I’m a transdisciplinary oriented architect, researcher and pedagogue. My research focus concerns socio-spatial transformation towards just and sustainable cities, looking across differing global contexts. In doing so, my focus is in part on comparative urban studies both in terms of theory, methods- and knowledge development. This also embraces the intersecting field of urban development and migration studies. I’m devoted to the approach of transdisciplinary research, and to pedagogy and methodologies for sustainable urban development – including visualisation, aesthetics and methods for artistic research.
Handbook of Transdisciplinarity: Global Perspectives , 2023
The metaphor of scaffolding has traditionally implied the structuring and developmental effects t... more The metaphor of scaffolding has traditionally implied the structuring and developmental effects that more advanced peers or adults have on younger learners’ activities. The metaphor first surfaced in the 1970s when Jerome Bruner, a cognitive psychologist, started to use the term (Bruner, 1973; Wood et al., 1976). Scaffolding connects to the Vygotskian (1978) concept zone of proximal development (Cazden, 1979), which indicates the zone that a learner at a certain level of development can cover only with the assistance of interactional support, the zone beyond which the learner cannot reach even with aid. Scaffolding has been used to describe a variety of supportive interactions, including peers working with peers, that is the structuring effects on both individual and group actions (Renninger & Granott, 2005). In the context of group collaborations, the metaphor has come to include different methods, tools, and facilitation that support learning and decision-making, as well as pre-empt conflicts in multi-stakeholder processes (Jordan, 2016). Overarching the different contexts where it has been adopted, scaffolding offers perspectives on how new abilities come into being (Granott, 2005). In this chapter, we explore scaffolding in the context of transdisciplinary (TD) projects and research (TDR) in order to uncover what gives a group the leverage and ability to climb higher than otherwise possible. We first discuss the role of metaphors and their importance for research processes, before focussing on the metaphor of scaffolding. We then make our case for the usefulness of scaffolding in TDR by pointing out challenges and scaffolding needs. Thereafter, we propose scaffolding for TDR as an integrated learning system made up of different interacting elements. We conclude by discussing the promise, legacy, and pitfalls of scaffolding. Our purpose is to deepen the inquiry into what scaffolding means, what it enables, and what it may constrain. In doing so we hope to reveal some insights and useful principles for scaffolding in TDR.
The Language of the Becoming City is about the urban environment, and how it is transformed by pe... more The Language of the Becoming City is about the urban environment, and how it is transformed by people interacting with the world that surrounds them by evoking more just living conditions. It is also an effort to demonstrate how the urban environment could be imagined in ways that differ from a neoliberalist view. Other imaginations, arising from different perspectives on and incentives for development, such as equity and inclusiveness, might produce another city entirely. From urban practices in four different contexts in Sweden, South Africa, India and Brazil, this book investigates four dynamics of change: conflicts, commons, networks and hybridity. From this framing, new concepts and radical imaginaries emerge, presented here as a Language of the Becoming City.
Comparative Urban Research From Theory to Practice, 2020
Highlighting important methodological experiences from across a variety of diverse contexts in Af... more Highlighting important methodological experiences from across a variety of diverse contexts in Africa and Europe, this book surveys key experiences and summarises lessons learned from Mistra Urban Futures’ global research platforms. It demonstrates best practice for developing and deploying different forms of transdisciplinary co-production, covering topics including neighbourhood transformation and housing justice, sustainable urban and transport development, urban food security and cultural heritage.
Why are so many activists, practitioners and academics suddenly using the concept of commons in t... more Why are so many activists, practitioners and academics suddenly using the concept of commons in their thinking and doing? What changes in society are behind the resurfacing of this old concept? This book brings about a multiple perspectives of commoning from Cape Town, brought together as reflections on practices of commoning and visions for a commoned future.
The urban environment is in a constant state of change, a constant state of 'becoming'. Each peri... more The urban environment is in a constant state of change, a constant state of 'becoming'. Each period in history has had its specifi c driving forces for change and corresponding solutions for directing change towards the city imagined and desired at that time. But our current era differs dramatically from earlier epochs as it faces seemingly over whelming forces like the depletion of fossil fuels and climate change with their unforeseen impacts on the urban. Through the framework of the scenariothinking and research carried out within the Resources programme at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, this book embarks on a journey of understanding contemporary urban transformations in three cities - Shanghai, Los Angeles and Pune - each representing not only three major world economies, but three specific urban contexts. Looking beyond the crunch of climate change and depleting fossil fuels, the book brings together a multidisciplinary group of major thinkers and practitioners alongside Resources participants to offer scenarios and visions for a complex yet hopeful picture of an urban future in common.
