Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
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PAPERS: Curriculum and pedagogies in design Location: 50 George Square, G.04 Zoom Link Accessibility: https://www.accessable.co.uk/the-university-of-edinburgh/central-area/access-guides/george-square-50 Session Chair: Nicole Lotz, The Open University Session Chair: Ricardo Sosa, University of Waikato | |
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Enacting Micro-Utopias: Situated Pedagogies of Collective Imagination in Design-based Education Häme University of Applied Sciences, Finland, Mondragon University, Spain This paper explores a pedagogical intervention that leveraged speculative enactment as a portal to utopian futures. During a Blended Intensive Program, students were presented with a design challenge that addresses workplace inclusion by reimagining it as a “future otherwise.” The challenge was projected into a future temporality, allowing participants to respond to contemporary challenges with radical imagination. Drawing on Levitas’s (2013) utopia as method and Bloch’s (1986) notion of concrete utopias, this study investigates how engaging with these enacted visions as sensorial expression serves as a mechanism to unleash potentialities latent in the present. Situated at the intersection of Design Futures, Education Research, and Utopian practices, the paper also draws from research on “futurelessness,” the sense that the future no longer holds personal or collective promise. The “enacting micro-utopias” intervention, performed in a higher education context, is shown to help cultivate open-ended futures and plural imaginations. View Paper: https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1424
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