1. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
-
Anatomy of a 21st-century project: A critical analysis
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. Dymitrow, M. and Ingelhag, K. (eds.). - Gothenburg : Mistra Urban Futures / Chalmers University of Technology. - 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)
-
Integration and green business development in a trust-building context
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Mistra Urban Futures Annual International Conference “Comparative Co-Production”, SunSquare Conference Centre, 5–7 November 2018, Cape Town, South Africa.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The success of social science research and collaboration projects which seek to gain involvement from a particular group of participants are highly reliant upon the quality of social relationships between all stakeholders and actors involved. This means that the quality of these relationships is reliant upon trust and obligations that are inherent within. Trust is a multifaceted process of sensemaking which is developed over time and is created and reproduced though social interactions at both an interpersonal and institutional level. It is argued that the most significant relationship within a project that seeks the engagement of immigrant communities is that between the project team and the gatekeeper. However, empirical examples show that projects focusing on specific kinds of development (like green development) may overshadow the project’s social context in terms of who it is really for. Moreover, such projects may also inadvertently cater to actors already established on the local market (rather than focusing on the neediest) or even breed stereotypes about immigrants (such as that “all” immigrants are farmers, and hence green development is suitable for them). Unsurprisingly, unreflective approaches to themed integration projects are likely to raise suspicion and, probably undeservingly, spawn negative media attention. This presentation focuses on the backside of implementing a themed integration process in a setting marred by low levels of trust in municipal authorities, past difficulties of implementation and general reluctance of key actors. By making use of reflexive autoethnographic methodology, this presentation opens up to both the possibilities and challenges of an integration project aiming to create new jobs within green development. It also includes a number of recommendations for successful implementation.
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3. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
-
Local projects replicated: Insights from Urban Rural Gothenburg
- 2019
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Social and life sciences are currently (2019) facing a replication crisis, with scholars having found that the results of many scientific studies are difficult or outright impossible to replicate or reproduce on subsequent investigation. This brings to mind the following question: If science, supposedly the most robust platform for knowledge-making and knowledge transfer available, cannot handle replicability effectively, what guarantees do we have that societal “comparative projects” are truly comparable? In comparative sociology, comparison of social processes between nation states or across different types of society looks for similarities across different countries and cultures to uncover the general processes that underlie apparently different social orderings. This, in turn, forms the basis for the replicability of societal development projects. In this interim progress report, we look at one such project, ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’. We firstly evaluate what results have been delivered in view of its initial assumptions, and what can be considered a failure. Secondly, we critically reflect upon what criteria might have been present for either the success or failure of some of its subprojects, respectively. This, we argue, is key for understanding what might work in the context of cross-cultural replication, and what might be considered inappropriate for such task.
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4. |
- Dymitrow, Mirek, et al.
(författare)
-
The ‘Research Forum’ as a methodological tool for transdisciplinary co-production
- 2019
-
Ingår i: International Transdisciplinarity Conference 2019: “Joining Forces for Change”, TD-Net – Network for Transdisciplinary Research / Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, 10–13 September 2019, Gothenburg, Sweden.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Transdisciplinarity connotes a strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. Due to this insistence, it has gained widespread popularity in recent years. However, in transdisciplinary collaborations based on academic–practitioner interactions, this is not always as straightforward. In this text, we share some insights from our past and ongoing work with the project ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’, within which we have launched the Research Forum (RF) model as a means of co-producing new transdisciplinary knowledge. RF ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’ constitutes Mistra Urban Futures' contribution to the project ‘Urban Rural Gothenburg’, a three-year (2017–19) EU-sponsored project for sustainable development with the overarching aim to create improved conditions for green innovation and green business development between the city and the countryside. The RF constitute the project’s academic component within a transdisciplinary (penta-helix) model. The RF is meant to serve as an incubator and accelerator of various initiatives concerned with understanding, testing and implementing ecologically oriented solutions that may arise through academic–practitioner interactions. The RF is thus not a ‘place’ (in the concrete sense) but a collaborative effort of two coordinators – one practitioner and one academic, aided by an assistant, who actively pursue and facilitate new ways of extracting knowledge within a large and heterogenous project structure. Identifying and successfully matching different perspectives, points of view and pools of knowledge is a difficult challenge. This is mainly because interactions are seldom based on the same principles; different people have different foci, incentives, and agendas, while understanding how they work out in practice is key to successful implementation of the RF model. In this presentation, we focus on the description, analysis and evaluation of the RF as a methodological endeavor. The findings center on four of the most common modes of interaction encountered during our work with the RF: academics to practitioners (A > P); practitioners to academics (A < P); academics with practitioners (A >< P); and academics without practitioners (A | P). We conclude that if we truly want to embrace co-production as way to obtain new knowledge we inherently must concede part of our individuality towards a homogenous goal. At the same time, the specificity of different forms of knowledge cannot be melted into an amorphous mass, elsewise co-production is likely to become a tokenistic effort of little applicatory utility. Put simply, we must constantly remain open to change but also stay protective of knowledge that works without reinvigoration.
