Abstract Sustainability is a catchword for contemporary concerns of environmental and societal vulnerability. Scholars, policymakers, designers, and educators alike find themselves knotted increasingly within fabrics of sustainability, approached as an object of concern in education and technoscientific projects. In relation, scholars drawing from posthuman and new materialist thinking have begun to re-imagine sustainability. Considering human subjectivity as part of the world in its ongoing, reiterative becoming has introduced new possibilities to rethink responsibility in and for sustainable change. This research is rooted in my engaged practices of participatory design and education on violence, violence prevention, and non-violence, which form the empirical research terrain of this study. This dissertation includes four articles that inquire into the practices in question by exploring possibilities for nurturing non-violence—and by scrutinising responsible participatory practices in design. This synopsis re-engages with the results presented in the articles mentioned and participates in calls to rethink sustainability. In order to reconsider sustainability in and for practices of sustainable change, I develop theoretical thinking based on response-ability and touch, as discussed by Karen Barad and Donna Haraway. Through a diffractive, affirmative engagement with sustainability in the engaged practices of change-making, I aim to unfold the affordances of feminist (new) materialist renegotiations of ethics and responsibility, in order to inform responsible participatory practices of change-making and, in particular, change towards non-violence. This research offers insight into the intricate ways sustainability reconfigures in and through practices of change-making in participatory design, education, and everyday engagements for non-violence. I begin by proposing a thinking and practice of response-able engagement. Then, through the idea of touchable matters, I foreground how the co-constituted conditions of ethically sustainable response become reconfigured in the designerly, the researcherly, the pedagogical, and other everyday practices, challenging for a shift to a new mode of entangled response-ability for sustainable change and towards non-violence. / Tiivistelmä Kestävyys on aikaamme läpileikkaava, sosiaalisiin ja ekologisiin epäkohtiin tarttuva haaste, joka yhdistää tutkijoita ja muita toimijoita moninaisina jaetun huolen ja interventioiden kohteina myös koulutuksellisissa ja teknotieteellisissä projekteissa. Posthumanistinen ja uusmaterialistinen ajattelu on haastanut ymmärryksiä kestävyydestä asettamalla inhimillisen toimijuuden erottamattomaksi osaksi maailman jatkuvia tulemisen ja tuottumisen prosesseja. Painopiste kestävyyden, muutoksen ja niihin liittyvien vastuullisuuksien tarkastelussa on siirtynyt arkisten käytänteiden moniulotteisiin kietoutuneisuuksiin. Väitöstutkimukseni sisältää neljä artikkelia, jotka perustuvat kahteen empiiriseen kokonaisuuteen. Työni aineisto on tuotettu tutkimalla työpaikkakiusaamiseen liittyvän osallistuvan suunnittelun vastuullisia käytänteitä sekä väkivaltaa, väkivallan ehkäisemistä ja väkivallattomuutta käsittelevää akateemista koulutusta. Väitöskirjaan sisältyvissä artikkeleissa olen tarkastellut pyrkimyksiä kohti väkivallattomuutta sekä muutokseen sitoutuneita ja siihen moninaisesti kietoutuvia käytänteitä. Työni yhteenveto-osassa työstän artikkeleissa esitettyjä osallistumista, refleksiivisyyttä, välittämistä ja väkivallattomuutta käsitteleviä tuloksia diffraktiivisesti. Työstämisen teoreettis-käsitteellisenä kumppanina toimivat Karen Baradin ja Donna Harawayn kosketusta ja vastuullisuutta käsittelevät keskustelut. Yhteenvedon tavoitteena on tarkastella feministisen (uus)materialistisen ajattelun mahdollisuuksia tuottaa uutta ymmärrystä kestävyydestä osana vastuullisia osallistuvia toimintatapoja muutoksen – ja erityisesti väkivallattomuuteen pyrkivän muutoksen – jokapäiväisissä käytänteissä. Kestävän muutoksen ja väkivallattomuuden mahdollisuudet tuottuvat osallistuvan suunnittelun, koulutuksen ja arjen käytänteissä moninaisin tavoin. Vastuullisuutta tarkastellessani esitän ajatuksen ”koskettavista kudelmista”, mikä kutsuu tunnistamaan, kuinka eettisen kestävyyden ja suhteisuuden mahdollisuudet ”kanssatuottuvat” arkisissa kohtaamisissa. Samalla se haastaa rakentamaan uudenlaista, tähän eettis-ontologiseen kietoutuneisuuteen sitoutunutta vastuullisuutta jokapäiväisissä suunnittelun, tutkimuksen, koulutuksen ja arjen pyrkimyksissä kohti kestävää muutosta ja väkivallattomuutta.

