Design researchers engage in speculative design to explore alternative futures. In speculative design, probes are used to engage participants in envisioning future design. Probes come in different forms and can be implemented as games or playful engagements. Due to the variety of probes, it is important for researchers to consider the properties of their probes. Moreover, these properties are not set only by analysing the depth and richness of probe results, but are also understood through analysing participants’ experiences of use. However, there is limited support in literature on the properties of gaming probes, and how they are experienced by participants. This study contributes to this void by using a city building game as a probe object in a speculative gaming probe (SGP) simulating a city environment for future mobility services, and gain insights on the experiences indicated by participants. The result of the study shows that the SGP is experienced as an empowerment of privileges in an alternative reality that is skill demanding, requiring an act of commitment. This has several implications for the use of SGP’s in design research. First, the powers provided by the game affects participants’ roles, but also their creative freedom. Second, researchers have to consider the learning curves of the SGP. Lastly, researchers should treat the SGP as one alternative in a set of probes.

Cette thèse vise à examiner la conception de totalité dans la littérature marxiste d’un point de vue méthodologique pour offrir une solution à un problème persistant dans la méthodologie marxiste, notamment la relation entre la méthode de recherche et la méthode d’exposition, un problème qui s’est persisté dans la littérature sans une solution définitive depuis 1857-58 quand Marx a écrit ce que nous connaissons maintenant comme les Grundrisse et l’Introduction. Pour ce faire, suite au soulignement des lacunes de deux conceptions erronées de totalité, la conception de totalité selon Hegel, aussi que des insuffisances des interprétations offertes par d’autres marxistes, nous avançons notre propre lecture de la totalité marxienne, en démontrant le développement de cette conception dans les oeuvres de Marx. Finalement, nous relions ce développement au problème de la relation entre la méthode de recherche et la méthode d’exposition en les reliant, mais aussi les distinguant comme deux moments de la méthode d’investigation. / This dissertation examines the conception of totality in Marxist literature from a methodological point of view in order to offer a solution to a longstanding problem in Marxist methodology, namely, the relationship between the method of inquiry and the method of exposition, the problem that has lingered without any definitive solution in the literature since the time Marx scribbled in 1857-58 the notes now known as the Grundrisse and Introduction. To this effect, after highlighting the shortcomings of two misconceptions of totality and Hegel’s conception of totality, and demonstrating the lacunae of the existing interpretations offered by other Marxist thinkers, it advances what is proposed as a proper Marxian understanding of totality, through showing the development of this conception in Marx’s works. Finally, it relates this particular development to the problem of the relationship between the method of inquiry and the method of exposition by relating and also distinguishing them as two moments included in the method of investigation.

Working with an organization outside the public school system that was creating schoolyard gardens, I began to think about culture and cultivation inside and outside of schooling practices. The liveliness of the schoolyard gardens presented possibilities for enlivening educational discourses. With two participants I planted a container box schoolyard garden outside Lamoureux Hall, which houses the Faculty of Education. Utilizing aspects of place-based pedagogy, ecoliteracy, ecopedagogy and a metissage of a/r/tography, eco-art and writing as a method of inquiry, we tended the garden and dwelled upon ideas of nature, culture, and their intersection in a particular place. Our garden experiences left cyber footprints in virtual space as blog spots on a thesis blog site. The garden and the inquiry it generated outside,is brought back inside the education building as a Master's thesis. The garden grew in different and unpredictable ways due to intense construction on site, entwining the planter boxes with unseen variables.

Working with an organization outside the public school system that was creating schoolyard gardens, I began to think about culture and cultivation inside and outside of schooling practices. The liveliness of the schoolyard gardens presented possibilities for enlivening educational discourses. With two participants I planted a container box schoolyard garden outside Lamoureux Hall, which houses the Faculty of Education. Utilizing aspects of place-based pedagogy, ecoliteracy, ecopedagogy and a metissage of a/r/tography, eco-art and writing as a method of inquiry, we tended the garden and dwelled upon ideas of nature, culture, and their intersection in a particular place. Our garden experiences left cyber footprints in virtual space as blog spots on a thesis blog site. The garden and the inquiry it generated outside,is brought back inside the education building as a Master's thesis. The garden grew in different and unpredictable ways due to intense construction on site, entwining the planter boxes with unseen variables.

Working with an organization outside the public school system that was creating schoolyard gardens, I began to think about culture and cultivation inside and outside of schooling practices. The liveliness of the schoolyard gardens presented possibilities for enlivening educational discourses. With two participants I planted a container box schoolyard garden outside Lamoureux Hall, which houses the Faculty of Education. Utilizing aspects of place-based pedagogy, ecoliteracy, ecopedagogy and a metissage of a/r/tography, eco-art and writing as a method of inquiry, we tended the garden and dwelled upon ideas of nature, culture, and their intersection in a particular place. Our garden experiences left cyber footprints in virtual space as blog spots on a thesis blog site. The garden and the inquiry it generated outside,is brought back inside the education building as a Master's thesis. The garden grew in different and unpredictable ways due to intense construction on site, entwining the planter boxes with unseen variables.

Working with an organization outside the public school system that was creating schoolyard gardens, I began to think about culture and cultivation inside and outside of schooling practices. The liveliness of the schoolyard gardens presented possibilities for enlivening educational discourses. With two participants I planted a container box schoolyard garden outside Lamoureux Hall, which houses the Faculty of Education. Utilizing aspects of place-based pedagogy, ecoliteracy, ecopedagogy and a metissage of a/r/tography, eco-art and writing as a method of inquiry, we tended the garden and dwelled upon ideas of nature, culture, and their intersection in a particular place. Our garden experiences left cyber footprints in virtual space as blog spots on a thesis blog site. The garden and the inquiry it generated outside,is brought back inside the education building as a Master's thesis. The garden grew in different and unpredictable ways due to intense construction on site, entwining the planter boxes with unseen variables.