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5. |
- Haysom, Gareth, et al.
(författare)
-
Food systems sustainability: An examination of different viewpoints on food system change
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 11:12
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global food insecurity levels remain stubbornly high. One of the surest ways to grasp the scale and consequence of global inequality is through a food systems lens. In a predominantly urban world, urban food systems present a useful lens to engage a wide variety of urban (and global) challenges—so called ‘wicked problems.’ This paper describes a collaborative research project between four urban food system research units, two European and two African. The project purpose was to seek out solutions to what lay between, across and within the different approaches applied in the understanding of each city’s food system challenges. Contextual differences and immediate (perceived) needs resulted in very different views on the nature of the challenge and the solutions required. Value positions of individuals and their disciplinary “enclaves” presented further boundaries. The paper argues that finding consensus provides false solutions. Rather the identification of novel approaches to such wicked problems is contingent of these differences being brought to the fore, being part of the conversation, as devices through which common positions can be discovered, where spaces are created for the realisation of new perspectives, but also, where difference is celebrated as opposed to censored.
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6. |
- Ingelhag, Karin, 1958, et al.
(författare)
-
The future of sustainability projects: Flights of fancy or a threnody to a lost age?
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Dymitrow, M. and Ingelhag, K. (eds.), Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. - Gothenburg : Mistra Urban Futures / Chalmers University of Technology. - 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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7. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
Can a city feed itself? : Innovations in City–Region Food Systems from a Swedish perspective
- 2019
-
Ingår i: 4th Global Food Security, Food Safety & Sustainability Conference,10–11 May 2019, Montreal, Canada.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contemporary discussion frames food security and sustainability as a wicked problem, in that it is multidimensional, hard to define and thus extremely challenging to solve. As such, new models and approaches have evolved in an attempt to address the sustainability of food in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, once such model is that of City–Region Food Systems. One of the challenges of addressing urban food systems is that of linking rural regions with urban ones, often distinguished as spaces of production and consumption. Reimagining peri-urban/rural food spaces would potentially address sustainability challenges by shortening food systems, generating greater transparency and providing greater opportunity for consumer influence. Furthermore, City–Region Food Systems provide an alternative method to increasing food security and sustainability that increased production and intensification of agricultural practices. The challenges and benefits of this new concept are systematically tested through innovative methods within the EU project Urban Rural Gothenburg, which seeks to create new links between the city’s urban and rural spheres, thus making novel contributions to food security, food affordability and food injustice. This paper discusses this cutting-edge concept of City–Region Food Systems as an emerging field of research, using examples from past and ongoing work undertaken by Urban Rural Gothenburg to explore its benefits and challenges.
