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- Callmer, Åsa, 1982-
(författare)
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Making sense of sufficiency : Entries, practices and politics
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The affluent groups and societies in the world have made material consumption part of their lifestyle. Today, overconsumption has come to constitute an acute environmental problem, both with regards to the natural resources needed to satisfy our ever-growing wants, and to the mountains of waste it leaves behind.Starting from a global justice perspective and from an understanding of sustainability as keeping within the planetary boundaries, this thesis argues that it is urgent that affluent individuals, groups and societies develop a sense of sufficiency, of “good and enough”. Focusing on sufficiency in the area of material consumption, this thesis explores paths that could be taken to strengthen sufficiency as an idea and value within a consumerist society and culture, and aims to answer the overarching question of how an affluent society might orient itself towards sufficiency. Against the background framework of political ecology, relational geography and sustainable consumption literature, sufficiency is framed as a question of responsibility – the responsibility of the affluent individuals, groups and societies in the world to refrain from taking more than their fair share, or, in other words, to withdraw from their excess environmental space.Two cases of sufficiency-related practice in Sweden are studied: one of individuals who actively and voluntarily reduce their consumption to only the basics over the period of one year, and one of individuals using the ‘’KonMari Method’’ to declutter their homes. The thesis shows that the difference between these practices in regard to consumption is a question of intentionality: The buy-nothing practitioners intentionally want to stop consuming, whereas the majority of the KonMariers – as a result of their practice – eventually cease to want to consume, despite the absence of this as an original driver. These results point to the importance of looking at different kinds of entry into more sufficient consumption practices, and at the motivations behind them when it comes to policies aimed at reducing material consumption. The findings further serve to create an understanding for how a sense of sufficiency might develop in an affluent context.Based on literature discussing a framework for a politics of sufficiency and on interviews with public officials and civil society representatives working with sustainable consumption at different levels in Sweden, this thesis further explores the obstacles to and potential for orienting an affluent society towards sufficiency. Certain potential for a more sufficiency-oriented future is identified, not least in terms of a cultural shift and elements of “sufficiency thinking” among the informants. However, the thesis stresses the importance of rethinking our understanding of limits, being outspoken about what the existence of planetary boundaries implies in terms of limiting resource use and defining clear goals that respect those boundaries and emphasize societal values at the basis of ‘the good life’, such as well-being, health and ecological sustainability.
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| 2. |
- Lindblad, Jenny, 1988-
(författare)
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Planning contexts : Bureaucracy and rule relations in French urbanism
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines practices of contextualization in urban planning in Bordeaux. While planning theorists have established the importance of attending to the diversecontexts that shape urban planning, few studies have inquired about the ways urbanplanning activities shape contexts. When the Bordeaux Métropole intercommunal organization set out to reviseits land-use plan, a document positing the regulations applicable for building permitapplications, the resulting plan was intended to be less bureaucratic and more“adapted to context.” I explore the implications of this claim based on fieldworkon rule relations among planners, permit reviewers, metropolitan officials, local politicians, and planning documents. Beginning with the assumption that what is important to plans may be external to their content, I follow the land-use plan from preparation to implementation in the permit review. The activities in Bordeaux are framed through theories on the role of bureaucracy and flexibility in contemporary urban planning, while the issue of context is analyzed through an anthropological lens that understands contexts as never pre-existing, but produced through practices.The study shows how urban planning in Bordeaux unfolded amidst clashing contexts and overlapping temporalities, including national reforms of local government in favor of intercommunal planning and enhancement of shared longterm plans with flexible modalities, planners working for a regulatory framework adaptable to diverse settings, permit reviewers concerned with ensuring the legalaccuracy of permit decisions, and municipal election cycles. The permit review became a strategically important activity in which modalities of flexibility were used to ensure municipal authority in response to a shifting political landscape that empowered the intercommunal government. The revision of the plan to be “adapted to context” came to imply a municipal concern to influence permits in a continuous present, in opposition of the longer-term temporality imposed by a common landuseplan among municipalities within the metropole. In this situation, local planning actors grappled with the distribution of the capacity to define which contextsmattered, at what moment, and by whom those definitions were made. By showing how urban actors selectively deployed divergent views on the notion of context, this study underlines the importance of attending to the politics of contextualizationin urban planning.
