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- Molnar, Stefan, 1982, et al.
(author)
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Dissonance and diplomacy: coordination of conflicting values in urban co-design
- 2022
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In: CoDesign. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1571-0882 .- 1745-3755. ; 18:4, s. 416-430
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion on values in co-design processes, by introducing concepts from the emerging field of valuation studies. Using the work of David Stark and Ignacio Farías as an entry point to this perspective, it shows how co-design can be understood as a collective process of finding negotiated settlements among conflicting accounts of value, through practices of coordination. This idea is illustrated by a case in which co-design is mobilised as a tool for developing and governing ‘active frontages’ in a regenerating district in Gothenburg, Sweden. The article shows how the valuation studies perspective relates to, and in part differs from, other approaches to collaborative and participatory design. While sharing some of the intuitions of both agonism- and actor-network theory-informed approaches, its front-staging of practices and principles of valuation does nevertheless provide an alternative perspective on co-design. The valuation approach depicts co-design processes as a negotiation-based search for settlements, which suspends rather than solves value conflicts. Thus, co-design may be construed as a form of diplomacy, which operates within certain political limits of designerly peacemaking.
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| 3. |
- Molnar, Stefan, 1982, et al.
(author)
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Peace piece: Dissonance and the stabilising of local innovations in urban design
- 2020
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper introduces the musicological notion of dissonance as a means to theorise the situatedness and stabilisation of innovations in processes of co-creation in urban planning. Starting from the literature on valuation studies, the argument adopts Stark’s (2009) proposition of studying innovations as emerging from sites where evaluative dissonance is made productive. This concept, along with Farías’ (2015) related notions of ”epistemic dissonance” and “project mediators”, is used to explore the local adoption of “active frontages” in the redevelopment of an central neighbourhood in Gothenburg, Sweden. In the paper, dissonance is that which emerges as local actors with non-aligned normative and cognitive expectations co-create urban design in a particular geographical and cultural setting. The paper has three aims. First, the argument seeks to transpose the notion of dissonance – which has previously been used to study intra-organisational settings – to the study of inter-organisational co-creation. Secondly, the paper will align STS-influenced valuation studies with the lineage of innovation studies (from Machiavelli to ANT) that focuses on stabilisation – the “Machiavellian moment” in innovation. Thirdly, the paper aims to take Stark’s musicological metaphor further, surveying musical history for examples of compositions designed to make states of dissonance comfortable. References Farías, I. (2015) “Epistemic dissonance: Reconfiguring valuation in architectural practice”, in Moments of Valuation: Exploring Sites of Dissonance, pp. 271-289. Stark, D. (2009) The Sense of Dissonance.
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| 4. |
- Molnar, Stefan, 1982
(author)
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The framing of urban values and qualities in inter-organisational settings: The case of ground floor planning in Gothenburg, Sweden
- 2023
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In: Urban Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 1360-063X .- 0042-0980. ; 60:2, s. 292-307
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article's overall purpose is to contribute to the recent discussion between the literatures of valuation studies and urban studies. The paper aims to do this by generating knowledge on the framing of urban values and qualities in inter-organisational settings making up wider urban development projects. The paper makes use of a recent framework by Metzger and Wiberg published in 2017 in Urban Studies, although employing it in inter-organisational settings, rather than in the intra-organisational settings of those authors. It also adds a systematic focus on issues of value plurality. The paper pursues its aim by interrogating a recent case of inter-organisational ground floor planning in Gothenburg, Sweden. The article demonstrates how several organisational actors with different reasons for joining the scheme, repeatedly came to shift between different practices, scales, and devices of valuation. One implication of the paper is that the study of inter-organisational valuation allows the researcher to explore the plurality of ways in which actors with different goals evaluate development alternatives to keep the process going. Having said this, the paper also touches upon the fact that the value-agnostic sensibility of valuation studies risks making the researcher neglect power asymmetries.