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8. |
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9. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
Class and the City
- 2023
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Ingår i: Urban Matters. - Malmö : Institute for Urban Research, Malmö University. - 2004-206X. ; Class and the City
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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10. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
Double jeopardy within Swedish integration: Using South–North collaborations to explore the role of gender within transdisciplinary integration projects
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Transdisciplinarity Conference 2019: “Joining Forces for Change”, TD-Net – Network for Transdisciplinary Research / Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, 10–13 September 2019, Gothenburg, Sweden.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sweden is now a highly multicultural society, and as such is dealing with a multiplicity of integration issues. Accordingly, approaches to integration must also be multifaceted in their nature, conducted by transdisciplinary teams within a diverse range of projects. The current approach is to integrate immigrants into the labour market, for which a lauded policy has been implemented (MIPEX). However, when looking at outcomes, the OECD data (2013) is placing Sweden at the bottom of its ranking, with 57% of 15-74-year-olds born outside of Sweden in employment, compared to 67% of native-born Swedes. A possible reason for the gap is the relatively high proportion of native-born women in employment. But, this does not explain why immigrant women’s levels of employment are consistently 10% lower than immigrant men’s. This creates a gender gap between immigrant men and women, and a gap between native-born and immigrant women. As such, immigrant women are experiencing a double-jeopardy in labour-market integration, both as women and as immigrants. Studies exploring instances of the double-jeopardy problem have been conducted in the US (De Jong et al 2001), Canada (Boyd 1984), Australia (Foroutan 2008) and Israel (Reijman & Semyonov 1997). However, this research is still considered novel as it utilises transdisciplinarity to explore the ways in which gender is being used to inform the process of integration. Drawing on the conceptualisation of transdisciplinarity from Zurich 2000, this research draws from a diversity of different projects and approaches to address the real-world problem of double jeopardy experienced by immigrant women. It does so by exploring the experiences and reflections from academics and researchers; government employees; sustainability strategists; social entrepreneurs and NGO volunteer and staff. The projects led by these actors are linked by the aim of providing social integration and the use of the concept of gender in doing so, albeit some more explicitly than others. This presentation explores how the hypothesis of double jeopardy plays out in practice. The aim of our research is to understand the ways in which a transdiciplinarity of actors apply the concept of gender within labour market integration and how this affects tangible outcomes for women. This has been undertaken through a South–North collaboration, using a Swedish-Kenyan collaboration programme within Mistra Urban Futures – SKILLs, aiming towards sustainable urban development. Our research applies a gender analysis of local case studies from impoverished areas of Gothenburg. The discussion is informed by challenges (and solutions) identified in Kisumu (Kenya) and provides a set of co-produced recommendations. The following research questions are pursued: 1. How does labour-market integration consider and use the concept of gender? 2. What effect(s) does the use of gender have upon the outcomes for women within labour-market integration projects? 3. How can the use of the concept of gender be improved within labour-market integration to provide outcomes for women that are equal, fair and sustainable? Initial findings suggest that gender as a concept is experienced differently by immigrant women and Swedish women. In questioning how women from the Global South experience integration projects in the context of the Global North, the collaboration has identified the following aspects: agency; choice of approach; cultural awareness; role modelling; stereotyping and; tokenism – within transdisciplinary projects from both research sites. With these challenges in mind, some integration projects may prove problematic at best and unsuccessful at worst because of this under-researched dimension.
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11. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986
(författare)
-
Gender and integration: The ebb and flow of mainstreaming in projects
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Dymitrow, M. and Ingelhag, K. (eds.), Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. - Gothenburg : Mistra Urban Futures / Chalmers University of Technology. - 9789198416633 ; , s. 54-62
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)
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12. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
North–South research collaborations: An empirical evaluation against principles of transboundary research
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Development Policy Review. - : Wiley. - 0950-6764 .- 1467-7679. ; 40:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Motivation: Transboundary research collaborations (TRCs) are critical in supporting evidence-based actions to address complex global issues, yet there remains a lack of empirical knowledge that would detail how TRCs are organized, how activities are facilitated, and how actors interact. Purpose: We address this knowledge gap by evaluating a North–South TRC against the 11 principles for TRCs defined by the Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE). Methods and approach: Using personal accounts, content analysis, and semi-structured interviews/surveys, our evaluation casts light on how the process of running a TRC in the 21st century is enacted from the perspective of the individual. Findings: Our results and discussion provide the basis for a more probing and systematic case for and against contemporary TRCs, their underlying value structures and ways of working, as well as the dimensions that are lacking. Policy implications: Evaluation of TRCs must include the experience of all the actors involved in the TRC and not only the outcomes they produce; transdisciplinarity cannot be viewed as the only way to solve general development issues, but must be carefully considered in order not to mask underlying issues of inequality and poor ethics; and the ring-fencing of funding for a specific purpose or TRC does not negate the need to scrutinize the activities that are undertaken in the name of the TRC.
