Next July 6th from 10:30-12:00 we will have the pleasure to have with us Dr. Anna Seravalli (Malmö University) presenting her most recent work.

 

The talk will take place at the MCTS's Room 270.

Here you have the title and abstract for the talk:

"When the makers meet the waste guys. An account of the setting up of ReTuren, Sweden first up cycling station"

In the last two years I have been involved as a (participatory) design researcher in the setting up and running of ReTuren an upcycling station. ReTuren is a platform that provides citizens with a waste disposal service, a service for exchanging things in good conditions and a workshop where they can engage in makers’ activities. Being part of setting up ReTuren has been an opportunity to explore how makers’ activities may travel (or scale up?) from grass-root initiatives to a waste handling organization, from a creative class venue to a segregated neighborhood and vice versa. And, through such journey, how they may challenge (and change?) waste handling, by reworking notions of waste and sustainability and by opening up for new roles and connections among the different actors involved in the process. The talk will discuss the setting up of ReTuren so far, describing how it developed and what kind of achievements but also challenges have been met along the way. When it comes to the process the focus will be on the infrastructuring approach (i.e. how to foster alignment and collaboration among different actors) and on the experimentation with/about makers’ activities. Some considerations about the researcher role will be also brought up. In discussing achievements and challenges the focus will be on how makers’ activities are getting (or not) to travel within the waste handling organization and on what has been learned so far in relation to cross-sector collaborations and collaborative ownership at ReTuren.

 

Dr. Anna Seravalli is a senior lecturer and a (participatory) design researcher at Malmö University. She has a background as industrial designer and holds a PhD in Design for Social Innovation. In the last six years she has been exploring alternative value production practices based on sharing and collaboration. She has been exploring this theme by engaging as a design researcher in long-term collaborative processes together different stakeholders (citizens, NGOs, small companies, civil servants) in the city of Malmö, Sweden.