I have a background as an educator, cultural worker and also a civil servant at a few different authorities and larger organizations. As a researcher, I belong to the field critical cultural theory and, more specifically, to the theory of practical knowledge. At the moment, I am particularly interested in how individual and collective reflexive abilities are expressed in professional life. Can reflection with the support of artistic methods contribute to shifting and changing how civil servants understand and use space for action?
Together with the Swedish Public Arts Agency and Moderna Dansteatern on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm, we organise four salons where public officials, artists and researchers meet for joint reflection, existential conversations and artistic creations under the guidance of process leader Pernilla Glaser. Art speaks to sensuality, emotions and not-knowing, challenging the dominant view of what kind of knowledge is right and important for understanding and changing the world.
We have chosen to call the reflection rooms "salons". Other possible names could be, for example, "seminar" or "workshop". But the salon is theatrical, in its artistic expressions and working methods can become more equal with science, politics and bureaucracy, than I see as possible in the type of rooms that are often taken for granted in municipal, regional and state bureaucracy, as well as in academia. Historically, salons have been a kind of space where people could gather to challenge hegemonies, which could perhaps be seen by analogy with what it takes to challenge the neoclassical theory of value? I am inspired by artistic research, research in popular education and practical knowledge. Right now I'm reading both the 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and a contemporary cultural theorist named Sara Ahmed.
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 has a PhD in business studies from KTH, in sustainable urban development. Susanna’s research is based on project studies of urban development contexts, with a focus on construction clients’ relationships and practices. Within TRANSPLACE Susanna will expand her research to explore municipalities' role in shaping context for sustainable 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
I collaborate with Gunilla Edemo in a joint project where we use arts-based research methods to explore unlearning of taken-for-granted ideas that hinder sustainable transition in urban and transport planning, and to search for alternatives. Together with the Swedish Public Arts Agency and Moderna Dansteatern on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm, we organise four salons where public officials, artists and researchers meet for joint reflection, existential conversations and artistic creations under the guidance of process leader Pernilla Glaser. Art speaks to sensuality, emotions and not-knowing, challenging the dominant view of what kind of knowledge is right and important for understanding and changing the world. In the salons, we particularly want to challenge what I call economism, the mix of ideas and practices that characterises social planning and management today and which idealises a narrow form of rationality, measurability in money and “economic efficiency” and therefore makes invisible what cannot be measured. An important driving force behind our project is the “attrition” (in Swedish skav) that civil servants (like many others) experience over the fact that economistic ideas make it difficult to consider nature, long term perspectives and transformation. I feel that attrition too. From my perspective and that of many other critical researchers (read more about my background below), economism is partly related to the strong status that neoclassical economics has and has long had as an expert science in public administration and which, despite long-standing criticism, reaches more and more policy areas. Together with the salon participants as co-researchers, I want to use our common ground constructively to be able to “think and do new”, beyond the neoclassical heritage but also beyond the common criticism of it. TRANSPLACE's practice partners participate in the project: Huddinge Municipality, Botkyrka Municipality, the Stockholm Region and the Swedish Transport Administration. Employees from them actively participate in the salons as co-researchers.
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.
Åsa Nyblom PhD Student IVL
How do you make the sustainable transformations of society happen? This broad question is what has guided and driven my work during my entire professional life within applied and often co-created Sustainability Science. Consequently, it is also the overarching focus of this thesis, which I will complete as affiliated to TRANSPLACE and Urban and Regional studies at KTH, but in my capacity as employed at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute. Since I have a licentiate degree from 10 years ago, my thesis will build partly on previous results, and span approximately 15 years of research.
The tentative title of my thesis is: Understandings of sustainability transformations: from national governance and local planning to everyday practices
The precise formulation of my aim and research questions is currently under revision. But broadly speaking, the aim of the thesis is to provide empirically based, richer understandings of how different places and actors relate to sustainable societal transformations that, together with theory, can form actionable knowledge and strategies forward for making transformation happen. Useful for e.g. planning practice.