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13. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986
(författare)
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The place of community values within community-based conservation: The case of Driftsands Nature Reserve, Cape Town
- 2018
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Ingår i: Bulletin of Geography. - : Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika/Nicolaus Copernicus University. - 1732-4254 .- 2083-8298. ; 40:40, s. 101-112
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contemporary approaches to biodiversity conservation within South Africa depart from community-based initiatives which seek to combine biodiversity conservation with socio-economic development. This paper employs a grounded theory approach to discuss the values of local communities and the management body (CapeNature), with regards to Driftsands Nature Reserve, Cape Town, by way of exploring the ways in which community-based conservation is being achieved within this case study. The findings conclude that the support and environmental education provided by CapeNature is going some way to addressing the needs of community-based conservation. Although the geographical location and demographics of the area produce a number of challenges for this approach, this research outlines the pathways for these challenges to be turned into benefits through even greater involvement with community-based conservation.
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14. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
The role of trust in street-level organisations within integration projects
- 2019
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Ingår i: The 17th Annual ESPANET Conference: “Social citizenship, migration and conflict – Equality and opportunity in European welfare states”, The European Network for Social Policy Analysis, 5–7 September 2019, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Swedish immigrant integration holds a unique contradiction in that it is lauded as having the ‘best’ policy in Europe (MIPEX), but its outcomes are amongst some of the poorest (Eurostats). Currently, responsibility of implementing integration policy is held by national agencies at the macro-level. Such a structure, however, is likely to overshadow what goes on at the micro-level, an oversight which is also reflected within current research. By adopting a street-level organisation (SLOs) approach, this research sets out to explore the gap between formal policy provision and measurable outcomes, where trust is situated as a critical dimension within the process of integration that is yet to be captured by other means. This presentation explores trust as a reason for the disparity between policy and outcomes, with the help of a case study that involves an SLO situated in Gothenburg; more specifically, a suburb characterised by a 90% immigrant population, and its unexploited social capital. To resolve this issue Gothenburg embarked on a four-year EU sponsored project concerned with labour market integration. Under this umbrella, a sub-project has been launched to engage 500 immigrants visiting an SLO within green business development as a means to integration. However, while initially promising, several intricacies surrounding the studied SLO, including its structure, history and leadership, has brought forth a number of worrying insights that have severed trust-building and impeded future work. Previous studies exploring the success of projects at the street level have successfully used qualitative methods, including reflexive non-participant observation. In our research we have used field notes collected over a six-month period from the project’s inception, supplemented by time lines of interactions and stakeholder engagements. The data have been coded to decipher key incidents and exchanges where trust has played a pivotal role in the dynamics between stakeholders, and for the direction of the project, as such. Given the responsibility that SLOs currently hold within immigrant integration, the personal street-level interactions from which (dis)trust evolves need to be regarded as significantly important. Our findings suggest that trust is greatly underestimated within SLOs, with distrust disrupting the success of the integration process, often resulting in project failure. This presentation will make recommendations as to how a SLO approach can contribute to trust-building, which will go some way in addressing existing ambiguities and inconsistencies between policy and outcomes concerning immigrant integration.
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15. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
Ticking boxes and clocking in: A critical view of gender mainstreaming in labour-market integration
- 2021
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Ingår i: Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0029-1951 .- 1502-5292. ; 75:3, s. 171-186
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mainstreaming is a popular approach when seeking to address societal inequalities. Gender and migrant integration are mainstreamed within EU policy, both seeking to increase labour market participation as a means to redress inequality. However, there are limited references to migrant women within gender equality or integration policies at the EU level. The study dissects a subset of migrant integration projects in Sweden – a country lauded for having Europe’s best integration policy while exhibiting the poorest results. The authors used non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews to identify pitfalls such as embedded stereotyping, undervaluation of cultural motivations, gender-washing, and methodological misalignment. Their findings show that gender and integration mainstreaming within the EU systematically position migrant women as a problem, despite the significantly important role they play within global labour markets. The authors conclude that migrant women may need to be included within gender and integration policy beyond the labour market.
