Processes of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Sphere of Prosumerism

The term prosumer, first introduced by Toffler in the 1980s, has been developed by sociologists in response to Web 2.0 (the set of technologies that has transformed a predominantly static web into the collaborative medium initially envisaged by Tim Berners-Lee). The phenomena is now understood as a process involving the creation of meanings on the part of the consumer, who re-appropriates spaces that were dominated by institutionalized production, and this extends to the exploitation of consumer creativity on the production side. Recent consumption literature can be re-interpreted through the prosumer lens in order to understand whether prosumers are more creative or alienated in their activities. The peculiar typology of prosumption introduced by Web 2.0 leads us to analyze social capital as a key element in value creation, and to investigate its different online and offline forms. Our analysis then discusses the digital divide and critical consumerism as forms of empowerment impairment

Contributing to sustainable and just energy systems? The mainstreaming of renewable energy prosumerism within and across institutional logics

Renewable energy (RE) prosumerism comes with promises and expectations of contributing to sustainable and just energy systems. In its current process of becoming mainstream, numerous challenges and doubts have arisen whether it will live up to these. Building on insights from sustainability transitions research and institutional theory, this article unpacks the mainstreaming by considering the range of institutional arrangements and logics through which these contributions might be secured. Taking a Multi-actor Perspective, it analyses the differences, combinations, and tensions between institutional logics, associated actor roles and power relations. Firstly, it unpacks how mainstreaming occurs through mechanisms of bureaucratisation and standardisation (state logic), marketisation and commodification (market logic), as well as socialisation and communalisation (community logic). Secondly, it highlights the concomitant hybridisation of institutional logics and actor roles. Such hybrid institutional arrangements try to reconcile not only the more known trade-offs and tensions between for-profit/non-profit logics (regarding the distribution of benefits for energy activities and resources), but also between formal/informal logics (gaining recognition) and public/private logics (delineating access). This institutional concreteness moves the scholarly discussion and policy debate beyond idealistic discussions of ethical principles and abstract discussions about power: Simplistic framings of ‘prosumerism vs incumbents’ are dropped in favour of a critical discussion of hybrid institutional arrangements and their capacity to safeguard particular transformative ideals and normative commitments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A New Player for Tackling Inequalities? Framing the Social Value and Impact of the Maker Movement

The Maker Movement has raised great expectations towards its potential for tackling social inequalities by mediating technology-related skills to everybody. Are maker spaces new players for social inclusion in digital societies? How can this potential impact be framed? While scientific discourse has so far identified broad value and impact dimensions of the Maker Movement, this article adds empirical insight into the potential for tackling social inequalities. The study is based on 39 interviews with makers and managers of maker initiatives and ten self-reporting surveys filled in by maker initiative managers throughout Europe, which have been analyzed qualitatively. We found four main domains in which makers address social inclusion: First, by mediating skills and competences not only in the field of digital technologies but in the broader sense of empowering people to “make” solutions for encountered problems. Second, we found that makers actively strive to provide democratized access to digital fabrication and the knowledge on how to use them. Third and fourth, we found different ambitions articulated by makers to change society and social practices towards a society providing better opportunities for individuals. As an entry point for further research and actions, we derived a maker typology that reflects the diverse and various types of relationships to be found in the maker community. This typology could be used for exploring further collaborations between social actors and the Maker Movement. We conclude with an outlook on potential trajectories of the Maker Movement and specify which could influence the inclusion of marginalized persons

Contributing to sustainable and just energy systems? The mainstreaming of renewable energy prosumerism within and across institutional logics

Renewable energy (RE) prosumerism comes with promises and expectations of contributing to sustainable and just energy systems. In its current process of becoming mainstream, numerous challenges and doubts have arisen whether it will live up to these. Building on insights from sustainability transitions research and institutional theory, this article unpacks the mainstreaming by considering the range of institutional arrangements and logics through which these contributions might be secured. Taking a Multi-actor Perspective, it analyses the differences, combinations, and tensions between institutional logics, associated actor roles and power relations. Firstly, it unpacks how mainstreaming occurs through mechanisms of bureaucratisation and standardisation (state logic), marketisation and commodification (market logic), as well as socialisation and communalisation (community logic). Secondly, it highlights the concomitant hybridisation of institutional logics and actor roles. Such hybrid institutional arrangements try to reconcile not only the more known trade-offs and tensions between for-profit/non-profit logics (regarding the distribution of benefits for energy activities and resources), but also between formal/informal logics (gaining recognition) and public/private logics (delineating access). This institutional concreteness moves the scholarly discussion and policy debate beyond idealistic discussions of ethical principles and abstract discussions about power: Simplistic framings of ‘prosumerism vs incumbents’ are dropped in favour of a critical discussion of hybrid institutional arrangements and their capacity to safeguard particular transformative ideals and normative commitments

