General entry requirements and English 6.

45 credits in the main field of Interaction Design at second cycle.

In this course we will explore how design can intervene in everyday situations as a way to address and provide

responses to eco-social challenges (eg. climate change, biodiversity loss, inequality and injustice). One focus will be on the extended social that includes other-than humans as subjects. This move away from “human-centredness”, and separation between humans and nature, have occurred in design in recent years, but also in the natural sciences. Another focus will be on design as future making and the increasing need of developing visions and scenarios of more just and sustainable worlds.

Theoretical discussions in the course point to emerging worldviews in which humans recognize the intrinsic value of all living beings and take the role of carers and stewards. This course will address this development and explore how to design in service of others, humans and more than humans alike, and strive for regenerative futures in which humans and more than humans are part of healthy living systems. Situated in the everyday, here-and-now experience of societies and diverse ecologies, it will in exploratory modes bring worldviews, histories, and futures into conversation. Work will be practical, collaborative, and focused on participatory design that investigates change towards futures that cares for the wellbeing of all living beings and in that way are more socially and ecologically just and sustainable.

The course will be inspired by the year’s theme and chosen stakeholder involvement. There will be a theory strand to support applied learning, responsive to the issues emerging on the course.

Theoretical stream (5 credits): in a series of lectures and seminars, design-oriented theory and theory concerning

the year’s chosen theme will be explored and critically reflected upon. It will be examined in a final theory seminar.

Practical stream (10 credits): in a series of lectures and workshops participatory methods and approaches will be

introduced. The main task will be to in a group of students together with one or more stakeholders codesign responses to a societal challenge. The final delivery will be a proposed possible future that addresses the wellbeing of humans and more than humans alike.

On completion of the course the student will be able to:

1. Compose and organize a participatory design process that contains more than human perspectives and concerns;

2. Formulate appropriate communication with relevant stakeholders and manage the ongoing dialogue with them throughout a design process.

3. Identify and formulate issues critically through presentation of research and project results.

4. Assemble specialized knowledge within eco-social innovation and argue for the integration of this knowledge in a design process.

5. Critically evaluate how different theories and worldviews contribute to the green transition and affect how stakeholders and designers approach the challenges of the climate crisis; assess the interventions of a design process in relation to this evaluation.

Instruction consists of lectures, seminars, workshops, fieldwork, participatory design with stakeholders, design critique and reports.

There are four components of assessment and students must pass each to pass the course.

• Individual contribution to the final theory session (LO 4 and 5) 2 credits

• individual written reflection (learning outcomes 4 and 5) 3 credits

• Individual contribution to the collaborative documentation of project work (learning outcomes 1-3) 5 credits

• Individual contribution to the final presentation of collaborative project work (learning outcomes 1-3) 5 credits

Three opportunities for examination are offered during the academic year. Students who have not finished the course,

have the opportunity to take part in examinations the next time the course is offered. Under such circumstances, assignments are carried out according to the literature and assignments that are valid during the time the examination is carried out.

For re-examination of certain assignments, such as production assignments and group projects, certain circumstances apply since the examination of these assignments are dependent on student participation during certain periods of time and in specific projects. Reexaminations will be offered according to the student’s rights, but with adjustments to the specific assignment since it cannot be conducted in the same context as the ordinary examination.

Reading guidelines and additional literature will be specified

in the course guide.

Anderson, C.B., Athayde, S., Raymond, C.M., Vatn, A., Arias, P., Gould, R.K., Kenter, J., Muraca, B., Sachdeva, S., Samakov, A., Zent, E., Lenzi, D., Murali, R., Amin, A., and Cantú- Fernández, M. (2022). Chapter 2: ‘Conceptualizing the diverse values of nature and their contributions to people’. In: Methodological Assessment Report on the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature of the Intergovernmental Science- Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Balvanera, P., Pascual, U., Christie, M., Baptiste, B., and González-Jiménez, D. (eds). IPBES secretariat, Bonn,

Germany. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6493134

Ehn, Pelle., M. Nilsson, Elisabet., and Topgaard, Richard. (2014). Making Futures: Marginal Notes on Innovation, Design and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Forlano, Laura (2017) ‘Posthumanism and Design’. In: She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation. Volume 3, Number 1, Sprin 2017. Elsevier

Houston, Lara, Light, Ann and Thornton, Cassie. (2022). ‘The Richness of Designing for Eco-Social Change’. In LIMITS ’22: Workshop on Computing within Limits, June 21–22, 2022. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 8 pages.

Laurin, Thomas, Jönsson, Li, Lilja, Petra, Lindström, Kristina, Sandelin, Erik, and Ståhl Åsa. (2022) ‘An Emerging Posthumanist Design Landscape’. In Herbrechter et al. (eds.) Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism. Springer

Manzini, Ezio. (2015) Design, When Everybody Designs - An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. MIT-press Wahl, Daniel Christian. (2016) Designing Regenerative Cultures. Triarchy Press

Wakkary, Ron. (2021) Things We Could Design: For More Than Human-Centred Worlds. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press

Malmö University provides students who participate in, or who have completed a course, with the opportunity to express their opinions and describe their experiences of the course by completing a course evaluation administered by the University. The University will compile and summarise the results of course evaluations. The University will also inform participants of the results and any decisions relating to measures taken in response to the course evaluations. The results will be made available to the students (HF 1:14).

If a course is no longer offered, or has undergone significant changes, the students must be offered two opportunities for re-examination based on the syllabus that applied at the time of registration, for a period of one year after the changes have been implemented.

If a student has a Learning support decision, the examiner has the right to provide the student with an adapted test, or to allow the student to take the exam in a different format. The syllabus is a translation of a Swedish source text.