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16. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
Ticking boxes and clocking in: A critical view of gender mainstreaming in labour-market integration
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Conference “Organizing Migration and Integration in Contemporary Societies”, Gothenburg Research Institute and Centre on Global Migration, 6–9 November 2019, Gothenburg, Sweden.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sweden officially adopted gender mainstreaming in 1994, launching initiatives throughout all governmental levels in 2007. This presentation focuses on gender mainstreaming in the labour-market integration of immigrant women, where levels of unemployment are consistently 10% higher than immigrant men, and are three times the level of Swedish women. We question how useful gender mainstreaming is in producing meaningful outcomes for immigrant women in this context. Our research will use a gender perspective to explore projects which cite integration as a key component of their work, located in Gothenburg’s North-East, an area characterised by its disproportionally high immigrant population, and its unexploited social capital. Our analysis will identify taken-for-granted ideologies and norms that dominate employment initiatives for immigrant women. By applying the theory of non-performativity, we suggest that a lack of understanding of the concept of gender mainstreaming results in tokenistic attempts at integration. This undermines the rationale of the deployed efforts through the reproduction of gender norms and power relations. In critically discussing the usefulness of gender mainstreaming in integration projects, our findings suggest that the concept is used as an end point itself, as opposed to a means to an end. We suggest that, in practice, gender mainstreaming is likely to contribute little more than lip-service. We therefore urge that projects move beyond counting numbers, and place more emphasis on the tangible, beneficial and equitable outcomes they produce for immigrant women.
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17. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
Transboundary research collaborations : An evaluation against 11 principles of transboundary research
- 2019
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Ingår i: MiReKoc – 15th Anniversary Conference on Migration and Development in the ‘Global South’: “Research Challenges and Implications”, Migration Research Center at Koç University, 24–25 October 2019, Istanbul, Turkey.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is widely acknowledged that transboundary research collaborations are critical in supporting evidence-based actions to address global issues, such as sustainable development. Normally taking the form of universities or research institutions from the North and South working together, collaborations study a particular set of issues through a variety of activities through which both research partners pool their resources, share and co-create knowledge. This presentation focuses on one such example of a transboundary collaboration, the Sweden-Kenya Interactive Learning Lab (SKILLs), a collaboration between Gothenburg, Sweden, and Kisumu, Kenya, facilitated by Mistra Urban Futures. Starting as an exchange of PhD students between the two platforms in 2012, SKILLs has now developed into a collaboration programme with the overall aim of contributing to sustainable urban development in the two contexts. A mass of theoretical literature exists about how transboundary collaborations should be organised, how academics and practitioners might behave in its facilitation and how could be better facilitate. However, there is a lack of empirics which detail how transboundary collaborations are organised, how academics and PR actioners do behave and how activities are facilitated. Our evaluation seeks to address this gap through the evaluation of the SKILLs platform against the Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries’ (KFPE) 11 principles for transboundary research collaborations. The evaluation takes the form of semi-structured interviews with pervious and current platform managers, as well as key participants, including researchers and PhD students, in both contexts, with interviewees being asked to score the SKILLs platform against the 11 said principles. The evaluation is expected to add to the limited existing empirical knowledge about how the process of transboundary is enacted, and provide a point of consideration for the structural asymmetries, unspoken assumptions and operational constraints that can affect what is deemed successful within transboundary collaborations.
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18. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
-
Trusting constructive madness
- 2019
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Ingår i: Dymitrow, M. and Ingelhag, K. (eds.), Anatomy of a 21st-century sustainability project: The untold stories. - Gothenburg : Mistra Urban Futures / Chalmers University of Technology. - 9789198416633 ; , s. 116-120
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)
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19. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Using South-North collaborations to explore the role of gender within immigrant integration projects
- 2019
