When on September 7, we discussed how to do research with no external funding, then this is a seminar invite to those who plan to join the funding race (again). We will discuss the funders’ cycles, share some ideas and discuss how we can best support each other. Pille will lead a discussion with a focus on the upcoming application season and on building resilient strategies for writing research applications. We will also be joined by Daniel Holmberg from the Grants Office, who will point out some resources available on Canvas for everyone planning to apply for funding.

Everyone is welcome, even if plans for applying for funding are yet very vague and abstract!

The seminar is hybrid: K3 studio or https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/62522949096

Welcome to a K3 seminar with Sara Gottschalk, PhD student in Interaction Design, K3/Linnaeus University.

The title of the talk is: Designing Strong Sustainable Living Environments – Participation in Collaborative Processes for Sustainable Urban Transitions.

This will be Sara’s 50 percent PhD seminar. Cindy Kohtala, Professor in Design for Sustainability, Umeå University, will take on the role as discussant.

The seminar will take place on Thursday, June 23 at 10.15-12.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. Please either come to K3 Studio (NiC 0541) or join online here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64675687916 (this is the zoom link to all K3 seminars this term).

Please notice the weekday!

Below is some information about the seminar. If you would like to have the manuscript for the seminar, please mail Sara (sara.gottschalk@lnu.se).

Short presentation and focus of the seminar:

My PhD project takes place within on-going societal and urban transitions for sustainability. Through engagement with local projects aiming for sustainable transition, my research is concerned with how discourses of sustainability become manifested through practice, as well as how to intervene in urban planning processes through design, and how to facilitate for strong(er) discourses of sustainability. The research is conducted on the level of the neighbourhood by engaging as an embedded design researcher in collaborative projects located in Malmö.

In this seminar I wish to discuss some specific challenges within my research:

The challenge of transdisciplinarity: Research for strong sustainability advocates holistic and transdisciplinary approaches. However, transdisciplinarity implies both breadth and depth, which becomes challenging, especially in relation to time-constraints: Rapid societal processes do not “wait” for transdisciplinary design research. Another challenging aspect of transdisciplinary research is how to present findings in a non-reductive way. A possibility is to use a ‘thick’ descriptions approach, but a challenge here is to not get lost in too many details. How to find that balance?

The challenge of embedded research: As embedded researcher having the role of being both insider (doing research through collaborative design) and outsider (research about a cases) at the same time, the challenging question is how to respectfully represent my collaborators in my writings and at the same time critically examine and write about the collaboration.

Any constructive input or experience on how to deal with transdisciplinarity in embedded research, or good examples, is more than welcome!

About my research:

My research departures in the dilemma of sustainability as a concept without a clear definition, which makes it open to diverse and contradictory discourses and interpretations. To discuss such differences, I distinguish discourses by categorizing them as weak or strong understandings of sustainability. Weak discourses of sustainability do not challenge the economic growth paradigm nor Western ontologies and epistemologies. Conversely, strong discourses of sustainability challenge these paradigms and call for socio-environmentally just transitions of society and caring culture-nature relationships. Swedish sustainable urban planning is well recognized internationally and often used as an example of best-practice. However, Swedish sustainable urban planning heavily relies on assumptions deeply rooted in the ideals of modernity, industrialisation, and economic growth as the prerequisite for sustainable transition, a discourse often referred to as environmental modernization. Environmental modernization is heavily criticised within strong discourses of sustainability as oppressive and a ‘dead end’ for a sustainable future. This dominating paradigm of sustainability in Swedish urban planning and how to intervene through strong ideas of sustainability in this context, constitutes the main challenge for this research.

Through three projects, I investigate the Swedish discourse of sustainability in urban planning and explore possibilities for strong(er) practices of sustainability, from the perspective of the planners and the residents of specific places, as well as from a design researcher perspective. The research is conducted at two residential sites in Malmö, Sege Park and the tenant-own association Ida. Both sites work as examples of contemporary process of sustainable urban transition. A fourth study is planned for spring 2023.

This research program is part of the research environments of K3 (School of Art, Culture and Communication) at Malmö University, and Design + Change at Linnaeus University (Lnu), supported by The Bridge

Welcome to a K3 seminar with Marika Hedemyr, PhD student in Interaction Design, K3.

The title of the talk is: Mixed Reality in Public Space: Expanding Composition Practices Across Choreography and Interaction Design.

This will be Marika’s 90 percent PhD seminar. Jeffrey Bardzell, Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State, will take on the role as discussant.

The seminar will take place on Tuesday, June 7 at 15.15-17.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. Please either come to K3 Studio (NiC 0541) or join online here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64675687916 (this is the zoom link to all K3 seminars this term).

Please notice the weekday and time!

