| 1. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
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Anatomy of a 21st-century project: A critical analysis
- 2020
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Ingår i: Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. - Göteborg : Chalmers University of Technology and Mistra Urban Futures. - 9789198416633 - 9789198416633 ; , s. 205-236
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this analytical chapter we focus on human factors to shed light on what a 21st-century project might look like from within. Adopting a non-essentialist perspective to project-making, we at the same time acknowledge that the notion of human nature is blurred, dynamic, changeable, heterogeneous, and internally riven. The human condition, hence, always dictates what ontological position a project adopts regarding its subject matter, execution and end results. In this respect, with this book we commit to an open-ended normativity: normative by reluctantly accepting the bias of the project formulas as we have defined their ability to shape the contemporary world, but open-ended with regard to a constant awareness that all knowledge is constructed, fluid and flawed, and that the insights here presented are only some of many possible interpretations. That said, we do not believe that plurality of opinion is intrinsically useful for creating ‘good projects’ – we believe it is an overused statement (cf. de Botton 2019) – but plurality of opinion is possibly the only way to unravel how a project operates and what keeps it afloat, including its silent triumphs and hidden pathologies. Since values and value systems can differ even within very small entities, to truly understand the inner workings of a project requires covering all its nooks and crannies. This methodological approach – autoethnography – is represented in the vast empirical section of this book – top to bottom and side to side, the results of which are discussed in the ensuing nine subsections. When things are whipped up into a sustainability frenzy with a flurry of divergent messages, it is easy to lose track of goal and purpose. For change to happen, we must dare to open a can of worms and find each other in the disenchantment of our broken world. The battle against unsustainability is a war of attrition: words against deeds – and both are enclosed in projects.
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| 2. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
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Anatomy of a 21st-century project: A quick autopsy
- 2020
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Ingår i: Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold storie. - Göteborg : Chalmers University of Technology. - 9789198416633 - 9789198416633 ; , s. 1-12
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We all are accustomed to projects. Projects are everywhere, and everything is basically a project. We have learnt how to deal with projects, for better or worse. Some of us love them, some of us are fed up with them. But projects are here to stay. Projects are far from a new invention, what has changed is the fine-tuning. It has changed to the point that projects of today are virtually unrecognisable from those from days of yore. All projects of today ‘must’ be green. They must have social relevance. They must be innovative, and must leave footprints (not ecological, hopefully). Projects of today are ideally transdisciplinary; wearing blinkers is a thing of the past. Inclusive projects, bottom-up projects, future-minded projects… who would even challenge that? Projects are no longer targeted, planned, structured endeavours; that description no longer suffices. To be able to do projects today, we are trained in project management, project leadership, spreadsheets, GANT charts, swimlanes, Kanban, Scrum, Waterfall, sprints, deliverables, bandwidths, roadblocks, backlogs, agile methodologies and the like. Have you noticed a pattern yet? On the other hand, projects of today are full of pitfalls. Lack of resources, scope creep, poor project handling, unrealistic deadlines, lack of interest from stakeholders or simply not paying attention to warning signs are just some of the most oft-cited reasons why projects fail. With this book, we want to halt this chthonic gallop, and just pause for a while. We want to open the lid to the black box of project-making and let it stay aslant for the time it takes to read this book, so we can peek into what goes on – on the inside.
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| 3. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
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Making two worlds meet
- 2020
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Ingår i: Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. - Göteborg : Chalmers University of Technology and Mistra Urban Futures. - 9789198416633 - 9789198416633 ; , s. 175-179
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter focuses on the personal experiences of collaborations based on academic–practitioner interactions, which are not always as straightforward as presented in commonplace transdisciplinary theory. By using autoethnographic methodology, this chapter provides some of the most important insights from past and ongoing work from a major sustainability project that uses the ‘Research Forum’ (RF) as a new a means of co-production of transdisciplinary knowledge. The reflections center on the most common modes of interaction observed between academics to practitioners, but also on the pros and cons of everyday work in a overtly transdisciplinary context. The findings reveal that transdisciplinarity is neither a business deal nor a display of unconditional democracy. It is a tricky form of collaboration that takes time, energy and trust to understand, and this level of maturity may be difficult to obtain using the commonplace project format.