'This book is a must read for all those engaged in managing the future of our cities in ways which are resource effi cient and which improve the lives of urban citizens. Based on three years of research and project work at the Royal Institute of Art, the book offers innovations for visioning and managing our urban futures in the context of the global challenges we face today-depleting resources, climate change and rapidly expanding urban populations. Its core thesis is that change and uncertainty are both conditions for ensuring sustain ability in urban development. The book off ers tools and methods with which to explore the dynamics of urban change through progressive and incremental trans formations rather than wholesale redevelopment. The authors, in their different ways, give new meaning to the idea of development, a term which they argue has been appropriated and distorted by markets and the power elite. Its text is radical, unsentimental and optimistic, its methods grounded in the experience of everyday practice and the diversity and resourcefulness of informality. It is both scholarly and practical.' Nabeel Hamdi, Architect and Professor Emeritus, Oxford Brookes University.
Co-production in Action: Towards Realising Just Cities, 2016
Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise t... more Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise themselves differently – beyond their institutional frameworks – to create knowledge about how cities possibly could evolve in the future using co-production approaches. They began to share their insights across continents, learning from each other what particular local contexts could offer. These knowledge-transferring group of people grew into the unique international collaboration that is Mistra Urban Futures. If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, this book will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. This book will not give you the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges.
Anatomy of a 21st century sustainability project. The untold stories., 2020
What is the point of participatory research? Should all knowledges count as equal-and how can we ... more What is the point of participatory research? Should all knowledges count as equal-and how can we value or relate to the knowledges of others? Let's begin to answer these questions by introducing two images. The first one is the famous picture from Antoine Saint-Exupéry's story about the Little Prince. The Little Prince has drawn an image of something amorphously shaped. "What is this?" the grown-ups ask, looking for the truth behind. "Is it a hat?" "Can't you see?" the Little Prince replies: "It is an elephant swallowed by a snake"-drawing attention to the ignorance of the adults. The other image also stems from a children's story, frequently referred to in contexts of collaborations. In this Indian fable, seven wise, blind men each carefully examine a part of an elephant. "It is a tree," says the man examining the leg. "It is a cord," says the one holding on to the tail. None of them, restrained as they are by their individual apprehensions, comprehend the completeness of the large animal in front of them. With some imagination, these images symbolise key motivations and meanings of participatory collaborative research. The seven blind men show us that being blindly devoted to only one part of a phenomenon, is not enough to grasp the entirety of the same. The story from the Little Prince tells us that we need to understand the relationships between different, and seemingly unrelated parts to reach new and creative ideas, while reminding ourselves of the power relations involved in defining solutions. Coming out of these images, this chapter will discuss some underlying motivations behind participatory collaborative research, the knowledge emerging from such processes, along with key parameters to reach results worthwhile.
Bedomargruppens yttrande : Universitets och hogskolors arbete med att framja en hallbar utvecklin... more Bedomargruppens yttrande : Universitets och hogskolors arbete med att framja en hallbar utveckling. En tematisk utvardering.
Studierna har utgatt fran Ulriksdals slott, uppfort av Jacob De la Gardie for 350 ar sedan. Som k... more Studierna har utgatt fran Ulriksdals slott, uppfort av Jacob De la Gardie for 350 ar sedan. Som kungligt slott har Ulriksdal genomgatt ombyggnader under 1600 - och 1700-talet, men praglas idag mest ...
The proposition of this paper presents Urban Commoning as a counteraction to the current global t... more The proposition of this paper presents Urban Commoning as a counteraction to the current global trend of capitalism and its neo-liberal urbanism. In the face of radical dispossession and marginalisation that is accompanying global urbanisation, we are experiencing the negative logic of ‘privatisation’ with its public appropriations of exclusionary and dispossessive ‘fencing off’ of ‘new urban enclosures’. The resultant calls to replace the extractive and exclusionary logic of the city with a generative and inclusive ordering has been responded to in the notion of the commons and complementary practices of commoning as counter to this conflict. The urban commons is posited as a means of transforming the urban. By expanding the notion of the commons a new inclusiveness and normative approach can be established. However, in order to understand the commons as a possible just and inclusive urban order, we view it as inhabiting the intermediate space between imposed and popular change. We attempt to excavate from real life urban commons valuable lessons from their emergence, maintenance and transference; contributing toward a new urban episteme. These explorations are grounded in the case of Cape Town, South Africa and the experience of capitalism’s different phases – early colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid – demonstrating consistently reproduced patterns of spatial segregation for the vast majority of its ‘non-white’ population. Urban commoning has historically existed in different forms but recently found renewed emergence in response to urban enclosuring. Located within this context and re-conceptualised through a more inclusive notion of the commons, this essay identifies background details of the empirical case by describing the legacy of capitalist exclusion and enclosures in Cape Town, followed by an account of historical commoning practices in the city. The essay concludes by locating some main findings from the real life cases of emergent communing, reflecting on the transformative potential of urban commons.
Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise t... more Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise themselves differently – beyond their institutional frameworks – to create knowledge about how cities possibly could evolve in the future using co-production approaches. They began to share their insights across continents, learning from each other what particular local contexts could offer. These knowledge-transferring group of people grew into the unique international collaboration that is Mistra Urban Futures. If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, the book Co-production in action: Towards realising just cities will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. You will not be given the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges. In search of this new knowledge, it is more and more frequently said that complex urban issues need a transdisciplinary approach – in other words, bringing academic and other researchers and stakeholders together in joint teams to co-produce knowledge. However, this is a challenging way of doing research. Challenging for the collaborating institutions bound by traditional formal plans and work descriptions. Challenging for research agendas that are not able to address a multi-stakeholder approach, and above all, challenging for participants who need to step out of both institutional and individual comfort zones.
Handbook of Transdisciplinarity: Global Perspectives , 2023
The metaphor of scaffolding has traditionally implied the structuring and developmental effects t... more The metaphor of scaffolding has traditionally implied the structuring and developmental effects that more advanced peers or adults have on younger learners’ activities. The metaphor first surfaced in the 1970s when Jerome Bruner, a cognitive psychologist, started to use the term (Bruner, 1973; Wood et al., 1976). Scaffolding connects to the Vygotskian (1978) concept zone of proximal development (Cazden, 1979), which indicates the zone that a learner at a certain level of development can cover only with the assistance of interactional support, the zone beyond which the learner cannot reach even with aid. Scaffolding has been used to describe a variety of supportive interactions, including peers working with peers, that is the structuring effects on both individual and group actions (Renninger & Granott, 2005). In the context of group collaborations, the metaphor has come to include different methods, tools, and facilitation that support learning and decision-making, as well as pre-empt conflicts in multi-stakeholder processes (Jordan, 2016). Overarching the different contexts where it has been adopted, scaffolding offers perspectives on how new abilities come into being (Granott, 2005). In this chapter, we explore scaffolding in the context of transdisciplinary (TD) projects and research (TDR) in order to uncover what gives a group the leverage and ability to climb higher than otherwise possible. We first discuss the role of metaphors and their importance for research processes, before focussing on the metaphor of scaffolding. We then make our case for the usefulness of scaffolding in TDR by pointing out challenges and scaffolding needs. Thereafter, we propose scaffolding for TDR as an integrated learning system made up of different interacting elements. We conclude by discussing the promise, legacy, and pitfalls of scaffolding. Our purpose is to deepen the inquiry into what scaffolding means, what it enables, and what it may constrain. In doing so we hope to reveal some insights and useful principles for scaffolding in TDR.
The Language of the Becoming City is about the urban environment, and how it is transformed by pe... more The Language of the Becoming City is about the urban environment, and how it is transformed by people interacting with the world that surrounds them by evoking more just living conditions. It is also an effort to demonstrate how the urban environment could be imagined in ways that differ from a neoliberalist view. Other imaginations, arising from different perspectives on and incentives for development, such as equity and inclusiveness, might produce another city entirely. From urban practices in four different contexts in Sweden, South Africa, India and Brazil, this book investigates four dynamics of change: conflicts, commons, networks and hybridity. From this framing, new concepts and radical imaginaries emerge, presented here as a Language of the Becoming City.
Comparative Urban Research From Theory to Practice, 2020
Highlighting important methodological experiences from across a variety of diverse contexts in Af... more Highlighting important methodological experiences from across a variety of diverse contexts in Africa and Europe, this book surveys key experiences and summarises lessons learned from Mistra Urban Futures’ global research platforms. It demonstrates best practice for developing and deploying different forms of transdisciplinary co-production, covering topics including neighbourhood transformation and housing justice, sustainable urban and transport development, urban food security and cultural heritage.
Why are so many activists, practitioners and academics suddenly using the concept of commons in t... more Why are so many activists, practitioners and academics suddenly using the concept of commons in their thinking and doing? What changes in society are behind the resurfacing of this old concept? This book brings about a multiple perspectives of commoning from Cape Town, brought together as reflections on practices of commoning and visions for a commoned future.
The urban environment is in a constant state of change, a constant state of 'becoming'. Each peri... more The urban environment is in a constant state of change, a constant state of 'becoming'. Each period in history has had its specifi c driving forces for change and corresponding solutions for directing change towards the city imagined and desired at that time. But our current era differs dramatically from earlier epochs as it faces seemingly over whelming forces like the depletion of fossil fuels and climate change with their unforeseen impacts on the urban. Through the framework of the scenariothinking and research carried out within the Resources programme at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, this book embarks on a journey of understanding contemporary urban transformations in three cities - Shanghai, Los Angeles and Pune - each representing not only three major world economies, but three specific urban contexts. Looking beyond the crunch of climate change and depleting fossil fuels, the book brings together a multidisciplinary group of major thinkers and practitioners alongside Resources participants to offer scenarios and visions for a complex yet hopeful picture of an urban future in common.