Contributing to sustainable and just energy systems? The mainstreaming of renewable energy prosumerism within and across institutional logics

Renewable energy (RE) prosumerism comes with promises and expectations of contributing to sustainable and just energy systems. In its current process of becoming mainstream, numerous challenges and doubts have arisen whether it will live up to these. Building on insights from sustainability transitions research and institutional theory, this article unpacks the mainstreaming by considering the range of institutional arrangements and logics through which these contributions might be secured. Taking a Multi-actor Perspective, it analyses the differences, combinations, and tensions between institutional logics, associated actor roles and power relations. Firstly, it unpacks how mainstreaming occurs through mechanisms of bureaucratisation and standardisation (state logic), marketisation and commodification (market logic), as well as socialisation and communalisation (community logic). Secondly, it highlights the concomitant hybridisation of institutional logics and actor roles. Such hybrid institutional arrangements try to reconcile not only the more known trade-offs and tensions between for-profit/non-profit logics (regarding the distribution of benefits for energy activities and resources), but also between formal/informal logics (gaining recognition) and public/private logics (delineating access). This institutional concreteness moves the scholarly discussion and policy debate beyond idealistic discussions of ethical principles and abstract discussions about power: Simplistic framings of ‘prosumerism vs incumbents’ are dropped in favour of a critical discussion of hybrid institutional arrangements and their capacity to safeguard particular transformative ideals and normative commitments

Spectatorship, Politics and the Rules of Participation: Re-discovering the Audience in Contemporary Lithuanian Theatre

Contemporary theatre performances offer many examples of audience engagement - its forms range from physical interventions into public space to mental emancipation of the audience’s imagination. These practices put into question the effectiveness of the existing tools of audience research because, in some instances, theatre serves as a manipulation machine, “tricking” the public to perform specific social actions, while in other cases, it becomes a tool for the deconstruction of manipulation mechanisms at the same time serving as a platform for engaging entertainment. Audience research paradigms, based on dichotomies such as passive/active, inclusion/exclusion or incorporation/resistance are no longer able to address the complex concepts of spectatorship as performance, co-creation, or audience participation. Therefore, new practices of audience participation, conspicuously emerging in contemporary Lithuanian theatre, can only be adequately addressed by combining methodologies from different disciplines and critically evaluating historical and theoretical implications of these practices. In my article, I will focus on the historical implications of the term “audience participation” as a form of public engagement and issues of its application as experienced by theatre artists and audiences in Lithuania. The article will also examine the theoretical implications of the notion of participatory turn and its effect on theatre productions at the same time challenging the conceptual equations of “active spectatorship” in the aesthetic sphere to the emergence of “active participant” in the public sphere

Barriers and Opportunities of Cultural Heritage in Energy Transition

The urgent need to change the consumption habits of the world is highlighted in many policy documents. The role of cultural heritage in this transformation is vital because on the one hand, the responsibility for preserving cultural heritage can create a challenge for energy transition and on the other hand, the accumulated knowledge and experience on cultural heritage may facilitate the transition. The most vital challenge is related to the concept of ‘authenticity’ and the lack of regulatory frameworks (legislation, funding, etc.). However, in terms of energy efficiency, transforming an old building with a new function is more sustainable than demolishing and constructing a new one. Moreover, the energy transition will cause the abandonment of many energy infrastructures that seem indispensable today. The experience in the management of cultural heritage will be helpful in dealing with this change. Therefore, to imagine a better future, it is necessary to carefully consider these opportunities and barriers in an integrated manner

Aetherspheres: spatial sensitivity and self awareness in food and social media prosuming practices