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| 5. |
- Molnar, Stefan, 1982
(author)
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Valuation practices, value conflicts and coordination in urban development: The case of active frontages design in urban regeneration
- 2022
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis contributes to an ongoing discussion between the classic field of urban studies and the emerging field of valuation studies, the latter being devoted to the study of valuation as a social practice (Helgesson and Muniesa, 2013). The thesis is oriented around the questions of: How valuation practices in urban development can be conceptualized; Why certain articulations of value gain legitimacy rather than others, and; How friction between values are expressed and resolved. The questions are explored through an ethnographically inspired case study on the development of active frontages in the area of Masthuggskajen in Gothenburg, Sweden. The case is presented in two papers. The first paper develops a framework by Metzger and Wiberg (2017) to study the framing of urban qualities and values in inter-organizational urban regeneration, whilst the second paper builds on the work of Stark (2009) and Farías (2015) to explore the mundane practices and strategies employed to coordinate value conflicts in urban-codesign. The thesis illustrates how valuation practices in urban development can be construed as an omnipresent practice where human actors and artifacts collectively articulate the value of urban space. The thesis also highlights the role that mundane strategies and practices of coordination play in framing certain accounts of value as legitimate rather than others. Finally, the thesis portrays value conflicts as an omnipresent phenomenon, the resolution of which happens through various mundane strategies and practices of coordination.
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| 6. |
- Molnar, Stefan, 1982, et al.
(author)
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Valuation studies and urban studies: A fruitful marriage?
- 2017
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The last few years we have seen the emergence of a new research field called “valuation studies” devoted to the study of “valuation as a social practice”. Drawing upon amongst others science and technology studies, organizational theory and economic sociology, researchers in the field have studied everything from the life sciences and medicine to cultural regional development and business innovation. However, there are very few studies that explicitly focus on urban planning (e.g. Glucksberg (2014) and Farías (2015)) Even though phenomena resembling valuations have previously been studied within planning research, e.g. through theories of moral judgment (Campbell 2002), we argue that the fields of valuation studies and urban studies can be brought into a fruitful conversation with one another on how the enactment, negotiation and materialization of value(s) takes place in urban planning. In addition, we argue that the ‘new materialist turn’ in planning theory (Beauregard 2015) can become a central part in such a conversation. Empirically, the paper draws on three case studies in the Swedish cities of Mölndal, Göteborg and Borås. We will show how urban planning processes engage a range of subjects, objects and means of valuations in an attempt to negotiate and translate values “into action and stone, on the process of translating desires into results” (Czarniawska and Solli 2001: 7). References: Beauregard, Robert A. (2015), Planning Matter: Acting with Things (University Of Chicago Press). Campbell, Heather (2002), 'Planning: an idea of value', Town Planning Review, 73 (3), 271-88. Czarniawska, Barbara and Solli, Rolf (2001), Organizing metropolitan space and discourse (Liber Ekonomi, Malmö). Farías, Ignacio (2015), 'Epistemic dissonance: reconfiguring valuation in architectural practice', in Ariane Berthoin Antal, Michael Hutter, and David Stark (eds.), Moments of valuation : exploring sites of dissonance (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Glucksberg, Luna (2014), 'We Was Regenerated Out”: Regeneration, Recycling and Devaluing Communities', VA, 2 (2), 97-118.
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| 7. |
- Palmås, Karl, 1976, et al.
(author)
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Peace Piece: On the Machiavellian Moment in Organizational Innovation
- 2023
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In: Debating Innovation Perspectives and Paradoxes of an Idealized Concept; Rehn, A., Örtenblad, A. (eds). - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 9783031166655 ; , s. 339-355
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In contrast to accounts that describe innovation as solely a matter of disruption, this chapter explores the role of stabilization in innovation. Starting from a brief review of Machiavelli’s views on innovation, it introduces the work of sociologist David Stark as a contemporary account of how successful organizational innovations are dependent on negotiations, settlements, and resolutions. For Stark, innovation is a play between dissonance and resolution; a clashing of contradictory values, succeeded by a negotiated resolution of such tensions. In reviewing critiques of Stark’s account, the chapter seeks to extend his work by embellishing the musicological connotations of the dynamic between dissonance and resolution. In so doing, the chapter suggests that music may assist in conceptualizing the simultaneous occurrence of dissonance and stability in organizations.
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