Below is an abstract for the seminar. If you would like to have the manuscript for the seminar, please mail Marika (marika.hedemyr@mau.se)

Artistic augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) experiences are discussed from a wealth of scholarly fields, but comprehensive accounts of the actual design practices are few in interaction design. To open up the design practices, this PhD thesis draws together choreography and interaction design, with special attention to embodied interaction, digital technologies as site-specific performance spaces, and how the craft of composition shapes, situates and orients performative experiences. It entails research through practice, and creation of three public site-specific mixed reality walks, realised with stakeholders in art and cultural heritage sector. The thesis argues that a choreographic approach provides concrete design practices for crafting relations of time, space, bodies and imagination in AR/MR experiences, and demonstrates how technology is imbued in site-specific power relations, ethics and aesthetics. In conclusion, this thesis expands embodied interaction and its relevance in public spaces. It also contributes with strategies for how AR/MR  technologies can re-activate public spaces and their political significance in society, through critical, embodied and artistic experiences.

Sara Gottschalk’s K3 seminar, originally scheduled for June 13 is moved to Thursday, June 23, 10.15-12.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. More info to follow.

Welcome to a K3 seminar with Berndt Clavier, Senior Lecturer in English Studies, K3, and Jakob Dittmar, Senior Lecturer and Docent in Media and Communication Studies, K3

The title of the talk is: Defining “Graphic Novels” with the Help of “the Novel” – Reflecting on Emerging and Established Literary Forms.

The seminar will take place on Wednesday, June 1 at 10.15-12.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. Please either come to NiB0501 or join online here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64675687916 (this is the zoom link to all K3 seminars this term).

Below is an abstract for the seminar.

Narrative qualities of comics have become better understood with texts and images interweaving while offering different perspectives or focalisations in each image and different strands of texts. While different genres and styles are recognised in comics, a more differentiated approach to the distinct qualities of individual genres in graphic literature is needed if we want to understand and discuss these in their distinct graphic and narrative qualities that constitute their literary qualities, just like we discuss poetry and prose literature, film, and theatre – and their interrelations. The seminar looks into the use of the term graphic novel, into attempts to define it in different cultural contexts. The dominating approaches from Franco-Belgian as well as Ango-American comics research are discussed to develop a more substantial definition. For as soon as we look into comics narratives, they can be diversified into all kinds of things, but what we need to get into the discussion are aspects of graphiation and voice, as well as all the established criteria for understanding literature better.

Per Möller’s seminar on Cultural City/City Culture, scheduled for May 25, is moved to the fall.

Welcome to a K3 seminar with Juliana Restrepo Giraldo, PhD student in Interaction Design, K3/LInneus University.

The title of the talk is: Stories and Design Recipes to Wonder, Care and Prioritize Relational Homemaking.

This will be Juliana’s 50 percent PhD seminar. Martin Avila, Professor of Design, Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design, will take on the role as discussant.

The seminar will take place on Thursday, May 19 at 14.15-16.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. Please either come to K3 Studio (NiC 0541) or join online here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64675687916 (this is the zoom link to all K3 seminars this term).

Please notice the weekday and time!

Below is an abstract for the seminar. If you would like to have the manuscript for the seminar, please mail Juliana (juliana.restrepo-giraldo@mau.se).

The K3 seminar is held in collaboration with the Collaborative Future-Making Platform.

This is a PhD research project in Design, Sustainability and Life at home, rooted in theories and ethics of Care and inspired by feminist post-humanist discourses. The overall focus is to explore the cosmology of Buen Vivir (Living Well) as a relevant approach for designers researching and working with relationality in the context of sustainable homemaking.

Buen Vivir means living in harmony with all beings and nature through relationality and reciprocity. It is a philosophy rooted in the cosmovision (worldview) of indigenous communities in the Andean territory in South America, which understands humans as never owners of the earth and its resources, only stewards. Buen Vivir is about living well, not better, by being present, reciprocal and living in harmony with oneself, the community, other beings and nature within the unique living environment.

In the work, relationality is explored by collecting stories from women in Colombia and Sweden and developing design tools and recipes as mediums to facilitate and nurture dialogue and mutual learning.  Homemaking stories are built on situated knowledge, practices and interactions; on familiar and unfamiliar dilemmas that can support wondering, re-imagining and re-orientating presents and futures.

Homemaking stories represent interdependences and relations between homes, humans, non-humans and nature. They are essential to explore the situatedness of relational transitions and transformations at home.

The work builds on a programmatic design research approach formed by various design experiments conducted through autoethnography and participation. Those experiments grow into new stories, companion concepts and emergent themes that shape and direct the continuity of the process. In this work, vulnerability is brought forward  (the researchers and others) as a value that enables trust, respect and participation.