'This book is a must read for all those engaged in managing the future of our cities in ways which are resource effi cient and which improve the lives of urban citizens. Based on three years of research and project work at the Royal Institute of Art, the book offers innovations for visioning and managing our urban futures in the context of the global challenges we face today-depleting resources, climate change and rapidly expanding urban populations. Its core thesis is that change and uncertainty are both conditions for ensuring sustain ability in urban development. The book off ers tools and methods with which to explore the dynamics of urban change through progressive and incremental trans formations rather than wholesale redevelopment. The authors, in their different ways, give new meaning to the idea of development, a term which they argue has been appropriated and distorted by markets and the power elite. Its text is radical, unsentimental and optimistic, its methods grounded in the experience of everyday practice and the diversity and resourcefulness of informality. It is both scholarly and practical.' Nabeel Hamdi, Architect and Professor Emeritus, Oxford Brookes University.
Co-production in Action: Towards Realising Just Cities, 2016
Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise t... more Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise themselves differently – beyond their institutional frameworks – to create knowledge about how cities possibly could evolve in the future using co-production approaches. They began to share their insights across continents, learning from each other what particular local contexts could offer. These knowledge-transferring group of people grew into the unique international collaboration that is Mistra Urban Futures. If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, this book will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. This book will not give you the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges.
Anatomy of a 21st century sustainability project. The untold stories., 2020
What is the point of participatory research? Should all knowledges count as equal-and how can we ... more What is the point of participatory research? Should all knowledges count as equal-and how can we value or relate to the knowledges of others? Let's begin to answer these questions by introducing two images. The first one is the famous picture from Antoine Saint-Exupéry's story about the Little Prince. The Little Prince has drawn an image of something amorphously shaped. "What is this?" the grown-ups ask, looking for the truth behind. "Is it a hat?" "Can't you see?" the Little Prince replies: "It is an elephant swallowed by a snake"-drawing attention to the ignorance of the adults. The other image also stems from a children's story, frequently referred to in contexts of collaborations. In this Indian fable, seven wise, blind men each carefully examine a part of an elephant. "It is a tree," says the man examining the leg. "It is a cord," says the one holding on to the tail. None of them, restrained as they are by their individual apprehensions, comprehend the completeness of the large animal in front of them. With some imagination, these images symbolise key motivations and meanings of participatory collaborative research. The seven blind men show us that being blindly devoted to only one part of a phenomenon, is not enough to grasp the entirety of the same. The story from the Little Prince tells us that we need to understand the relationships between different, and seemingly unrelated parts to reach new and creative ideas, while reminding ourselves of the power relations involved in defining solutions. Coming out of these images, this chapter will discuss some underlying motivations behind participatory collaborative research, the knowledge emerging from such processes, along with key parameters to reach results worthwhile.
Bedomargruppens yttrande : Universitets och hogskolors arbete med att framja en hallbar utvecklin... more Bedomargruppens yttrande : Universitets och hogskolors arbete med att framja en hallbar utveckling. En tematisk utvardering.
Studierna har utgatt fran Ulriksdals slott, uppfort av Jacob De la Gardie for 350 ar sedan. Som k... more Studierna har utgatt fran Ulriksdals slott, uppfort av Jacob De la Gardie for 350 ar sedan. Som kungligt slott har Ulriksdal genomgatt ombyggnader under 1600 - och 1700-talet, men praglas idag mest ...
The proposition of this paper presents Urban Commoning as a counteraction to the current global t... more The proposition of this paper presents Urban Commoning as a counteraction to the current global trend of capitalism and its neo-liberal urbanism. In the face of radical dispossession and marginalisation that is accompanying global urbanisation, we are experiencing the negative logic of ‘privatisation’ with its public appropriations of exclusionary and dispossessive ‘fencing off’ of ‘new urban enclosures’. The resultant calls to replace the extractive and exclusionary logic of the city with a generative and inclusive ordering has been responded to in the notion of the commons and complementary practices of commoning as counter to this conflict. The urban commons is posited as a means of transforming the urban. By expanding the notion of the commons a new inclusiveness and normative approach can be established. However, in order to understand the commons as a possible just and inclusive urban order, we view it as inhabiting the intermediate space between imposed and popular change. We attempt to excavate from real life urban commons valuable lessons from their emergence, maintenance and transference; contributing toward a new urban episteme. These explorations are grounded in the case of Cape Town, South Africa and the experience of capitalism’s different phases – early colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid – demonstrating consistently reproduced patterns of spatial segregation for the vast majority of its ‘non-white’ population. Urban commoning has historically existed in different forms but recently found renewed emergence in response to urban enclosuring. Located within this context and re-conceptualised through a more inclusive notion of the commons, this essay identifies background details of the empirical case by describing the legacy of capitalist exclusion and enclosures in Cape Town, followed by an account of historical commoning practices in the city. The essay concludes by locating some main findings from the real life cases of emergent communing, reflecting on the transformative potential of urban commons.
Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise t... more Some years ago, in several cities on different continents, groups of people started to organise themselves differently – beyond their institutional frameworks – to create knowledge about how cities possibly could evolve in the future using co-production approaches. They began to share their insights across continents, learning from each other what particular local contexts could offer. These knowledge-transferring group of people grew into the unique international collaboration that is Mistra Urban Futures. If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, the book Co-production in action: Towards realising just cities will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. You will not be given the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges. In search of this new knowledge, it is more and more frequently said that complex urban issues need a transdisciplinary approach – in other words, bringing academic and other researchers and stakeholders together in joint teams to co-produce knowledge. However, this is a challenging way of doing research. Challenging for the collaborating institutions bound by traditional formal plans and work descriptions. Challenging for research agendas that are not able to address a multi-stakeholder approach, and above all, challenging for participants who need to step out of both institutional and individual comfort zones.
Det ar brattom att stalla om till ett koldioxidneutralt samhalle. Men en snabb omstallning maste ... more Det ar brattom att stalla om till ett koldioxidneutralt samhalle. Men en snabb omstallning maste ocksa ske med insikt. I fartvinden av snabba losningar elimineras latt det som byggts upp i samforstand och de varden som inte tillmats en kortsiktig ekonomisk vinst. Engagemang och motstand fran invanare i olika delar av samhallet ses snarare som hinder for en process an som en vardefull del av den samma. For att minska vara koldioxidutslapp maste visionen om ett klimatneutralt samhalle bli gemensam for samhallets alla deltagare. Om inte, kan omstallningsarbetet snarare komma att forstarka de ojamlikheter som redan drar samhallet isar. Darfor maste ett rattviseperspektiv placeras mitt i klimatarbetet. Ger vi sedan staden en central roll, sasom saval orsak till klimatforandringar och som en mojlighet att paverka dessa, blir den rattvisa staden klimatarbetets sjalva karna. Har tecknas staden utifran ett antal fasta rorelser. Kring dessa rorelser skapas rum – bekanta sa val som annu okanda. Om klimatarbetet tar sin utgangspunkt i dessa narvarande drivkrafter, kan en vision om hur vi tillsammans skall stalla om samhallet inkluderas i ett traditionellt och innovativt institutions- och rumskapande. For att dessa rum skall bli till och bli platser dar kunskap lyfts fram eller uppstar, behovs en stabil infrastruktur som mojliggor deltagande fran samhallets olika invanare.
How can we create appropriate practices for research collaboration in the face of climate change,... more How can we create appropriate practices for research collaboration in the face of climate change, widening inequalities, decreasing biodiversity and untenable consumption levels? Transdisciplinary co-production focuses on real-world problems through collaborative processes that include a wide variety of knowledge and expertise.
Local Interaction Platforms (LIPs) are core tools in Mistra Urban Futures’ vision of Realising Ju... more Local Interaction Platforms (LIPs) are core tools in Mistra Urban Futures’ vision of Realising Just Cities. But how can a Local Interaction Platform (LIP) be defined? What conditions must be in place before setting up a LIP? This chapter investigates what LIPs are and how they came to be established. It examines, too, the importance of the LIPs approach in light of the United Nations’ 2016 Sustainable Development Agenda which expects governments to establish national frameworks for achievement of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and that all stakeholders – governments, academia, civil society and the private sector, and others – contribute to realising the agenda. With their transdisciplinary approach and focus on co-producing knowledge, LIPs have become a key methodology for realising Goal 11 of the Sustainable Development Goals – just and sustainable cities. Four LIP directors – Stephen Agong from Kisumu, Mikael Cullberg from Gothenburg, Beth Perry from Greater Manchester and Warren Smit from Cape Town – together with the director of Mistra Urban Futures, David Simon, dig deeper into what the Local Interaction Platforms really represent. They share their personal views on LIPs and discuss what roles LIPs play in Mistra Urban Futures’ mission. We uncover what is meant by platform and interaction, and how to achieve active intermediation. Finally we explore what lessons have been learned so far from working through LIPs. The chapter is based on an interview session with Ylva Noren Bretzer in March 2016.
As widely attested in the literature, evaluation of co-production is complex and unsuited to use ... more As widely attested in the literature, evaluation of co-production is complex and unsuited to use of conventional quality, monitoring and evaluation indicators. This reflects the uncertainties, co-contributory factors and time lags involved, particularly when seeking to assess institutional and wider societal effects of multi-stakeholder deliberative fora. Most widely assessed are the first order effects-the immediate or direct outcomes of a project or activity. Conversely, wider societal impacts are most complex and least well studied. However, even the intermediate, second order effects of organisational transformation and policy implementation are challenging to achieve and assess. This is our focus here. After ten years of transdisciplinary co-productive research practice, Mistra Urban Futures, as an interstitial research space between academia and practice, has reached a phase where some of these effects are becoming distinguishable. However, they remain patchy and uneven. Accordingly, we discuss the prerequisites for co-production practitioners to engage their respective organisations in transitional and incremental experimentation in order to achieve the necessary institutional changes. This requires 'safe' spaces of inclusion with enough informality in terms of research practice, and simultaneously enough research credibility, trust and legitimacy to support long-lasting personal and organisational commitments which are crucial to achieve organisational transformation effects.
