Participants

Gunilla Edemo Licentiate SH

I have a background as an educator, journalist, cultural worker and also a civil servant at a few different authorities and larger organizations. For many years I worked within the performing arts, both artistically and in cultural policy. As a researcher, I belong to the field critical cultural theory and, more specifically, to the theory of practical knowledge. I work together with Lina Isacs in the project Salon of trouble .

Joel Göransson Scalzotto PhD student VTI

My doctoral project examines the role, dynamics and effects of backlash politics within sustainable transitions. Specifically, it looks at the intersections between social movements and political parties in the creation of backlash politics. Backlash politics in this context is loosely defined as the combination of 1) forceful negations of a proposed, or existing policy and 2) some sort of retrograde objective. I focus on the one hand on the dominant affects of backlash politics, and on the other hand how these affects give direction to the discursive coalitions made up of social movements and parties. In my research, affects are conceptualized as collective emotive "directions”, which shape both thought and emotion.

Susanna Hedborg Postdoc IBF

Susanna is a postdoc at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research (IBF) at Uppsala University. She has an interdisciplinary background as a civil engineer in construction project management and holds a PhD in Business Studies from KTH, with a focus on organizing for sustainable urban development. Susanna’s research is grounded in project and organization studies within transport and urban development, with particular emphasis on practices and informal relations. Within TRANSPLACE, she explores municipal planners’ practices for sustainable transformation, as well as collaboration in transport and urban development projects that span municipal, regional, and national levels. Susanna collaborates primarily with Botkyrka Municipality, but also with Region Stockholm and the Swedish Transport Administration. Susanna works in the project Organising multi-level public governance in transport and urban development . 

Emma Holmberg PhD student URS 

Emma is a human ecologist with working experience as a consultant for sustainable planning at the firm Ekologigruppen in Stockholm. At KTH she will explore alternative methods of planning for more-than-human worlds.

Karin Holmstrand PhD student VTI

My doctoral project focuses on exploring the institutional conditions for planning initiatives that place human well-being within planetary boundaries at the center of both goals and processes. The project consists of a British component and a Swedish component. The British part aims to study implemented well-being-oriented initiatives and the extent to which these have influenced local planning institutions' policies, practices, and processes. The Swedish component is more exploratory in nature, where, in collaboration with Botkyrka Municipality, Region Stockholm, and the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket), I investigate what a more well-being-focused and growth-independent planning agenda might mean within a Swedish planning context. Currently, I am inspired by Durrant, D., Lamker, C., & Rydin, Y. (2023). The Potential of Post-Growth Planning: Re-Tooling the Planning Profession for Moving beyond Growth. Planning Theory & Practice, 24(2), 287–295.

Lina Isacs Postdoc IBF

In my work in the project Salon of trouble , I build on my previous research on how ideas about “value” and human decision-making from neoclassical economics has influenced environmental policy. In addition to Clive Spash and other researchers in social-ecological economics, I am currently most of all inspired by Jonna Bornemark and her philosophy of not-knowing and contradictory desires, which I use to formulate a more profound critique of the neoclassical theory of value.

Rebecka Kjellström PhD student URS
Rebecka has a bachelor's degree in political science and economics and a master's degree from KTH in urban planning and design. She has previously worked as a research engineer in planning, focusing on transport and green-blue infrastructures. Her research will focus on how to work through the day-to-day planning to reach a more sustainable future through a focus on goals, values, and conflicts of interest. The project will revolve around how strategic regional planning can transition to a more sustainable future by working with visions of the future.

Therese Lilliesköld PhD student SH

My project partner is the Swedish transport administration and I investigate different aspects of how the road serves as both an attraction and a barrier for the more-than-human world. Also, I research underlying factors regarding which decisions, concerning nonhumans, are made on the authority. This is part of investigating which forms of knowledge that affect decisions on nonhuman animals in our society. I am interested in questions involving speaking for – about - and with more-than-humans and whether they can be participating actors in research.

I will create workshops for participants from the authority, using storytelling as a base. Here, I will also include examples of practices from other cultures than the “western” and have therefore started a cooperation with an anthrozoologist from India. Some sources of inspiration for me right now are speculative ethics, indigenous studies and how to apply biopolitics to more-than-human studies.

Jonathan Metzger Director TRANSPLACE

Professor of Urban and Regional Studies. Jonathan's work is distinctly interdisciplinary and relates to debates within planning studies, human geography, science and technology studies and as organization studies. His most recent book Dilemmas of Sustainable Urban Development: A Viewfrom Practice generates co-productive links between researchers and practitioners in the field of sustainable urban development. Profile KTH >

Sofia Wiberg Executive manager/operational director TRANSPLACE

Researcher at KTH/URS. Her research deals with participatory decision making processes in urban planning in relation to asymmetric power relations, democracy and practice-based knowledge. In recent years she has conducted research on artistic methods in urban development projects. She has a background as a planning practitioner, and has experience from teaching at the Centre for studies in practical knowledge. Profile KTH >

Maria Håkansson Associate Professor, URS

Associate Professor with long experience of research on local and regional sustainability together with practitioners as co-researchers. Focus is on preconditions for change, collaboration and professions. She also teaches a professional course on complexity and conflicts for practitioners. Experienced in doctoral supervision in the interface of urban and transport planning, sustainability and professional roles and practical judgement. Profile KTH >

Karin Bradley Professor, URS

Karin researches planning and policy for sustainable development and contestations around sustainable futures. She has led several research projects, supervised PhD students, co-directed the transdisciplinary programme Mistra Sustainable Consumption and collaborated with municipalities, regions, national authorities and NGOs. She has had several assignments from the Swedish government, including leading a public inquiry on the sharing economy. Profile KTH >

 Jonna Bornemark Professor SH

Professor of philosophy and specialized in the theory of practical knowledge. Between 2012 and 2014 she was Director at the Centre, and Director of the PhD-education in the theory of practical knowledge 2015-2018. She is one of Sweden’s best-known philosophers and her publications have in recent years had a major impact on public debates in Sweden regarding bureaucratization, performance measurement and practical judgement. Profile SU >

Karolina Isaksson Adjunct Professor VTI

Senior researcher/adjunct professor. At VTI, Karolina is involved in research on climate policy integration, sustainability mobility transitions and political challenges and power dynamics in relation to land use- and transport policy and planning. She has a rich experience of supervising doctoral students in practice-oriented research, and of managing research and knowledge development processes in close collaboration with policy and planning organizations. Profile KTH >

Claus Hedegaard Sørensen Senior researcher and research leader, VTI

A main focus of Claus' research is transformation of the transport sector to suit a sustainable society. Claus has published more than 100 publications of various kinds. He has been research leader and coordinator at the Institute of Transport Economics (Norway), at DTU Transport (Denmark), and at The Swedish Knowledge Centre for Public Transport (K2). Profile VTI >

Kristina Boréus Professor in Political science, IBF

Professor of political science at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research (IBF) and has been active in the development of the research area Transitional Cities. She researches grassroots initiatives’ role in climate-related city transition and has extensive experience of organizing PhD programs. Profile UU >