Paper Short Abstract:

Societal visions of automation urgently need human approaches for shaping sustainable, inclusive and responsible ways of life. This paper presents a design anthropological methodology to future urban mobility and its potentials for scaling such approaches across diverse contexts and domains.

Paper Abstract:

Contemporary visions for automation of future society and everyday transportation in cities and society are based on accelerated innovations in emerging technology (Legacy et al. 2019). Whereas such anticipated social transformations are based on abstract and idealised imaginaries, they lack engagement with the everyday life, communities and environments into which they are to be implemented. In this paper, we argue that situated human approaches to the future of urban mobility in everyday contexts are urgently needed, through transdisciplinary and long-term engagement with a broad range of stakeholders and communities, in order to negotiate and align opportunities, values, and desires for sustainable social change (Fors et al. 2022, Smith 2022, Pink et al. 2022).

The paper demonstrates a design anthropological methodology for future urban mobility based on two consecutive projects involving sustained engagement with industry, municipalities, and local communities in Sweden (Smith et al. 2024; Brodersen et al. 2023, Ebbeson et al. 2024,). Grounded in two suburban areas in Sweden and involving long-term, iterative multi-stakeholder collaborations and co-design, we discuss how a transferable methodology for human futures in urban mobility can be used in diverse contexts, organisations and environments. We also present design anthropological tools for multi-stakeholder co-design developed through the project. We argue that such approaches can support the shift towards socially sustainable transformation at wider scales - hereby reimagining futures based on participatory human approaches that place the values, everyday practices, and environments of people at the centre of design.