The recent explosion of journal articles, books and conferences bears witness to the increasing p... more The recent explosion of journal articles, books and conferences bears witness to the increasing popularity of transdisciplinarity (TD) approaches within participatory approaches to making science more accountable to the challenges of sustainability. This popularity rests upon the assumption that 'wicked' problems require new types of knowledge production that can harness a diversity of knowledge and expertise, a plurality of values and needs from the problem context, as well as facilitate the implementation of possible solutions. What types of knowledge and skills do participants need to live up to such assumptions? This paper presents an analysis of a PhD course that was given at Mistra Urban Futures in 2017-2019. This course focused on the knowledge and skills that are needed both when participating in TD projects as well as when initiating or leading them. The course was designed as a transdisciplinary course in that it targeted both practitioners and PhD students, and their respective needs when participating in TD projects. The course developed a TD-pedagogy as a space organised for different types of TD learning situations. These situations include learning across disciplines and knowledge cultures (practitioners and academic), peer learning among PhD students and practitioners, learning across cultures of practice and 'silos', co-learning from practice-based case studies, student-teacher co-learning, and learning from real-life contexts and strategic documents. This paper presents the results from these learning spaces and places them in the wider context of sustainability related learning pedagogies.
The proposition of this paper presents Urban Commoning as a counteraction to the current global t... more The proposition of this paper presents Urban Commoning as a counteraction to the current global trend of capitalism and its neo-liberal urbanism. In the face of radical dispossession and marginalisation that is accompanying global urbanisation, we are experiencing the negative logic of 'privatisation' with its public appropriations of exclusionary and dispossessive 'fencing off' of 'new urban enclosures'. The resultant calls to replace the extractive and exclusionary logic of the city with a generative and inclusive ordering has been responded to in the notion of the commons and complementary practices of commoning as counter to this conflict. The urban commons is posited as a means of transforming the urban. By expanding the notion of the commons a new inclusiveness and normative approach can be established. However, in order to understand the commons as a possible just and inclusive urban order, we view it as inhabiting the intermediate space between imposed and popular change. We attempt to excavate from real life urban commons valuable lessons from their emergence, maintenance and transference; contributing toward a new urban episteme. These explorations are grounded in the case of Cape Town, South Africa and the experience of capitalism's different phases-early colonial, apartheid and post-apartheid-demonstrating consistently reproduced patterns of spatial segregation for the vast majority of its 'non-white' population. Urban commoning has historically existed in different forms but recently found renewed emergence in response to urban enclosuring. Located within this context and re-conceptualised through a more inclusive notion of the commons, this essay identifies background details of the empirical case by describing the legacy of capitalist exclusion and enclosures in Cape Town, followed by an account of historical commoning practices in the city. The essay concludes by locating some main findings from the real life cases of emergent communing, reflecting on the transformative potential of urban commons.
Migration and a sustainable global existence are two of the biggest challenges of our time. How c... more Migration and a sustainable global existence are two of the biggest challenges of our time. How can they be combined? Historically, migration has been a driving force for societal development and urbanisation, but so has the individual’s acceptance of transformation and change of the environment. New places are overlaid with experiences of earlier spaces, anchoring transnational relations in a local history. What kind of city emerges from migration’s transformative dynamics?
The urban is a process of continuous change. A constant stream of exchanges and restructuring, of... more The urban is a process of continuous change. A constant stream of exchanges and restructuring, of negotiations and agreements. Transformation sometimes appears to be aimless and ad hoc, sometimes consciously planned with close and distant goals in mind. For what and for whom does change take place? Is it driven by a vision of a more accessible and fair city, of a more stable climate, of social and cultural interaction, of more beautiful environments or economic growth? Or is it the individual citizen’s everyday needs that regulate the urban and constitute the epicentre of change? Change can occur incrementally, in which accomplishments are added to one another within the scope of the possible, or in a radical or drastic manner, with an expectation of instant acceptance of that which is entirely different? How are people’s needs and dreams affected by global agendas and motives? When does the specific become the norm of the universal?
If we look beyond state- and private property driven developments, which have dominated cities du... more If we look beyond state- and private property driven developments, which have dominated cities during the last fifty years, throughout Europe we can encounter a rich tradition of cities and communities formed on the principles of the commons. Today, when the way out of the debt crises is seen in even more draconic privatization and thus “evaporation” of public property, can the re-constitution of the commons be a viable option pointing to new directions for our cities – beyond the agenda of profit and away from the neo-liberalization that brought us where we are?
Africa is rapidly urbanizing. 40% of the continent’s population is now urban, but despite Africa’... more Africa is rapidly urbanizing. 40% of the continent’s population is now urban, but despite Africa’s extensive natural resources and strong economic growth, neither international nor local investments find their way to the cities. In post-colonial Africa the City is still consider an exception. Basic infrastructure is still lacking and urbanization is occurring primarily in the form of slums, as silent encroachments. However, African urban researchers note that the African city should not be considered simply incomplete versions of their western counterparts. Indeed, the African city is following its own route with a very different map. These cities are growing as nodes in mutually dependent networks that span over national boundaries. Their populations are in perpetual movement – constantly in search of work and possibilities. They are also very young. Half of the inhabitants that today constitute Urban Africa are under 25 years old.