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| 3. |
- Zakhour, Sherif
(författare)
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Democracy and Planning : Contested Meanings in Theory and Practice
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- "Democracy" is a frequently used concept in the Western planning field. Scholars, practitioners, and citizens alike regularly deploy it to both explain and contest the nature and legitimacy of urban governance. And yet, in the planning literature, the concept of democracy itself is rarely explained or debated. The assumption being made is that its root meaning for planning is self-evident or agreed upon: public participation in, or mobilization against urban governance. However, my argument in this thesis proceeds from the opposite assumption: that far from self-explanatory or accepted, the contested meanings ascribed to democracy play a central role in shaping conflicts and experiences in planning—both in the literature and in practice. My overarching aim is to contribute with knowledge on this role by specifically examining what the substantial meaning of democracy is assumed to be according to actors in the field; that is, among planning scholars, practitioners, and citizens.The thesis is comprised of a cover essay and four empirical papers based on qualitative case study research on local authority planning in Sweden. In the cover essay, I explore the meanings ascribed to democracy among planning actors, first, by conducting a careful reading of key theoretical texts in the field and, second, by analyzing the individual papers’ key findings.To help elicit these rarely explained, often implicit democratic meanings among planning actors, I develop a theoretical framework based on the work of historian Pierre Rosanvallon. He understands the democratic project as a ceaseless attempt to resolve the fundamental indeterminacy as to what constitutes its substantial meaning. This perpetual project is nourished by a deep-seated incompatibility between three of democracy’s central ideological components: voluntarism, rationalism, and liberalism. Their incompatibility stems from how each of them is regularly mobilized in response to the pathological tendencies ascribed to the other. These responses, in turn, can be empirically charted by how actors implicitly assume the role of "guardianship" over different "democratic temporalities"; manifested as repeated clashes between competing meanings as to what constitutes democracy’s substantial essence.By applying this framework to planning theory and practice, I highlight a striking range and depth in democratic meanings among actors in the field. Moreover, the many debates in planning theory and conflicts in planning practice come across as being deeply nourished by these competing meanings—often in ways that are only partially explicit and thus have been rather neglected in the literature. But examining planning through the lens of democracy not only provides critical insights into the nature of its conflicts, it also challenges the established assumption that treats the meaning of democracy as exclusively intrinsic to participation or citizen action.My intention with the thesis is not to advance the merits of one or another specific understanding of the essence of democracy, nor to promote a questionable relativism around its meaning. On the contrary, the intention is to stress that if our ambition is to challenge the broadly technocratic and neoliberal governance practices currently the norm in the field, we need to understand—and render contestable—those specific circumstances, ideals, and even democratic meanings that inform them.
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| 4. |
- Frögård, Maja, 1985-
(författare)
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Negotiating Tensions : Designers’ responsibilities in democratic entanglements
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis concerns the roles and responsibilities of designers when we design workshops with democratic ambitions. Reflecting on my experiences from making co-design workshops for citizen participation to support sustainable urban development in municipal planning processes, I inquire into designers’ societal entanglements and explore these from democratic, social, political and designerly perspectives. Designing workshops in municipal planning processes made me curious about the diverse interpretations and practices of democracy. Seeking to make sense of my role in relation to these, I trace intertwinements between design and democracy. I reflect on how industrial designers’ roles are historically entangled with market-driven relations, formed by production and consumption. I also look at how political theory and philosophy articulate tensions within democracy, and criticise neoliberal political rationality for erasing the tension between democracy and capitalism. As designers are entangled in past and present relations affecting our roles and practices, we are affected by, but also influence, what we engage with. Designers who engage with democratic concerns navigate these tensions and thus affect how democracy is practiced. My inquiry into these perspectives led me to argue for designers’ responsibilities and for the need to reorient our practices to respond to democratic issues. Responsibilities need to be articulated in relation to tensions, as well as from within our practices; tensions can help us consider how we orient our practices – in relation to whom, what and where we design. As our relations also form our response-abilities, these reorientations also reshape our abilities to respond in practice, critically and carefully. I propose three concerns to support designers, design students and design researchers in orienting their practices, arguing that it is important to reflect on the concerns of entanglements, tensions, and responsibilities. These concerns focus on designers’ potential of making, on tentatively engaging with and curiously proposing things. My contribution and making of theory are thus for designers to make sense of and take responsibility for in relations shaped through our own particular practices.
