into the unplugged

RRU prof nets huge grant to push the boundaries of research

A Royal Roads University professor is plugging into the unplugged world of people living “off the grid” after receiving a $500,000 research grant.

RRU school of communications and culture professor Phillip Vannini, a sociologist known for wading into the esoteric and obscure, will be guiding a five-year project that seeks to tell the stories of people in B.C. who live away from the niceties of modern society, who are in most ways self-sufficient .

“Living off the grid isn’t just about generating your own energy or putting up a windmill,” Vannini says. “It’s about a change of lifestyle, about taking control of your life. You feel in charge of your own destiny.”

The grant is part of a Canada Research Chair in innovative learning and public ethnography, the second research chair for RRU. The goal for Vannini is to show that scholarly work can be written and packaged in ways user-friendly and interesting to the public, particularly using the Internet and video mediums.

Vannini admits the philosophy of the project is a poke in the eye to “ivory tower” academics that produce work wrapped technical jargon. It’s meant to transform how scholarship is produced and packaged for the public, he says.

“What we do as academics is so boring and obscure,” Vannini says. “What we are doing (with this project) is a blend between academic writing and pop culture. The key to this chair is taking peoples’ stories and sharing them with the public, instead of writing an obscure paper that no one reads.”

Ultimately, Vannini wants to create a social networking website that allows his students to share stories they collect, be they written, video, audio or multimedia. This coming from a guy without a cellphone, who has little use for Facebook and who moved to Gabriola Island because “Ladysmith was getting too big.”

“I realize the irony of it,” Vannini says. “But the students have skills and knowledge that I don’t have. The network will be shaped by more than me. I’m not the top dog, no one is really.”

The $500,000 grant is large for the world of social sciences, and will be used to hire students, to fund fieldwork and the project website. Vannini expects his research will dovetail with the university’s new academic building and its media resources, due to open next spring. The 36-year-old is one of the youngest, if not the youngest scholars to be granted a Canada Research Chair.

Vannini formed the idea of talking to off-the-grid people after spending two years studying coastal island communities that tick by the beat of the ferry schedule. This new round of fieldwork will again focus on B.C., but will also seek people across Canada.

Off-the-grid types tend to be motivated by living simply and sustainably, Vannini says, although some are survivalists who feel threatened by government.

Finding people that aren’t plugged into the Internet or phones and who live away from roads will be hard enough. Having them tell their stories, knowing they will be made public, is the real challenge.

“Some will talk and some won’t. Some have definitely run away (from society),” Vannini says. “Going to places with no roads, off the highway networks will be a challenge for sure. If someone is off the entire grid, it will be interesting to get a hold of them.

“It’s a fun challenge. It’s tracking people down to get a good story.”