In this thesis I explore the place of the human in the Anthropocene, and our relationship to the Earth through an analysis of N. K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth trilogy. As the trilogy depicts an apocalyptic landscape where the Earth has sentience and humanity is divided into three subspecies, this work of speculative fiction lends itself well to be interrogated and examined as an allegory for our current climate crisis. The analysis is anchored in posthumanism and employs a variety of concepts, such as Bruno Latour’s work on agency and deanimation, Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene, and Amitav Ghosh’s work on speculative fiction among others. I argue that The Broken Earth trilogy illustrates that the Earth is an agentive network that can no longer be ignored and contend that the trilogy complicates both anthropocentrism and individualism by depicting amplified versions of human beings, and in doing so highlights the arbitrary boundaries between both nature and society, and human and nonhuman. Thus, The Broken Earth trilogy can be read as a warning call for a future to be avoided at all costs, while concurrently be used to make sense of the incomprehensibility of our contemporary era.

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This master thesis is inspired by St. Pierre’s post qualitative inquiry and the philosophy of immanence, which support the creation of concepts through immersion in theory, philosophy, and practice. This serves as a guide of thought for the inquirer´s journey of exploration and creativity. This research departures in Latour´s concept of the Terrestrial, enriched by Haraway´s addition to the concept; and in Haraway´s theory of string figures, which is the foundation for exploring how to enact the change that is needed to survive in a world of climate destruction and business as usual. Haraway says that not all humans observe the Terrestrial from above (as Latour suggests) and invites us to go out there and find the people that never took off. For this purpose, I went to Costa Rica and had non-structured conversations with six Costa Rican leaders, who have been working for and with social and environmental causes for years. This inquiry aims to get a deeper understanding of how these stories, combined with the concept of the Terrestrial and SF theory, may help us create new concepts and develop a philosophy of Terrestrial Leadership. From a magic island to banana women, these stories tell us about how these leaders have gone through constant metamorphic processes of inner development, the discovery of their response-ability, the enactment of collaborations, and the politics of staying with the trouble in a chaotic world; in the Chthulucene. Finally, with the help of storytelling, I attempt to offer a first ontological and epistemological perspective on the concept of Terrestrial leadership and how we might benefit from it.

本論文旨在重新思考人與動物之間的倫理關係，企圖擺脫西方哲學傳統之下人類中心的立場。透過哈洛威《同伴物種宣言》與《當物種相遇》中同伴物種的概念來閱讀馬泰爾的《少年Pi的奇幻漂流》，這樣的倫理關係得以透過建基於「關係性」上而實現，而非以西方哲學傳統下的人／動物之二元對立為基礎。在這樣的倫理關係中，人與動物在會面時透過「回視」達到溝通。也在會面中，人與動物與彼此「成為共在」，並且共同形塑彼此的主體性。此外，《少年Pi的奇幻漂流》中可見擬人化的口吻敘述老虎理查‧帕克的故事，本文將解釋在這種擬人化中可以看見同伴物種倫理的實踐。 本論文由五個章節組成。第一章包含《少年Pi的奇幻漂流》相關評論，並回顧西方哲學傳統之下人與動物的關係。第二章意圖闡明在哈洛威脈絡之中同伴物種的概念，尤其是「關係性」和「成為共在」。透過檢視Pi和理查‧帕克在救生船上的種種細節，本文認為Pi和理查‧帕克的關係可被視為同伴物種的關係。第三章聚焦在「回視」的動作，作為同伴物種間建立雙向溝通的方式。本文也將透過「回視」深入分析Pi和理查‧帕克溝通上的（不）可能性。第四章將《少年Pi的奇幻漂流》中兩個版本的故事讀為兩種動物敘事的並置。兩者皆從擬人化的角度去敘事，但是其中一個版本透露出同伴物種倫理的實踐，另一個版本則回歸到傳統人類中心式的解讀。第五章為本文之總結，主張蘊含同伴物種倫理的動物敘事能夠幫助我們理解如何透過關注生活中真實存在的動物去重新思考人與動物之間的關係。 / The thesis aims to rethink an ethical relationship between humans and animals that is separated from the anthropocentric stance in the Western philosophical traditions. Reading Yann Martel’s Life of Pi in light of the ethics of companion species in Donna Haraway’s The Companion Manifesto and When Species Meet, I would like to contend that this ethical relationship take shape while it is founded on relationality, instead of the human/animal dichotomy. Acts of respect need to be exerted by human and animal participants when they meet. And in the meeting, they become with each other in the relationship in which their subjectivities are co-constituted by each other. The narrative of Pi living with Richard Parker employs a kind of anthropomorphism endowed with ethics of companion species. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is a review of research on criticism of Life of Pi and discussions of human/animal relationships in the Western philosophical framework. Chapter Two aims to elucidate the concepts of companion species in Haraway’s context, including relationality and becoming-with. By examining the details in Pi and Richard Parker’s life on the lifeboat, I argue that they are in a companion-species relationship. Chapter Three focuses on the act of respect, the practice for the companion species to evoke mutual responses. The (im)possible communication between Pi and Richard Parker will be analyzed. Chapter Four reads the two versions of the story of Life of Pi as a juxtaposition of two kinds of animal narratives. Both told from anthropomorphic perspective, the story with the animals is registered with ethics of companion species while the story without animal returns to the traditional anthropocentric interpretation. Finally in Chapter Five, I conclude that animal narrative that is entailed with ethics of companion species enables us to rethink the human/animal relationship by attending to real animals which are physically beside us.

The works of Erik Beckman (1935-1995) are quite unique within the Swedish literary scene. His texts convert the experimental language of the concretists of the sixties into a new form of fabulation that undermines our understanding of what literature can be, ranging from novels and poetry to theatre pieces and radio theatre. His literary style has been discussed by critics, but the depths of it are yet to be fully explored. There is a lot to gain from combining contemporary theories of materiality and corporeality with his self-proclaimed materialistic poetics. The novel Inlandsbanan (1967) is a fragmentary account of an inland train going through Sweden, with characters coming and going in a frustrating tempo. The text is filled with word games, narrative constructs and a language that brings forth the material aspects of communication that push the boundaries of literary interpretation. This thesis examines Beckman’s novel through the lens of theoretical concepts of thingliness and corporeality developed by the likes of Judith Butler, Karen Barad, and Andrew Pickering in order to elaborate an analysis that goes beyond the surface of its experimental and materialistic use of literary language. Using bodily themes, I analyze specific passages in the novel in order to find a new understanding of its semantic functions. By doing this through the concept of performativity, not only can I identify a thematized corporeality, but beyond that a literary form and a language that problematizes the very notion of the written text as a body and highlights a material agency in literature. This method enables an interpretation of the novel that can illuminates important aspects at play that previously have not been explored.