Welcome to a K3 seminar with Åsa Harvard Maare, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication, K3.

The title of the talk is: Graphic Guides – For Research Dissemination.

The seminar will take place on Wednesday, May 11 at 10.15-12.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. Please either come to NiB 0501 or join online here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64675687916 (this is the zoom link to all K3 seminars this term).

In this seminar Åsa will present the genre “graphic guides” and discuss its potential for us at K3

(1) as a format for developing teaching materials: introductory graphic overviews facilitating reading of academic texts by providing a graphic/spatial overview of main ideas.

(2) a potential dissemination format for research at K3

Welcome to a K3 seminar with Therese Hellberg, PhD student in Media and Communication Studies, K3.

The title of the talk is: Vanära, fattigdom och dubbelarbete: Om kvinnors platser och värde i folkhemmet i romaner och kåserier 1940–1955.

This will be Therese’s 90 percent PhD seminar. Patrik Åker, Associate professor in Media and Communication Studies, Södertörn University College, will take on the role as discussant.

The seminar will take place on Wednesday, May 11 at 13.15-15.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. Please either come to K3 studio (NiC 0541) or join online here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64675687916 (this is the zoom link to all K3 seminars this term).

Please notice the time!

Below is an abstract for the seminar. If you would like to have the manuscript for the seminar, please mail Therese (therese.hellberg@mau.se).

The seminar will be held in Swedish.

Mitt doktorandprojekt syftar till att ge ny kunskap om villkor för olika kvinnors författarskap under perioden 1940 till 1955 samt om hur romaner och krönikor producerar föreställningar om folkhemmet (främst) som nationell gemenskap.

Romaner och krönikor skrivna av kvinnor, så kallad kvinnolitteratur, utgör en marginaliserad populärlitterär sfär i relation till den höglitterära offentligheten. Marknadsföring och reception tenderar att skapa en homogeniserad bild av kvinnors texter som betonar det partikulära, privata och moraliska. I såväl romaner som krönikor framträder tydligt kampen för att som kvinna få tala och bryta sig loss från den underordnade mediala, litterära och samhälleliga positionen. Texterna berättar både om begräsningar och utrymmen att uttrycka sig.

Kvinnors texter är heterogena berättelser om förutsättningar för och hinder mot att vara författare och medborgare i folkhemmet. Texterna var sannolikt mycket lästa i sin samtid och bör förstås som en aktiv del i det offentliga samtalet om kvinnors platser och värden i folkhemmet. Idealen för folkhemmet – gemenskap, fattigdomsbekämpning och konfliktfrihet – får sina motberättelser genom kvinnors skildrade upplevelser av medborgarskap. Den medborgerliga gemenskapen för kvinnor är knuten till ett moderskapsideal som håller kvinnor i underordning i relation till männen, något som visar sig i texterna där vissa texter förstärker idealet och andra problematiserar det. Texterna skildrar också villkor för arbetarklasskvinnor och berättar om att fattigdomen inte är bortbyggd och hur denna förstärker kvinnors utsatthet och brist på valmöjligheter. I ett par romaner diskuteras dessutom idealet om konfliktfrihet, och folkhemmets anpassning till den kapitalistiska ordningen kritiseras. Denna anpassning pekas ut som en vinst för kapitalisterna medan arbetares människovärde urholkas.

I både de texter som kritiserar eller bekräftar att en kvinnas värde i folkhemmet är avhängigt det svenska moderskapet inom äktenskapet knyts den nationella och patriarkala ordningen till varandra. I andra skildringar luckras denna koppling upp, exempelvis genom att nationella argument – om att föda svenska barn med goda anlag till nationen – används mot den patriarkala ordningens idé om att moderskapet också ska ske inom äktenskapet. Texterna skildrar också hur den patriarkala ordningen hänger samman med den kapitalistiska och det förs en ras- och arvsbiologisk diskussion om synen på arbetarklassen, så kallad eugenisk rasism. Det finns en spänning mellan texterna i synen på arbetarklassen: antingen ses arbetarklassen som bärare av sämre arvsmassa och bör därför exkluderas ur gemenskapen, eller skildras arbetarklassens ekonomiska och sociala förtryck och behovet av utökade sociala rättigheter för arbetarklassen för att arbetarklassen ska kunna inkluderas i folkhemmet.

Den ojämlika relationen mellan könen synliggörs återkommande och kvinnors ekonomiska beroende av mannen kritiseras. Kvinnor framställs också som delaktiga i upprätthållandet av den patriarkala och nationella ordningen genom sina roller som (blivande) mödrar och fruar som skyddar sina egna värden i folkhemmet genom att exkludera ogifta mödrar ur gemenskapen. Undantagsvis skildrar författare personer som söker efter alternativ till nationen, men enbart för att uppleva att det inte finns något. Istället skildras och diskuteras olika typer av nationalism. Det finns en spänning mellan romanerna beträffande vilken nationalism som ska utgöra grunden för gemenskapen i folkhemmet: medan arbetarskildringarna sätter fattigdomen i centrum, sätter medelklasskildringarna värdering och kontroll av kvinnors moderskap i centrum.