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Ingår i: 2019 RINGS Conference: “Genders and Feminisms in a Polarised World – Sustainability, Futures and Utopias”, The International Research Association of Institutions of Advanced Gender Studies / Tallinn University – Gender Studies Research Group, 2–4 October 2019, Tallinn, Estonia.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- One of Sweden’s current predicaments is that it is a highly multicultural society in a European context, facing a crisis through the vulnerability and anxieties relating to the increasing immigrant populations being closely related to an increasing polarisation. In a polarised society, gender is at risk of again becoming the invisible “third” face of policies trying to facilitate migration, overwhelmed by the complexity and jeopardies of integration and disintegration, homogeneity and diversity, equality and inequality, inclusion and exclusion. Sweden has developed a lauded policy, most particularly within the formal opportunities offered to immigrants when accessing the labour-market (MIPEX). However, the index does not measure the outcomes of such policy. The OECD data (2013) is placing Sweden at the bottom of its ranking, as it has the largest gap, in levels of employment between native-born Swedes and those born outside of Sweden. Possible reasoning for the gap is the relatively high proportion of native-born women in employment. When immigrant employment numbers are explored along gendered lines immigrant women’s levels of employment are consistently 10% lower than those of immigrant men. This not only creates a gender gap between immigrant men and women, but also a gap between native-born and immigrant women. As such, immigrant women are experiencing a double-jeopardy in labour-market integration, both as women and as immigrants. Therefore, we ask if intersectional actors are taken into account in designing policies; how they reflect the differences of immigrant women trying to integrate; and how can immigrant women change Swedish society and its labour force? This presentation explores how the hypothesis of double-jeopardy plays out in practice. The aim of our research is to understand the ways in which different approaches to labour-market integration apply the concept of gender, and how this affects the tangible and sustainable outcomes for the women involved. This will be undertaken through a South–North collaboration, using a Swedish-Kenyan collaboration programme within Mistra Urban Futures – SKILLs, aiming towards sustainable urban development. Drawing upon experiences and reflections from works of academics, researchers and NGOs, our research applies a gender analysis of local case studies from impoverished areas of Gothenburg. The discussion is informed by challenges (and solutions) identified in Kisumu, and provides a set of co-produced recommendations. Initial findings suggest that gender as a concept is experienced differently by immigrant women and Swedish women. In questioning how women from the Global South experience integration projects in the context of the Global North we attempt to initiate discussion how labour-market integration can produce more tangible, sustainable and equitable outcomes for immigrant women.
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20. |
- Kotze, Shelley, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Walking as a pedagogical tool in higher education: Moving beyond COVID-19
- 2022
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Ingår i: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Annual International Conference 2022.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many pedagogical lessons have been drawn within higher education. However, the focus remains around digitalisation and distance education. Conversely, walking has been encouraged in everyday life throughout the pandemic, as a means of socialising, increasing health and wellbeing, and within professional environments. Whilst the use of walking as pedagogy method has been promoted within the education of younger children, its use in higher education has yet to be fully explored. Drawing upon our own experiences of teaching and being taught during the COVID-19 pandemic, and walking methodologies, this conceptual paper will discuss the potential of walking in higher education. We start from the position that walking, as a form of movement, is beneficial to learning, and outlines some of the multifaceted motivations we, as teachers (and students), have for introducing walking as pedagogy within higher education. Within this conceptual paper we explore the conceptualisation of both ‘thinking and walking’ and ‘walking and thinking’, as beneficial to academic learning and wellness respectively. Furthermore, we question whether the geographical context in which walking takes place has an influence on thinking and learning whilst walking. Finally, we offer some suggestions as to how walking pedagogies may be included in post-COVID pedagogies in higher education.
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21. |
- Smit, Warren, et al.
(författare)
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Replicating projects for comparative research: Mistra Urban Futures’ experiences with comparative work on knowledge exchange, food and transport
- 2020
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Ingår i: Simon, D., Palmer, H. and Riise, J. (eds.), "Comparative urban research from theory to practice: Co-production for sustainability". - Bristol : Policy Press. - 9781447353126 - 9781447354093 ; , s. 63-88
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter discusses three comparative projects that were all, at least partially, created through the replication of research across the Mistra Urban Futures cities. A typology of six possible models was developed, illustrating how comparative transdisciplinary knowledge co-production could take place across multiple cities, and the second of these approaches was identified as “local projects replicated”. This is where particular successful projects initiated in individual cities had been, or were intended to be, replicated in other cities, thus opening up possibilities for cross-city comparison. As it turned out, three Mistra Urban Futures comparative projects were partially or entirely based on projects that had been replicated in other cities: the knowledge exchange project, the suite of linked food comparative projects, and transport and sustainable urban development comparative project. This chapter draws on our practical experience in developing and implementing these comparative projects. First, we discuss the issue of “replication” and the different ways that this can occur. Second, we discuss the initial work on these themes (knowledge exchange, food, transport) which formed the basis for the development of these particular comparative projects. Third, we discuss the complex processes through which this work assembled into comparative projects. Finally, we reflect on the challenges and benefits of “replicating” projects for comparative research.
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