Collaborative Future-Making is a research platform at the Faculty of Culture and Society at Malmö University that is concerned with how to envision, elaborate and prototype multiple, inclusive, and sustainable futures. The platform gathers around 20 researchers that share a methodological interest in how critical perspectives from the humanities and social sciences can be combined with the constructive and collaborative aspects of making and prototyping in design research.

The research centers around two major themes:

• Critical imagination​, which focuses on how basic assumptions, norms and structures can be challenged to widen the perspectives on what can constitute socially, culturally, ecologically and economically sustainable and resilient futures.
• Collaborative engagements​, which focuses on how we can set up more inclusive collaborations to prototype and discuss alternative futures, engaging not only professionals and policy makers but also citizens and civil society.

During 2019 the research group set out to make a shared glossary for collaborative future-making. The glossary is multiple in purpose and exists in several versions. Hopefully there will be more to come. At first, the making and articulation of the glossary was used within the research group as an exercise to share concepts that we found central to collaborative future-making, coming from different disciplines. This published version of the glossary was assembled to be used during a workshop called ​Imagining Collaborative Future-Making,​ which gathered a group of international researchers from different disciplines.

The collection of concepts reflects the heterogeneous and diverse character of the research group and a strong belief in that plurality regarding ontologies and epistemologies will be crucial to be able to handle the multiple uncertainties and complex challenges we have to face in the future. Some of the concepts are already well established within different research communities, but gain a specific meaning in relation to the research area. Others are more preliminary attempts to advance our understanding or probe into new potential practices within collaborative future-making. In that sense the concepts in the glossary are well situated and grounded in past and ongoing research within this research group, at the same time as they are meant to suggest, propose and point towards practices and approaches yet to come.

The concepts in this glossary are not only meant to be descriptive but also performative. In that sense, assembling and circulating this glossary is part of collaborative future-making. As pointed out by Michelle Westerlaken in her articulation of “Doing Concepts” (see page 15), “...without proposing, critiquing, or working towards a common or uncommon understanding of certain concepts, it becomes impossible to ‘make futures’ in any deliberate fashion.”

An increasing interest in commons has generated a rich literature related to co- and participatory design (PD). Besides providing examples, cases and methods, this literature often displays interpretations that are recognisably engaged and political in which commons have acquired an additional symbolic value. In some cases this symbolic value propels more ambitious narratives in which other, post-industrial/post-collapse futures or utopian societal forms are prototyped or infrastructured. Although this literature highlights an important connection between collaborative design and collaborative governance, we hold that the conception of commons underpinning some of these efforts is not fully relevant in contemporary urban contexts. In the following article we describe the practical and normative issues raised by transferring the concept of commons to a contemporary urban setting. We critique aspects of how the concept has been invoked in Co-Design and PD but also seek to demonstrate how it may be applied constructively, paying due attention to both network and subtractive effects of shared resources and acknowledging interrelations with the public sector.

Participatory forms of park governance have been seen as means of empowering users, improving adaptation to local needs and harnessing local resources. Participatory governance has however also been critiqued for benefiting only select groups. The situation is ambiguous with participation held to be both empowering in the sense of developing use-values in locally relevant ways and exclusionary in representing select interests. This research addresses the question of if and how a particular form of participatory governance, park commons, may be compatible with inclusive public space. To do so the research explores boundary work of user groups and public sector enabling in two park commons using a multiple case study approach. We find that park commons may be understood to contain a mix of different types of shared resources. The specific mix explains different expressions of user-generated boundaries and particularly the extent that these boundaries are permeable. The research also identifies several forms of public sector intervention that influence the ways boundaries are constructed. The findings indicate a potential for public managers to strategically enable commons as a means to increase civic engagement and potentially increase rather than diminish inclusiveness of parks.

Participatory forms of park governance have been seen as means of empowering users, improving adaptation to local needs and harness¬ing local resources. Participatory governance has however also been critiqued for benefiting only select groups. The situation is ambiguous with participation held to be both empowering in the sense of develop¬ing use-values in locally relevant ways and exclusionary in representing select interests. This research addresses the question of if and how a particular form of participatory governance, park commons, may be compatible with inclu¬sive public space. To do so the research explores boundary work of user groups and public sector enabling in two park commons using a multiple case study approach. We find that park commons may be understood to contain a mix of dif¬ferent types of shared resources. The specific mix explains different ex¬pressions of user-generated boundaries and particularly the extent that these boundaries are permeable. The research also identifies several forms of public sector intervention that influence the ways boundaries are constructed. The findings indicate a potential for public managers to strategically enable commons as a means to increase civic engagement and potentially increase rather than diminish inclusiveness of parks

Published on the occasion of the first graduation from the Design & Visual Communication bachelors degree at Malmö University. The book contains articles on design research by some of Sweden's leading scholars, as well presentations of the individual students and their final projects or portfolios. This book is the students' definition of what Design & Visual Communication means.