Two of my main points of interest is to explore:
How conceptualisations of sustainability and narratives about the future plays a role in societal sustainability transformations (both those who happen, and those who stand still)
How narratives and scenarios can be used to expand transformation capacity as well as space for action.
My research is based on qualitative, often explorative, co-created ethnographical methods, and I have often used a Social Practice Theory framework (Schwanen et al. 2012, Shove 2003) to explore the material, social, and ecological interplay of world and people. Right now I'm interested in the utopian approach to policy, i.e. to “think first about where we want to be, and then about how we might get there” as outlined by Ruth Levitas (2001, p. 450). And Elin Wägner’s thoughts on sustainability.
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 >
Pernilla Hagbert Researcher KTH
Pernilla is a researcher at the division of Urban and Regional Studies at the Department of Urban Planning and Environment at KTH. Pernilla's research addresses the barriers and opportunities for sustainability transitions across multiple scales; from norm-critical perspectives on everyday practices, exploring the interpretations (and paradoxes) of sustainability in housing and urban development, developing capacities for transformation in municipal and regional planning, to critically examining "green" industrial transformations and scenarios for a future sustainable society. 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 >
Mathias Wärnhjelm Project Manager STA
Mathias holds a PhD in Planning and Decision Analysis specialized in Urban and Regional Studies. He has previously been Head of Department at the Swedish Transport Administration and Head of the Traffic Department in the city of Umeå.
Einar Tufvesson Strategist STA
Einar has a degree as a community planner from Stockholm University, specializing in Regional Planning from KTH. Einar works as a strategist at the Swedish Transport Administration, focusing on strategic planning, research, and innovation. He is an expert on public transport and mobility services (MaaS).
Michael Erman Group manager of The Strategic Development at Region Stockholm.
Micharl has a broad experience of planning practice and research at both the international as well as national, regional and local level in Sweden, as well as from the private sector. He has previously held various expert and managerial positions at the Swedish Ministry of Finance, RISE, WSP, the Regional Planning Office of Stockholm County Council, the Urban Planning Department in the City of Stockholm, the Nordic Council of Ministers, and the Nordregio applied research institute.
Isak Rubensson Cost-benefit Analyst at the Transport Administration, Region Stockholm.
Isak's doctoral thesis, Making Equity in Public Transport Count, proposes ways of quantifying the distributional effects of public transport operations. Isak also holds an affiliated faculty position at KTH.
Charlotta Brask Director of Development Botkyrka Municipality
Charlotta's mission is to contribute to a sustainable society with a scientific and goal-oriented approach combined with value-based leadership. She is passionate about finding new solutions and the right incentives to create a society where the needs of people are met and where planetary health is the prevailing condition. She holds a Master in Chemistry from the University of Lund and a Bachelor in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Lund.
Susanne works as an urban planner with a focus on infrastructure and mobility at Botkyrka Municipality's Municipal Executive Board Administration. She also has experience working as a traffic planner at the municipality. During the years 2001-2019, she worked at the City of Stockholm's Traffic Office as, among other things, a unit manager for the operation and maintenance of streets, an operations strategist, and a project manager.
Gustav Fridlund Head of Industry & Trade Knivsta Municipality
Gustav has an extensive knowledge of planning practice. He has previously worked in Botkyrka Municipality, holding positions as Development leader and head of Industry & Trade. He holds a PhD from KTH/URS. In his thesis he investigates practical judgement in planning processes and highlight ambiguities as a resource for enhancing practical wisdom in planning practice.
Pernilla Westerback Knivsta Municipality
David Grind Deputy Director of Urban Development, Huddinge Municipality
David has responsibility for strategic urban development issues in Huddinge Municipality. He has extensive experience in civil engineering and has worked in several municipalities in the Stockholm area. David holds a Master of Science in Engineering from KTH.
Lena Fyrvald Sustainability strategist, Huddinge Municipality
Lena works as a sustainability strategist at the strategic section of the urban development department at Huddinge Municipality. She focus on social and ecological sustainability within urban planning and development and holds a Master of Science in Engineering from KTH in Civil Engineering/Surveying.
Sebastian Dahlqvist & Elof Hellström Hägerstensåsens medborgarhus
