The Collaborative Future Making research platform

Malmö University
Research
Research platforms
Collaborative Future-Making

The Collaborative Future-Making research platform explores how we can envision inclusive and sustainable ways of living and thriving together. We do this through prototypes and discussions where people from all sectors of society are involved. Our multidisciplinary group of researchers have respective backgrounds in humanities, design, and social sciences.

Seminars fall 2021

28 September

'Utopia’s in the making: the power(s) of participatory post-fossil futuring'. With: Ludwig Bengtsson Sonesson; Paul Graham Raven; Johannes Stripple; Department of Political Science, Lund University.

4 October

Respectively Yours: Yoko and Ann on Pluralist Accounting (part five of the Co-becoming in the Pluriverse series). With: Yoko Akama RMIT Melbourne and Ann Light Malmö University

12 October

Transitioning towards sustainable water and waste management. With: Anna Seravalli and Hope Witmer Malmö University

23 November

The regenerative turn: on the re-emergence of reciprocity embedded in living ecologies. With: Jonas Egmose, Stefan Gaarsmand Jacobsen, Henrik Hauggaard-Nielsen & Lars Hulgård, Roskilde University

13 December

Transition Landscapes: Challenging heritage-development by engaging with the past in the design space. With: Mela Zuljevic Faculty of Architecture and Arts, University of Hasselt, Belgium

Watch our previous seminars: spring 2021

Seminars spring 2021

31 March

A part of K3's seminar series and part four of the Co-becoming in the Pluriverse series.

We know so much, but we have not learned to use knowledge wisely (video)

6 April – 28 May

River – A process for decolonizing together

12 April

Automation of imagination (video)

15 April

From Dark Mountain to Östervåla: Gatherings around Climate Predicaments (video)

28 April

Att föreställa sig framtider (del 2) – livesänd samtalserie i samarbete med Malmö konstmuseum (video)

29 April

Storytelling for sustainability(video)

4 May

Speculative fiction and the bureaucracy of the future(video)

5 May

In Swedish: Att föreställa sig framtider (del 3) – livesänd samtalserie i samarbete med Malmö konstmuseum (video)

11 May

Decertifying legal sex/gender status (video)

Watch our previous seminars: fall 2020

20 October

Co-becoming in the Pluriverse (Seminar 1)

Long – where the rivers meet: learning from the Penan community

28 October

Part of K3's seminar series

Respectful Design for incorporating indigenous and alternative knowledge

3 November

Collaborative Engagement in Academia – The Ethics of Activist Research in Times of Repressive Migration Politics: A Presentation of the Cross-border Solidarity Initiative the Asylum Commission

4 November

Part of K3's seminar series

Un/making pollination through graphical visualisations

10 November

Part of Social Innovation Summit

Critical imagination and transformative change

12 November

Reimagining Hope

24 November

Co-becoming in the Pluriverse (seminar 2)

Does Sweden need to be decolonised?

26 November

How can we imagine a future for integration?

2 December

Future making in the public sector: Transition, design and organizational learning

8 December

Co-becoming in the Pluriverse (seminar 3)

Exploring emancipatory directions in design for sustainabilities

From passion for sustainability – to action for sustainability

CFM's Hope Witmer interviews three former students who have started a company that works with organizations to assess and co-envision how businesses can be sustainability pioneers.

Listen to this podcast episode

Critical Imagination and Transformative Change

This seminar, held at Social Innovation Summit 2020, set out to discuss what the opportunities and challenges are to engage in processes of radical re-imagination and transformative change.

View seminar

Seminar: Pushing social sustainable agendas

Platform affiliated researcher Rahel Weldeab Sebhatu took part in a seminar at the Museums as Catalysts for Change event: What role can museums play in the fight for a sustainable future?

View seminar

Glossary: Collaborative Future-Making

This glossary was first used within the research group as an exercise to share concepts that we found central to collaborative future-making, then to be used during the Imagining Collaborative Future-Making workshop. This collection of concepts reflects the heterogeneous and diverse character of the research group and a strong belief in that plurality regarding ontologies and epistemologies will be crucial to be able to handle the multiple uncertainties and complex challenges we have to face in the future.

View the glossary

Our research

Our work draws upon multidisciplinary, critical perspectives from the humanities and social sciences. We combine these perspectives with design research methods that are collaborative and constructive, such as making and prototyping.

One of our guiding concepts is critical imagination, which is about challenging basic assumptions, norms and structures for what constitutes socially, culturally, ecologically and economically sustainable futures.

Our research is carried out in collaboration with professionals and policy makers, as well as individuals and non-governmental organisations. Together, we prototype and discuss alternative and collaborative futures.

To summarise, the platform aims to:

envision and prototype inclusive and sustainable futures
develop ways for how these futures can be debated
work closely with actors from all sectors of society

Research methodologies and focus areas

Research methodologies and approaches include art, action research, co-design, discourse theory and analysis, feminism, hermeneutics, historicisation, performativity, phenomenology, postcolonial studies, posthumanism, science and technology studies, and social network analysis.

Focus areas include critical imagination, anthropocene storytelling, heterodox economies, collaborative resilience, and societal engagement.

Timeline | A record of CFM activities

Om Collaborative Future-Making på svenska

Forskningsplattformen Collaborative Future-Making tar sin utgångspunkt i mänsklighetens bristande förmåga att föreställa sig hur världen skulle kunna vara annorlunda.

Ett centralt begrepp är "critical imagination" (kritisk föreställningsförmåga). Detta handlar om att ifrågasätta grundläggande antaganden, normer och strukturer. Syftet med detta är att vidga människors perspektiv på vad som skulle kunna utgöra socialt, kulturellt, ekologiskt och ekonomiskt hållbara framtider.

Plattformen utforskar hur vi kan föreställa oss dessa alternativa framtider samt formerna för hur vi gemensamt kan utforma, testa och debattera dem. Den tvärvetenskapliga forskargruppen är verksam inom humaniora, design och samhällsvetenskap.