Programme
11:00 AM – Trial lecture
I am because we are in the Nordics
A critical view on Ubuntu as a transferable concept for scenario co-creation and how it might be applied to participatory design approaches and methods developed in and for Nordic contexts."
13:00 PM – Defence
Thesis abstract
This PhD by publication presents six peer-reviewed contributions that together explore scenario building by engaging with complexity, power, and transformation to collaboratively shape sustainable futures. Drawing on Systemic, Collaborative, and Anticipatory Design, and grounded in a relational design ontology and constructivist epistemology, this research introduces the Relational Design Scenarios Approach.
Set within the socio-ecological context of the lower Eerste River near Faure in South Africa, this work features novel scenario building artefacts – including the Scenario Thinking Canvas and Scenario Building Cards – that serve as tools of inquiry that invite communities, policymakers, and designers into dialogic, co-imaginaries and the co-authorship of place-based futures through collaborative action – resulting in the establishing of the Faure Community Cooperative and the Faure Eco-Cultural Corridor.
Bridging Design Studies and Futures Studies, the thesis brings together scenario thinking, design scenarios, and socio-ecological systems to reframe futures as emergent and plural. It further draws on Ubuntu philosophy in Design and decolonial feminist perspectives to challenge dominant foresight paradigms and assert futures from the Global South as collective worldmaking.
Biography
Corbin is a South African design researcher whose work over the past decade explores collaboration and sustainable futures. With a background spanning Industrial Design, Sustainable Product-Service Systems, Systems Oriented Design, and Visual Communication Design, he applies his interdisciplinary expertise across design education, international research projects, the private sector, and NGOs. Corbin integrates Design and Futures Studies to explore practices of scenario building that may advance collaborative governance. His research addresses public challenges related to climate change, environmental degradation, and social cohesion, particularly within the complex socio-ecological contexts of the Global South.
Supervisor
Andrew Morrison (AHO)
Adjudication committee
1. opponent: Professor Elena Formia, University of Bologna
2. opponent: Dr. Vikki Eriksson, Aalto University
Coordinator: Associate Professor Anders Ese