The world’s population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050. An increase which will occur prim... more The world’s population is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050. An increase which will occur primarily in Asia’s coastal and delta regions. These geographies contain an inherent dichotomy. By providing such fertile grounds for living beings, so many individuals are attracted to them that their advantageous biological conditions become threatened. Biodiversity vs. density? Could urbanization include other ways of interpreting the prevailing schism between nature and culture? Do human needs and urban development necessarily stand in opposition to biological diversity? Can biological processes provide clues to innovation and even inclusive development?
What inherent possibilities reside in the diversity of the Indian city? What urban innovations ar... more What inherent possibilities reside in the diversity of the Indian city? What urban innovations are now being generated from India’s thriving creativity? With a basis in the specific Indian context, can the concept of sustainable urban development be redefined?
Is the global economy, just as the world’s other assets, a limited finite resource? Is the global economy, just as the world’s other resources, limited? In light of today’s financial situation, the relations between economics, growth and limitations becomes obvious. Do the rules of economic development dictate a system limit that permits certain economies to grow while others stagnate? What does growth really mean? Perhaps it is symptomatic that while the economies of the west are contracting, India’s continues to expand.
The eyes of the world are now on India. At the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this fall, Indian leaders will have to take a position on how their nation will assume its responsibility as one of the planet’s three largest economic players. Today India is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, but the possibilities for alternative energy sources are enormous and awareness about the consequences of climate change on their own geography is high. Even if the average Indian citizen is responsible for just 1/28 of the CO2 emissions compared with his American counterpart, the burgeoning pocketbooks of a rapidly growing middle class in a country which is soon to be the most populous in the world will have extreme consequences for our global environment and for India itself. A change in course for the world’s largest democracy would set a new international agenda. Can the Indian city reinvent itself and thereby present us with an alternative Development?
Finding a peaceful transition from fossil to alternative energy sources is the greatest challenge... more Finding a peaceful transition from fossil to alternative energy sources is the greatest challenge we face today. We find ourselves in the midst of a decisive moment of transit. A transitional phase between old and new energy sources necessitates a change to other economies, cultural patterns and built structures. The American urban environment is predicated, both physically and socially, on a limitless supply of cheap oil. How will this be affected by a shift in energy systems? Are we ready to reassess our car cult? Are we prepared for post-motopia?
Consumption is ultimately powered by Desire. Nowhere is the monumentalization of Desire more palpable than in Los Angeles. As in no other place, the city’s perpetuation is dependent upon Desire. Los Angeles is the place for extreme lifestyles, parallel universes, segregated dreams and secured utopias. However, Los Angeles is also a place where alternative cultures and progressive grassroots movements seem to originate and flourish, fulfilling other kinds of dreams. The invention of alternative patterns of consumption must be based on other aspirations and longings. What does Los Angeles look like beyond Desire?
Resources.07 will pose the question if Form Follows Fuel? Or is it Fuel that will have to follow ... more Resources.07 will pose the question if Form Follows Fuel? Or is it Fuel that will have to follow us? Resources.07 kommer att undersöka om Form Follows Fuel? Eller är det Fuel som skall följa Form? RESOURCES.07
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concept zone of proximal development (Cazden, 1979), which indicates the zone that a learner at a certain level of development can cover only with the assistance of interactional support, the zone beyond which the learner cannot reach even with aid. Scaffolding has been used to describe a variety of supportive interactions, including peers working with peers, that is the structuring effects on both individual and group actions
(Renninger & Granott, 2005). In the context of group collaborations, the metaphor has come to include different methods, tools, and facilitation that support learning and decision-making, as well as pre-empt conflicts in multi-stakeholder processes (Jordan, 2016). Overarching the different contexts where it has been adopted, scaffolding offers perspectives on how new abilities come into being (Granott, 2005). In this chapter, we explore scaffolding in the context of transdisciplinary (TD) projects and research (TDR) in order to uncover what gives a group the leverage and ability to climb higher than otherwise possible. We first discuss the role of metaphors and their importance for research processes, before focussing on the metaphor of scaffolding. We then make our case for the usefulness of scaffolding in TDR by pointing out challenges and scaffolding needs.
Thereafter, we propose scaffolding for TDR as an integrated learning system made up of different interacting elements. We conclude by discussing the promise, legacy, and pitfalls of scaffolding. Our purpose is to deepen the inquiry into what scaffolding means, what it enables, and what it may constrain. In doing so we hope to reveal some insights and useful principles for scaffolding in TDR.