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| 4. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
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The spatial dimension of project-making
- 2020
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Ingår i: Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. - Göteborg : Chalmers University of Technology and Mistra Urban Futures. - 9789198416633 - 9789198416633 ; , s. 44-53
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding the spatial dimension of project-making is important because projects are almost always restricted to a spatial focus – they are being spatialised. There are spatial projects referring to the geographical scale of the project, such as global, local or regional projects. There are spatial projects referring to hierarchies of political entities, such as state, county or municipal projects. There are spatial projects referring to the character and quality of the area of deployment, such as rural, urban or nature projects. There are spatial projects referring to the relations between the involved actors, such as national, international or supranational projects. Finally, there are spatial projects referring to specific administrative or functional units, such as Gothenburg, the City Park, Main Street, Lake Victoria or the Amazon. The question, hence, is less whether projects are spatialised, but why and how. A long history of spatial analyses in scholarly literature reveals the problematic nature of thinking about societal projects in terms of spatial demarcations. Spatial thinking before problem thinking could be described as a form of apophenic or pareidolic perspectivism conditioned by the prevalent culture of spatial planning, which may or may not impair sound diagnosis and intervention. In this chapter, I approach the phenomenon of spatial thinking in the context of project-making from several perspectives, each with its own set of assumptions and hidden problems. The purpose of such an approach is to raise awareness about the complicated role space plays in project-making upon our decisions, actions, and the consequences of those actions.
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| 5. |
- Ingelhag, Karin, et al.
(författare)
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The future of sustainability projects: Flights of fancy or a threnody to a lost age?
- 2020
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Ingår i: Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. - Göteborg : Chalmers University of Technology and Mistra Urban Futures. - 9789198416633 - 9789198416633 ; , s. 236-238
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Just like a living organism, also the project has an anatomy, a life span and a purpose. A project has its given actors, given timeframe and phases, and a given goal. Towards the project’s completion, all these factors must intertwine perfectly, otherwise the project’s success will be challenged. Uncovering how these intricacies are held in place has been the epistemological foundation of this book. However, rather than relying on formal project descriptions, reports and evaluations, we chose a different way, autoethnography. By exploring the implicit knowledge that emerges during the process of running a complex 21st-century sustainability project, we wanted to better understand what makes it tick, halt or change its course. Taking cue from the various project actors’ personal reflections on their own role within the project has helped illuminate a complex transdisciplinary co-creation process from the perspective of the individual. We conclude that if we truly want to attain sustainability transitions, then the organisation, the methods and the modes of thinking utilised in projects must differ from the traditional ones. But reaching a breakpoint for behavioural change must be rooted in interactions where the participating individuals and organisations have a common understanding of the complex challenges that are entailed in running a sustainability project in the 21st century.
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| 6. |
- Krzysztofik, Robert, et al.
(författare)
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Landscapes with different logics: A physicalistic approach to semantic conflicts in spatial planning
- 2017
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Ingår i: Quaestiones Geographicae. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 2081-6383 .- 0137-477X .- 2082-2103. ; 36:4, s. 29-45
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper deals with the ways of categorising landscapes as ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ using a physicalist approach, where these terms have special meaning. The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the question whether such a division is still meaningful with regard to anthropogenic landscapes, not least in spatial planning. The concerns raised in this paper depart from the increasingly complicated structure of geographical space, including that of anthropogenic landscapes. Our standpoint is illustrated using cases of landscape ambiguities from Poland, Germany, Romania and Greece. Leaning on frameworks of physicalist (mechanicistic) theory, this paper suggests an explanation to the outlined semantic conflicts. This is done by pointing to the relationality between the impact of centripetal and centrifugal forces, the specifics of socio-economic development, as well as the varying landscape forms that emerge from the differences within that development.