Cette dissertation porte sur les liens entre les pratiques politiques et la construction des savoirs, académiques et scientifiques, explorés dans le mouvement féministe et les « Études féministes » contemporains, notamment anglo-américaines (women studies), depuis les années 1970. <p>Dans la première partie, après avoir introduit le sens que donnent à la pratique « politique » certaines traditions féministes, nous présentons différentes entrées des critiques féministes des savoirs scientifiques :la critique de l'exclusion historique des femmes de la production des savoirs et des sciences et l’examen critique des préjugés sexistes intervenant dans les contenus et les critères de validation des connaissances (théorie de la connaissance ou épistémologie). <p>La deuxième partie de la thèse propose une lecture d’auteures anglophones qui ont abordé les sciences à partir d’une perspective féministe et qui ont développé des propositions qui encouragent à la reconnaissance active du caractère partiel et situé de toute construction de savoir. Nous abordons, plus précisément :les théories sur l’incidence épistémologique de points de vue et positionnements féministes (standpoints) ;le travail de la philosophe Sandra Harding spécialement sa conceptualisation d’une « objectivité forte » ;et la conception des « savoirs situés » dans le travail de l’historienne de la biologie Donna Haraway. Ces propositions de politiques du savoir sont aussi abordées dans l’optique de montrer les problèmes spécifiques qu’elles rencontrent quand elles s’adressent aux savoirs de la tradition scientifique expérimentale.<p>Une question traverse la thèse :Comment ces critiques et propositions tiennent-elles compte de la diversité des pratiques spécifiques de construction des savoirs ?Alors même que le cœur des propositions féministes qui nous intéressent est de situer les savoirs dans leur spécificité reste à savoir comment ces mêmes politiques féministes résistent à se désituer à savoir, à emprunter les formes d'une théorie générale pour aborder les pratiques singulières. Prendre en compte de la spécificité des pratiques exige en outre d’envisager les auteures féministes au travail dans les pratiques et problèmes singuliers qui les intéressent, et ainsi montrer la richesse de ce courant de pensée.<p> / Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation philosophie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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The topic of this thesis is AI recruitment chatbots, digital discrimination, and data feminism (D´Ignazio and F.Klein 2020), where I aim to critically analyze issues of bias in these types of human-machine interaction technologies. Coming from a professional background of theatre, performance art, and drama, I am curious to analyze how using AI and social robots as hiring tools entails a new type of “stage” (actor’s space), with a special emphasis on social acting. Humans are now required to adjust their performance and facial expressions in the search for, and approval of, a new job. I will use my “theatrical glasses” with an intersectional lens, and through a methodology of cultural analysis, reflect on various examples of conversational AI used in recruitment processes. The silver bullet syndrome is a term that points to a tendency to believe in a miraculous new technological tool that will “magically” solve human-related problems in a company or an organization. The captivating marketing message of the Swedish recruitment conversational AI tool – Tengai Unbiased – is the promise of a scientifically proven objective hiring tool, to solve the diversity problem for company management. But is it really free from bias? According to Karen Barad, agency is not an attribute, but the ongoing reconfiguration of the world influenced by what she terms intra-actions, a mutual constitution of entanglement between human and non-human agencies (2003:818). However, tech developers often disregard their entanglement of human-to-machine interferences which unfortunately generates unconscious bias. The thesis raises ethical questions of how algorithmic measurement of social competence risks holding unconscious biases, benefiting those already privileged or those acting within a normative spectrum.

This paper explores through Donna Haraway's storytelling practices feminist approaches to collaborative writing. Employing a phenomenological qualitative research approach, the thesis aims to analyze how Haraway herself exercises feminist writing and facilitates the learning of collaborative storytelling. The first research question: How does Haraway practice storytelling while simultaneously situating herself as well as others, is focused on investigating Symbiosis, Symbiogenesis and the Lively Arts of Staying with the Trouble, a chapter from Haraway's publication Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (2016). Drawing on the qualitative analysis carried out through the process of phenomological re-telling, two case studies are presented. The two publications The Books of the Books, edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev in association with dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012 and Critical Zones – The Science and Politics of Landing on Earth, edited by Peter Weibel and Bruno Latour building on the exhibition Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics in 2020 are examined in terms of their curatorial and editorial orientations in order to answer the question: How can the position of a curator perform as a multidisciplinary editor without resigning to its own singularity or acting omnisciently? In the proposed practice of a phenomological approach of re-telling, it is referred to Rosi Braidotti's remarks on the nomadic subject, along with feminist modes of (academic) writing, as motivated by scholars such as Mona Livholts and Nina Lykke. The thesis demonstrates that collaborative storytelling and writing directs the emphasis on methods of citation and referencing, just as their various possible layouts. In highlighting these, the paper also reveals the challenges of such writing to produce perceived hegemonic knowledge while not being collaboratively situated.