'This book is a must read for all those engaged in managing the future of our cities in ways which are resource effi cient and which improve the lives of urban citizens. Based on three years of research and project work at the Royal Institute of Art, the book offers innovations for visioning and managing our urban futures in the context of the global challenges we face today-depleting resources, climate change and rapidly expanding urban populations. Its core thesis is that change and uncertainty are both conditions for ensuring sustain ability in urban development. The book off ers tools and methods with which to explore the dynamics of urban change through progressive and incremental trans formations rather than wholesale redevelopment. The authors, in their different ways, give new meaning to the idea of development, a term which they argue has been appropriated and distorted by markets and the power elite. Its text is radical, unsentimental and optimistic, its methods grounded in the experience of everyday practice and the diversity and resourcefulness of informality. It is both scholarly and practical.'
Nabeel Hamdi, Architect and Professor Emeritus, Oxford Brookes University.
If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, this book will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. This book will not give you the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges.
concept zone of proximal development (Cazden, 1979), which indicates the zone that a learner at a certain level of development can cover only with the assistance of interactional support, the zone beyond which the learner cannot reach even with aid. Scaffolding has been used to describe a variety of supportive interactions, including peers working with peers, that is the structuring effects on both individual and group actions
(Renninger & Granott, 2005). In the context of group collaborations, the metaphor has come to include different methods, tools, and facilitation that support learning and decision-making, as well as pre-empt conflicts in multi-stakeholder processes (Jordan, 2016). Overarching the different contexts where it has been adopted, scaffolding offers perspectives on how new abilities come into being (Granott, 2005). In this chapter, we explore scaffolding in the context of transdisciplinary (TD) projects and research (TDR) in order to uncover what gives a group the leverage and ability to climb higher than otherwise possible. We first discuss the role of metaphors and their importance for research processes, before focussing on the metaphor of scaffolding. We then make our case for the usefulness of scaffolding in TDR by pointing out challenges and scaffolding needs.
Thereafter, we propose scaffolding for TDR as an integrated learning system made up of different interacting elements. We conclude by discussing the promise, legacy, and pitfalls of scaffolding. Our purpose is to deepen the inquiry into what scaffolding means, what it enables, and what it may constrain. In doing so we hope to reveal some insights and useful principles for scaffolding in TDR.
'This book is a must read for all those engaged in managing the future of our cities in ways which are resource effi cient and which improve the lives of urban citizens. Based on three years of research and project work at the Royal Institute of Art, the book offers innovations for visioning and managing our urban futures in the context of the global challenges we face today-depleting resources, climate change and rapidly expanding urban populations. Its core thesis is that change and uncertainty are both conditions for ensuring sustain ability in urban development. The book off ers tools and methods with which to explore the dynamics of urban change through progressive and incremental trans formations rather than wholesale redevelopment. The authors, in their different ways, give new meaning to the idea of development, a term which they argue has been appropriated and distorted by markets and the power elite. Its text is radical, unsentimental and optimistic, its methods grounded in the experience of everyday practice and the diversity and resourcefulness of informality. It is both scholarly and practical.'
Nabeel Hamdi, Architect and Professor Emeritus, Oxford Brookes University.
If you are interested in how urban change can work towards realising a more just society in a world as challenged and challenging as ours, this book will take you one step in that direction. Its contributors share their stories of how they developed, and are constantly reworking, their methods for addressing the complexities of the urban environment. This book will not give you the answers to what could be a sustainable solution to a specific urban problem, but it will take you into a discussion of how possibly to create new knowledge for difficult emerging urban challenges.
Is the global economy, just as the world’s other assets, a limited finite resource? Is the global economy, just as the world’s other resources, limited? In light of today’s financial situation, the relations between economics, growth and limitations becomes obvious. Do the rules of economic development dictate a system limit that permits certain economies to grow while others stagnate? What does growth really mean? Perhaps it is symptomatic that while the economies of the west are contracting, India’s continues to expand.
The eyes of the world are now on India. At the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this fall, Indian leaders will have to take a position on how their nation will assume its responsibility as one of the planet’s three largest economic players. Today India is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, but the possibilities for alternative energy sources are enormous and awareness about the consequences of climate change on their own geography is high. Even if the average Indian citizen is responsible for just 1/28 of the CO2 emissions compared with his American counterpart, the burgeoning pocketbooks of a rapidly growing middle class in a country which is soon to be the most populous in the world will have extreme consequences for our global environment and for India itself. A change in course for the world’s largest democracy would set a new international agenda. Can the Indian city reinvent itself and thereby present us with an alternative Development?
Consumption is ultimately powered by Desire. Nowhere is the monumentalization of Desire more palpable than in Los Angeles. As in no other place, the city’s perpetuation is dependent upon Desire. Los Angeles is the place for extreme lifestyles, parallel universes, segregated dreams and secured utopias. However, Los Angeles is also a place where alternative cultures and progressive grassroots movements seem to originate and flourish, fulfilling other kinds of dreams. The invention of alternative patterns of consumption must be based on other aspirations and longings. What does Los Angeles look like beyond Desire?