Co-Producing Social Futures Through Design Research

This report summarises findings and outcomes from a 9-month, AHRC-funded research programme called Developing Participation in Social Design: Prototyping Projects, Programmes and Policies (henceforward ProtoPublics) that took place during 2015. A key aim of this report is to clarify how a design-oriented approach complements and is distinct from other kinds of cross-disciplinary, co-produced research in relation to social issues

Making and Opening: Entangling Design and Social Science - conference delegate hand-out

Design and social science disciplines intersect at a number of points. While there is excellent work exploring many of these points of contact, there is also a tendency for social science to treat design as a topic (e.g. what does design do and how might this be accounted for in sociological terms?), and for design to treat social science as a resource (e.g. what useful knowledge does sociology produce and how can this be deployed to model users or construct scenarios?). This day conference aims to contribute to the move beyond this pattern. Collecting a group of leading practitioners in design and social science, the conference will present a series of dialogues and commentaries on a range of common, open issues. Specifically, the format runs like this: invited speakers (Harvey, Michelle, Pelle and Bill) will speak for around 25 minutes; there will then be a short response/reflection/ discussion from a local colleague (please see below), then 20 minutes open discussion. Each titled session is not rigidly defined, rather the topics are simply prompts to further thought, for instance: how might the practices of speculative or critical designers furnish social science with new insights into the study and articulation of society? How might social science’s interest in complexity contribute to the iterative process of making in design? In what ways might these fit together or articulate? In the final session, Lucy will make provide some general observations and comments and there will be a final open discussion

2018: Art & Mobilities Network Inaugural Symposium Instant Journal (Peter Scott Gallery)

"Mobilities has been gaining momentum through networks, conferences, books, special issues, exhibitions and in the practices of artists, writers and curators. In recognition of this activity we are forming an Art & Mobilities network through which to consolidate, celebrate and develop this work.Inspired by the recent foregrounding of Mobility and the Humanities (Pearce & Merriman, 2018) and drawing on last November's successful Mobile Utopia Exhibition amongst others, the Centre for Mobilities Research (CEMORE) at Lancaster University are pleased to hold a UK Art & Mobilities Network Inaugural Symposium 2018 on the 3rd of July 2018. The aim of the symposium is to bring together people in the UK who are active in the field of mobilities and art in order to discuss the distinctive contribution that art makes to mobilities research and vice versa. We would be delighted if you can join us for this one-day event to help shape the network, particularly in the context of a fast-changing world, not just socio-politically but in terms of the place of art in the academy and vice versa. There are nearly 30 key international artists and researchers gathered on this day both locally and via Skype. We invite all participants in the symposium to bring with them an artwork, artefact, written statement or quote that can be displayed as a ‘pop up’ exhibition. These artefacts will be used during the day to focus discussion around different facets of mobilities and art." (Jen Southern, Kai Syng Tan, Emma Rose, Linda O'Keeffe Editors

Doing Critical Creative Practice and Social Research

Larissa Hjorth interviews Kat Jungnickel about how social research and creative practice synergies are being redefined as part of doing critical research, which has recently seen the role of creative practice (or “research creation”) as central in doing impactful research within community and industry. Jungnickel also considers how her creative-based research projects are concerned with invention, mobilities (particularly cycling), gender, DIY and DIT (do-it-together) technology cultures and creative research transmissions

Women on the Move - film and afterword

Women on the Move has been funded by the European Research Council as part of the Politics of Patents (POP) project led by Dr Kat Jungnickel (Goldsmiths, University of London) and brought to life by The Adventure Syndicate

Women on the Move Trailer

Women on the Move is made by The Adventure Syndicate and the result of Dr Kat Jungnickel (Goldsmiths, University of London) research into the inventive ways women from 1890-1940 adapted their clothing in order to be sporty and active

RESCRIPTING FAILURE: THE REFLEXIVE STORIES THAT FIELDWORK TELLS

Researching everyday media practices is a messy and tricky business fraught with uncertainty. In this panel the authors ask how stories of failure, especially during fieldwork, can be rethought as a meaningful emergent method and approach. How can we productively reframe failure as a core part of the research process that cannot be subsumed into the telos of a success story after the research has been completed? How does does failure work in research? Our approach takes a different stance from dominant stories in the tech industry and geek economy, where failure is often represented in linear, heroic, gendered and individualistic ways, retrospectively rendering mess as instrumental to success. Similarly, within academia there are many research processes in which failure is instrumentalised or obscured—from writing up fieldwork into neatly packaged case-studies, to causal accounts of effective intervention. Progress narratives of knowledge production have been subject to much debate and criticism. What has been less discussed is how failures work as sometimes uncontainable aspects of research praxes—how they are endemic to the process of data collection and analysis, materializing while in the field. In this panel we suggest that these experiences are core to the thickness of fieldwork—they disclose the messiness and dynamics of the social, and should be included in the stories we tell. This panel aims to liberate discussion about failure to render it visible and core to understanding the politics and ethics of fieldwork and the research process. Through a series of stories from our fieldwork, we seek to further critical understanding of methodologies and techniques of failure, and argue for our obligations as researchers to talk about what happens when things go wrong

Residential Mobility, Technology and Social Ties

Fellowship. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agencies