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| 5. |
- Winter, Karin, 1973-
(författare)
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Tankemotståndet mot sociala skillnader som transportplaneringsfråga : En analys av planeringstänkande på Trafikverket
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- I transportplaneringssammanhang står sällan sociala skillnader i centrum för vad som diskuteras och analyseras. Förvisso har social hållbarhet under de senaste åren blivit ett viktigare svenskt planeringsbegrepp men i transportplaneringskretsar uppfattas det ofta som något nytt och främmande. Samtidigt visar tidigare forskning på stora sociala skillnader avseende resande och transporter. Man vet att transporter påverkar människor i vardagen och har olika betydelse för olika grupper. Det är känt att transporter har konsekvenser som tenderar att fördelas ojämnt och som kan bidra till social exkludering. Man vet också att transporter påverkar hur samhällen organiseras och att det finns olika perspektiv på vad för samhällen som planering bör bana väg för. Trots detta tenderar inte sociala skillnader att ta plats som en central transportplaneringsfråga, vilket också har uppmärksammats i tidigare studier.Den här avhandlingen ger fördjupad kunskap om hur transportplanering utan större beaktande av sociala skillnader bärs upp och blir naturlig. Sådant vetande är av vikt för att förstå hur sociala skillnader kan göras till en mer central planeringsfråga och är något som i liten utsträckning tidigare närstuderats.Den kunskap som läggs fram bygger på en undersökning av dominerande planeringstänkande på Trafikverket. Studiens utgångspunkt är att hur planeringsuppgiften förstås, ges mening och avgränsas blir betydelsefullt för vad som uppmärksammas och betraktas som viktiga planeringsfrågor. Med detta som ingång, undersöks planeringstänkande på Trafikverket för att söka svar på vad som händer med sociala skillnader som planeringsfråga. Planeringstänkandet på Trafikverket har valts ut som studieobjekt bland annat mot bakgrund av myndighetens stora inflytande över svensk transportplanering, annan samhällsplanering och den rumslig utvecklingen i stort i Sverige. Studien tillämpar teori utvecklad av de politiska filosoferna Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe och är en diskursteoretisk analys. Analysen har i ett första steg visat att planeringstänkandet på Trafikverket kan beskrivas som tre dominerande diskurser. I ett andra steg har kartlagts vad för förgivettaganden om människor och samhälle som är del i dessa diskurser. I ett tredje steg har sedan studerats hur sociala skillnader kan tolkas som något planeringsrelevant i de olika diskurserna. Sammantaget har detta givit kunskap om det dominerande planeringstänkandet på Trafikverket och dess konsekvenser för sociala skillnaders ställning som transportplaneringsfråga.En övergripande slutsats är att i det dominerande planeringstänkandet blir sociala skillnader till en planeringsfråga av underordnad betydelse. Studien visar också att ökad uppmärksamhet av sociala skillnader kommer i konflikt med flera etablerade förgivettaganden och synsätt. Det gör det befogat att tala om ett djupgående tankemotstånd mot sociala skillnader som planeringsfråga.Utifrån dessa resultat görs gällande att planeringen på Trafikverket radikalt behöver omprövas om sociala skillnader ska kunna göras till en central planeringsfråga. Ett sådant förändringsarbete berör inte enbart Trafikverket och kan antas vara svårt. Samtidigt har behovet av mer genomgripande förändringar av Trafikverkets planeringen redan tidigare påtalats från såväl ett miljö- och klimatperspektiv som utifrån kritik av att myndigheten utgår från föråldrade kunskaper om planering. Den här studien bidrar därmed med kunskap som ytterligare inskärper betydelsen av att göra upp med dagens transportplanering och att om möjligt tillskapa en transportplanering som öppnar för diskussion om viktiga planeringsfrågor ur olika perspektiv.
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