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| 7. |
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Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series (Volume 40)
- 2018
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Ingår i: Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series (De Gruyter). - 1732-4254 .- 1732-4254. ; 40:40, s. 1-196
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This 40th anniversary issue of BGSS highlights some of the tenets of the complexity that make sustainability a ‘wicked problem’ through a number of different perspectives, many of which have to date been pushed into the background amidst an otherwise exceptionally rich geographical literature on sustainability. The editorial task included procurement, administration and scientific processing of 12 articles from 25 authors as follows: (1) Mirek Dymitrow, Keith Halfacree – “Sustainability–differently”; (2) Slobodan Arsovski, Michał Kwiatkowski, Aleksandra Lewandowska, Dimitrinka Jordanova Peshevska, Emilija Sofeska, Mirek Dymitrow – “Can urban environmental problems be overcome? The case of Skopje—world’s most polluted city”; (3) Janis Birkeland – “Challenging policy barriers in sustainable urban design”; (4) Elizabeth Dessie – “Applying resilience thinking to ‘ordinary’ cities: A theoretical inquiry”; (5) Madeleine Eriksson, Aina Tollefsen – “The production of the rural landscape and its labour: The development of supply chain capitalism in the Swedish berry industry”; (6) Stina Hansson – “The role of trust in shaping urban planning in local communities: The case of Hammarkullen, Sweden”; (7) Shelley Kotze – “The place of community values within community-based conservation: The case of Driftsands Nature Reserve, Cape Town”; (8) Davide Marino, Luigi Mastronardi, Agostino Giannelli, Vincenzo Giaccio, Giampiero Mazzocchi – “Territorialisation dynamics for Italian farms adhering to Alternative Food Networks”; (9) E. Gunilla Almered Olsson – “Urban food systems as vehicles for sustainability transitions”; (10) George Mark Onyango – “Urban public transport in informal settlements: Experiences from Kisumu City, Kenya”; (11) Christian M. Rogerson – “Informality and migrant entrepreneurs in Cape Town’s inner city”; (12) Marcin Wójcik, Karolina Dmochowska-Dudek, Pamela Jeziorska-Biel, Paulina Tobiasz-Lis – “Understanding strategies for overcoming peripherality: A Polish experience of transition”. The articles have been reviewed by a cadre of 40 reviewers from 34 academic institutions across 14 countries.
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| 8. |
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Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series (Volume 33)
- 2016
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Ingår i: Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series (De Gruyter). - 1732-4254 .- 1732-4254. ; 33:33, s. 1-143
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The editorial task included procurement, administration and processing of 10 articles from 19 authors as follows: (1) Therese Brolin - Conceptualizations of "results" in Swedish policy for development cooperation from the 1960s to the 2000s; (2) Waldemar Cudny, Marcel Horňák - The tourist function in a car factory Audi Forum Ingolstadt example; (3) Sanette L.A. Ferreira, Gesina W. Van Zyl - Catering for large numbers of tourists: the McDonaldization of casual dining in Kruger National Park; (4) Zbigniew Głąbiński - Analysing the tourism activity of seniors by applying the method of participant observation; (5) Kristina N. Lindström, Mia Larson - Community-based tourism in practice: evidence from three coastal communities in Bohuslän, Sweden; (6) Jana Masárová, Eva Ivanová - Road infrastructure in the regions of the Slovak Republic and Poland; (7) Muhammad Miandad, Syed Nawaz-ul-Huda, Farkhunda Burke, Muhammad Azam, Imran Khan - Escalation of tuberculosis notification: an analysis of associated social factors; (8) Iwona Pomianek, Mariola Chrzanowska - A spatial comparison of semi-urban and rural gminas in Poland in terms of their level of socio-economic development using Hellwig's method; (9) Marie Stenseke - The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the challenge of integrating social sciences and humanities; (10) Agnieszka Szczepańska - Urbanization processes related to the development of residential functions in gminas adjacent to the city of Olsztyn.
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| 9. |
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Degraded and restituted towns in Poland: Origins, development, problems : Miasta zdegradowane i restytuowane w Polsce. Geneza, rozwój, problemy
- 2015
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- One of the less known problems in settlement geography is the issue of so-called degraded and restituted towns. This lack of reconnaissance, however, is perhaps less the result of the towns’ scarcity than their specificity of being ‘awarded’ or ‘deprived of’ an urban label by means of strictly socio-political actions. Degraded and restituted towns, hence, are spatial units made ‘urban’ or ‘rural’ instantaneously, irrespective of their de facto state along what is widely considered a gradual path of (de)urbanization. Instead, they become compartmentalized into two constructed spatial categories that have survived the onslaught of material transformations and philosophical repositioning through different whims of time. While ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ are conceptual binaries that certainly need to be treated with caution, their cultural salience may cause tangible consequences within national administrative systems that abide by a formalized rural-urban distinction. This issue becomes particularly important for settlements that clearly transcend any imagined rural-urban divide, i.e. those, whose material and immaterial characteristics seem counterfactual to their assigned category. It is also crucial in formal practices designed to avert such counterfactualities, but whose ran-domness of approach more creates confusion than helps straighten out a historical concoction. Both processes, nonetheless, lend ‘urbanity’ and ‘rurality’ a resonance