Welcome to a K3 seminar with Alicia Smedberg, PhD student in Interaction Design, K3.

The title of the talk is: The Labour of Infrastructuring.

This will be Alicia’s 90 percent PhD seminar. Carl DiSalvo, Associate Professor in Design, Georgia Institute of Technology, will take on the role as discussant.

The seminar will take place on Monday, May 9 at 13.15-15.00. It will be a hybrid seminar. Please either come to room NiB0501 or join online here: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/64675687916 (this is the zoom link to all K3 seminars this term).

Please notice the time and that the seminar is on a Monday!

Below is an abstract for the seminar. If you would like to have the manuscript for the seminar, please mail Alicia alicia.smedberg@mau.se.

The K3 seminar is held in collaboration with the Collaborative Future-Making Platform

This Ph.D. project is situated within Participatory Design (PD), and inquiries into the well established notion of infrastructuring (Ehn, 2008; Karasti, 2014) within the wider field of Interaction Design. As a design research project relying heavily on practice, the inquiry rests upon a four-year process of iterative field work. The field work has been comprised on observations, engagements and interventions into three projects that bridges the public sector and citizens. The primary concern of the dissertation is to investigate the issues of agency within democratic design experiments (Binder et al., 2015) in the public sector. The issues of agency lies at the core of the PD practice, which has evolved around questions of the inherent power- relations between designers and users in the design process. This thesis departs from the understanding that PD is first and foremost a political project and it is therefore imperative that it is seen within its contemporary social context. It follows that the question of how we do/activate/perform infrastructures is of relevance to PD: these are political interventions often hold a dual nature of empowering and depowering. Understanding infrastructuring as a political action requires that we understand both its constraints and its possibilities, its constructive as well as its destructive power. I will elaborate further on the overlapping theoretical heritage – from STS and Participatory Design – that infrastructuring entails is also present in the thesis’ ontology.

While design has often been seen as an artisan practice, infrastructuring uses much of design’s tools, repertoire and affordances in an ongoing care- and maintenance labour. In particular when tied to public sector work, where the common or collective “good” is and should be a factor, the practice of infrastructuring demands negotiations and compromises on behalf of the many. The artisan designer may produce the most beautiful, most prestigious or the most ingenious solution to a problem, but the collective designer’s priorities must always be to develop situated designs. To make a distinction between artisan design work and collective care work through design this thesis has borrowed the concepts of work and labour from Hannah Arendt’s (1958) writings in political philosophy.

The research has been conducted through programmatic design research where the program acts as a “frame and foundation for carrying out a series of design experiments and interventions” (Brandt, Redström, Eriksen and Binder, 2011., p. 19). A bricolage of methods has been used, reflexively, to drive the program forward, and these have always been informed by an ethics of care. There are three projects that form the basis of this design program: Amiralsstaden (2017-2019); Livskonceptet (2017-2018); The Democracy Ambassadors (2019). These three primary case studies were all situated within public sector work, and conducted alongside Malmö Stad. The design programme has generated two programmatic answers. The first programmatic answer, Affective Infrastructuring, highlights the importance of heeding affect when mobilizing social infrastructures, and represents a gap in previous literature around infrastructuring. The second programmatic answer suggest a method of approaching affective structures: Collaborative Anecdotalization.

References:

ARENDT, H. (1998 [1958]). THE HUMAN CONDITION. CHICAGO, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS.

BINDER, T.; BRANDT, E.; EHN, P., AND HALSE, J. (2015) DEMOCRATIC DESIGN EXPERIMENTS: BETWEEN PARLIAMENT AND LABORATORY. CODESIGN. VOL. 11 NO 3- 4, PP. 152-165

BRANDT, E., REDSTRÖM, J., ERIKSEN, MA., AND BINDER, T. (2011) THE PERFORM CODESIGN EXPERIMENT – ON WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO AND THE RELATION BETWEEN PROGRAM AND EXPERIMENT IN RESEARCH THROUGH DESIGN.

EHN, P. (2008) PARTICIPATION IN DESIGN THINGS. PROC. PDC 2008, 92-101.

KARASTI, H. (2014) INFRASTRUCTURING IN PARTICIPATORY DESIGN. IN PROCEEDINGS OF THE 13^TH PARTICIPATORY DESIGN CONFERENCE: RESEARCH PAPERS-VOLUME 1 (PP. 141-150).