Today, our team member Arjun passed his 30% seminar, where he shared his thinking, progress and plans for his thesis. It was a hybrid seminar in true post(ish)-Covid style, with 25 attendees.
Arguing that sustainability requires us to reimagine what it means to be alive and to be human, Arjun’s endeavours revolve around the question “What roles does technology play in our practices and lifestyles?”. Congratulations to Arjun for a well-executed and interesting seminar, and for passing this milestone! And next time you see him, you might want to ask him about his relationship with his blender.
Disrupting & renegotiating the familiar: Exploring how digital technology disrupts the status quo and supports transitions toward sustainable practices in homes
Technology is ubiquitous and so embedded in society and our lives yet playing a pivotal role in it. It has the potential to disrupt and even transform everyday practices. The climate crisis requires us to make significant changes in the way we live, to rethink the practices that shape our lives.
My research aims to use the disruptive potential of technology to defamiliarise individuals with how they negotiate everyday practices, particularly those relating to food waste and electricity consumption. Utilising the frameworks of social practice theory, behaviour change and critical design along with a mixed-methods approach I investigate the practices of individuals and groups to better understand where best to situate disruptive technological probes that induce reflection. Using behaviour change frameworks along with critical design to guide the conceptualisation and creation of technological artefacts and probes and combining this with a practice theory lens to analyse the practices before and after the introduction of the artefacts, I explore how practices mutate and how the technological artefacts mediate such mutations, thereby support transitions to more sustainable practices.
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