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.

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.

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.

New project: Grief and hope in transition

Debates on the transition to a fossil-free society tend to focus on how new technologies will replace fossil energy – without changing the ways of living that fossil energy has enabled. This project engages diverse publics to imagine and perform fossil-free futures in a way that encompasses loss as well as hope.

Workshop: Imagining Collaborative Future-Making

In November 2019, the platform hosted an international workshop where scholars from the humanities, design and social sciences explored how to envision inclusive and sustainable ways of living and thriving together.

Anticipation conference

In October 2019, researchers from the platform hosted a curated session at the Anticipation conference where scholars, policymakers and practitioners discussed issues ranging from modelling, temporality and the present to the design, ethics and power of the future.

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.

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Podcast

Researchers in the Collaborative Future-Making platform are frequently guests in the media and design podcast Medea Vox. Below are three episodes we consider relevant to the research carried out in the platform.

Thinking about the future through fiction

Fiction holds the ability of imagining alternative futures. Through comics, novels and videogames, we can explore social and technical what-if scenarios. This is a discussion of how fiction can contribute to our thinking about the future in ways which other schools of thought – such as the scientific – cannot. With Alicia Smedberg, Per Linde and Magnus Nilsson.

Comics and politics

Comics have been around for more than a hundred years. For a long time, they were mainly viewed as light entertainment for children, but today they can also be seen as an aesthetically ambitious art form. But are comics also a politically significant medium? With Daria Bogdanska and Magnus Nilsson.

Degrowth is not utopian, it’s happening

This year, on August 1, we will have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the entire year. Are we about to eradicate our own habitats? How can we build societies where economic growth is no longer important? With Miriam Lang, Ruth Kinna and Alicia Smedberg.

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