of objectivity, justifying their use as guides for a host of developmental endeavors, despite subverting a much more intricate reality. Degraded and restituted towns are direct derivatives of this. Drawing on the above-mentioned irreconcilabilities, the aim of this book is to present and scrutinize degraded and restituted towns through the example of Poland, where these towns occupy a special niche. For one, Poland, due to its chequered and variegated history, is home to a conspicuously large number of degraded (831) and restituted (236) towns; for another, Poland’s relentlessness of formalizing ‘urbanity’ as a category of statistical, political and cultural guidance has a direct bearing on the lives of the towns’ residents. Realizing the intricacy of degraded and restituted towns in the face of commonplace ru-ral-urban ideations, the editors and the 17 contributing Authors of this book have made an effort to capture the towns’ complexity with special foci on their shrouded origins, developmental specificity and incurred problems. Owing to the involvement of researchers from different scientific disciplines and subdisciplines, the undertaken project has helped elucidate the problem from multiple perspectives: spatial, social, demographic, economic, environmental, historical, architectural, cultural, legal and philosophical. Allocated into 17 chapters, not only have the presented interpretations allowed for a first interdisciplinary synthesis on the topic, but they also helped outline some prospective directions for future research. Moreover, collecting materials of such diversity into an amalgamated whole has helped identify specific discourses that enwrap the concept of “urbanity” when seen through its oscillations within formal contexts, and to which degraded and restituted towns serve as expendable game pieces. By combining knowledge arrived at through ontologically and epistemologically different approaches, the incremental contribution of this book as a whole could be summarized in two attainments: a) extending theoretical frameworks used to study degraded and restituted towns in terms of definition, conceptualization and assessing predispositions for future de-velopment on account of their spatial, legal, socio-economic and historical charac-teristics; b) initiating an anticipated discussion on a number of important and current topics re-lated to the practices of degradation and restitution that have not received adequate attention, e.g., the urbanity-vs.-rurality paradox, the changeability of human settlement forms vs. the consequences of rigid spatial categorizations; the role of various actors in shaping the socio-economic reality under the guise of an ossified binary; or identifying spatio-conceptual conflicts as future challenges for local, regional and national policy.
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| 10. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
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Degradation and restitution: Understanding the concept of urbanity through its oscillations within formal contexts : Degradacja i restytucja jako pryzmaty pojęcia miejskości w kontekście jego formalnoprawnej zmienności
- 2015
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Ingår i: Krzysztofik, R., & Dymitrow, M. (Eds.): Degraded and restituted towns in Poland: Origins, development, problems / Miasta zdegradowane i restytuowane w Polsce. Geneza, rozwój, problemy. - Göteborg : University of Gothenburg. - 9186472763
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this concluding chapter, our aim is to outline the state-of-the-art within the deliberated topic in order to identify challenges for future research. Firstly, reminiscent of George Orwell’s aphorism “who controls the past controls the future”, we stress the importance of research into the origins of degraded and restituted towns in order to understand the socio-economic context that has shaped their current situation. It is important to separate myth from accounts based on first-hand archival documentation and compelling historiographical deduction. This is particularly true of narratives embracing issues of justice, democracy and power, as often is the case with the rural-urban discourse in Poland. Secondly, the concepts of urbanity and rurality are often accompanied by stories of demise and success; in other words, they are not value-free. As of now, there is still a dearth of studies that would look into how degradation and restitution actually affect socio-economic change and steer development into certain – desired or undesired – outcomes. In order to avoid creating artificial problems, we need to better isolate the linkage between development and the spatial label it purportedly embodies. Thirdly, linear accounts of social phenomena may be convenient but seldom provide an appropriate abstraction. We must not unreflectively accept the transition “from urban to rural” and “from rural to urban” as propitious just because it has been sanctioned by a governmental decree. More in-depth empirical studies on the problems both degradation and restitution may incur are needed, particularly case-based research dedicated to the perceptions of those closest to the effects of cultural convictions and normative perspectives brought on by the rural-urban distinction. In conclusion, degradation and restitution are not one-dimensional concepts. As the plurality of topics undertaken in this book shows, the concepts can be handled in a multitude of ways. As each comes with its own variety of ontological commitments, theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches, the results differ. But they all have one thing in common: they contribute to a deeper understanding of the often taken-for-granted concept of urbanity. Urbanity is complex, transient and indefinable and therefore increasingly elusive. In that light, understanding urbanity as it emerges, evolves, consolidates, ruptures and finally reconstitutes itself through the practices of degradation and restitution makes an invaluable asset to multifaceted production of knowledge on various social processes and their inseparable geographical contexts.
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