The focal point of this thesis is on whether and how digital practices can challenge and reintroduce values and concepts related to self-awareness and spatial sensitivity. It uses prosuming practices of food and social media as a research and learning tool. Prosumption is a compound word formed by joining the words production and consumption and, in brief, it means producing for one’s own consumption. This study is conducted in the area of digital media and architecture. The main architectural interest lies in the way that place (and notions related to the private and public spheres) is perceived by its users and how this experience can be affected by prosuming social media platforms every day. In particular, this study explores if and how digital media, especially the prosuming of social media content, alters preestablished issues related to spatial sensitivity. A thorough critical examination of the prevailing views on these topics, as well as their evolution in time, is described. The present status of the matters studied is approached by a literature review and an empirical study using mainly phenomenological methods of approach. Food prosuming is explored first and the conclusions reached, related to self awareness and spatial sensitivity, are then further tested and attempts are then made to apply these to social media content prosuming. The research methods used involved in-depth interviews with 35 participants over a period of two years. Individuals who covered a spectrum of different ages, social groups and professional categories were selected for interview. Data relating to the documentation of prosuming practices of the participants, questionnaires, and personal reflections through blogging and social media practices were recorded. Furthermore, one intervention of public prosuming activity was also investigated. As it was found in food prosumerism, there is a significant difference if practiced occasionally and when practiced in the frame of habitual everydayness. This differentiation can be related to and affect issues such as privacy and the personal and social spheres. It was also found that while casual prosuming in the digital domain of social media involves aspects and values of the public domain, everydayness transforms these digital prosuming practices into familiar practices as they are habituated in the private domain. Schematically, this can be represented as: Public → Casual → Private. Everyday digital prosumerism cultivates and incorporates issues of the private domain, whereas by definition it should incorporate issues of the social domain. This is what in this thesis is referred to as issues of the public-private domain. This remark, though, affects the essence of spatial sensitivity, the understanding of the private and the social sphere and the values and tendencies involved. Our findings suggest that, in most cases of food prosuming, when sharing, the host aims to instil a specific mood for the event, to be responsible for the setting, the ambience, the atmosphere of the sharing experience with the guests and the facilitation of sharing. In the digital domain, the mood and ambience of the sharing setting might follow the same pattern as is facilitated by the host, but at the same time the process of sharing sets the mood in an accelerated process; it is co-created, continued or totally altered by the public private sphere. Prosumerism as explored so far is correlated positively to issues of selfactualization and personal wellbeing (Xie, Troye and Bagozzi, 2008). Do digital prosuming practices share the same qualities? Personal atmospheres today, or what we call in this thesis aetherspheres, incorporate values and issues cultivated and fed by the fused atmosphere of the physical and the digital domain, forming a new ethos of prosumerism and crafting new norms

Genealogy, culture and technomyth: decolonizing western information technologies, from open source to the maker movement

Western-derived maker movements and their associated fab labs and hackerspaces are being lauded by some as a global industrial revolution, responsible for groundbreaking digital “entanglements” that transform identities, practices and cultures at an unprecedented rate (Anderson 2014; Hills 2016). Assertions proliferate regarding the societal and entrepreneurial benefits of these “new” innovations, with positive impacts ascribed to everything, from poverty to connectivity. However, contradictory evidence has started to emerge, suggesting that a heterogeneous set of global cultural practices have been homogenized. This paper employs a materialist genealogical framework to deconstruct three dominant narratives about information technologies, which we call “technomyths” in the tradition of McGregor et al. After outlining the maker movement, its assumptions are examined through three lesser-cited examples: One Laptop per Child in Peru, jugaad in India and shanzhai copyleft in China. We then explore two preceding technomyths: Open Source and Web 2.0. In conclusion, we identify three key aspects as constitutive to all three technomyths: technological determinism of information technologies, neoliberal capitalism and its “ideal future” subjectivities and the absence and/or invisibility of the non-Western

Scales of Energy Justice: Solar power and energy poverty alleviation

The threats climate change poses require rapid and wide decarbonization efforts in the energy sector. Historically, traditional, large-scale energy operations have frequently led to energy-related injustices. Energy poverty is one such injustice that has gained attention as an important issue to address within low-carbon energy transitions. Energy poverty (the condition of being unable to access an adequate level of household energy services) persists despite the existence of renewable energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics (PV), which offer cheap, clean, and highly scalable energy. Historical injustices and the modularity of solar PV offers new possibilities in ownership, production and distribution of energy and calls into question the traditional scalar approach to energy operations. This thesis reports on a case study of solar power in Lisbon, Portugal. It investigates the potential of solar PV to alleviate energy poverty and the role of scale in energy justice in relation to renewable energy transformations. The case consists of eight weeks of field work which generated insights on community and expert perspectives. Methods used in the field are non-attribution, semi-structured interviews, and field observations. Secondary research methods included deskwork and document analysis. Interviews were analyzed using the qualitative data analysis program NVivo and through comparison to relevant grey and academic literature. I used an energy justice framework to identify and discuss justice aspects of solar PV uptake at different scales. Results indicate that energy justice is shaped in diverse ways at different scales, and that scale matters for energy justice. The Lisbon case illustrates how small- and medium-scale approaches to energy distribution can address energy justice concerns. The study finds that such approaches are gaining attention and legitimacy, but do not yet include all socio-economic groups. It moreover shows how large-scale approaches to energy are potentially well-equipped to make renewable technologies, such as solar PV, widely accessible.Master's Thesis in GeographyGEO350MASV-PHYGMASV-MEHAMASV-GEOGMPGEOG