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Understanding context change: An activity theoretical analysis of exchange students' food consumption
Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, Machine Design. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.
Delft University of Technology.
Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, Machine Design. Linköping University, Faculty of Science & Engineering.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9819-1009
Linköping University, Department of Thematic Studies, Technology and Social Change. Linköping University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3636-081X
2018 (English)In: Proceedings of NordDesign: Design in the Era of Digitalization, NordDesign 2018, The Design Society , 2018Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Context change is regarded as an opportunity to intervene people's daily doings towards a sustainable direction. Looking at this opportunity from a product and service design perspective, in order to introduce design interventions, the question of how people actually transit their behavioural routines when they are undergoing context change. As the first step to approach this question, in the paper we present the use of activity theory as a theoretical lens to systematically describe and analyze the process and outcomes that context change has in influencing people's daily doings. First, we report in detail on how we construct an activity based analytical approach to analyze the transition and development process when people are undergoing context change. Then, we illustrate the practical use of our model in a case study for understanding the influences that context change has in South-East Asian exchange students' food consumption activities. In the end, we summarize our findings and reflections in terms of the holistic and in-depth insights the activity perspective can provide.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
The Design Society , 2018.
Keywords [en]
Sustainable design, Behaviour transition, Activity theory
National Category
Engineering and Technology Design
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-157023ISBN: 978-91-7685-185-2 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-157023DiVA, id: diva2:1317517
Conference
NordDesign 2018
Available from: 2019-05-23 Created: 2019-05-23 Last updated: 2024-09-30
In thesis
1. On the other side of change: Exploring the role that design can play in retaining sustainable doings
Open this publication in new window or tab >>On the other side of change: Exploring the role that design can play in retaining sustainable doings
2021 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The world keeps changing more rapidly. Induced by context change disruptions such as individual life-course changes and macro socio-economical events, the way people carry out their everyday life doings is also undergoing a dynamic transition process, which may open up windows of opportunity for design to transit people’s behavior in a more sustainable direction.

A successful behavior transition entails not only changing people’s wrongdoings but also retaining the existing desired doings. However, over the last decade, the field of Design for Sustainable Everyday Life seems to have grown accustomed to the concept of change. The potential role that design may play in retaining people’s existing sustainable doings has been ill-addressed. This dissertation aims to develop an activity-based theoretical approach to help design researchers and practitioners better understand how people transit behavior when they undergo context change disruptions, and further explore design implications informed by the sustainable behavior retention perspective.

The study comprises two parts. In the first part, six explorative case studies were used to investigate the applicability of adopting activity theory (AT) as a theoretical lens for understanding context change-induced behavior transition phenomena. As a result, an AT-based framework was iterated, developed and validated. In the second part, by incorporating the proposed framework with the theoretical understanding generated from a prescriptive meta-synthesis study, an AT-informed toolkit prototype was developed and evaluated.

Three key findings can be identified. First, at a conceptual level, the study reveals that the design for sustainable behavior retention perspective may complement the design for behavior change perspective by facilitating a bottom-up and context-focused relative approach to achieve sustainability. Second, at a design analytical level, three dimensions of AT: i). hierarchical structure, ii). long-term development and iii). reality-based contextual scales of analysis are especially useful for systematically analyzing the impacts of context change disruptions on people’s everyday life doings. Third, at a design synthesis level, the AT-informed design toolkit prototype and the extracted design implications can provide a systemic view that helps designers take both sustainable behavior change and retention perspectives into early-stage design ideation.

The contribution of the dissertation is two folds. First, it introduces the perspective of sustainable behavior retention into the field of Design for Sustainable Everyday Life. Second, it provides an activity-based theoretical framework as a potential lens for designers to better cope with context change disruptions.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Linköping: Linköping University Electronic Press, 2021. p. 130
Series
Linköping Studies in Science and Technology. Dissertations, ISSN 0345-7524 ; 2115
Keywords
Design for sustainable behavior, Behavior retention, Behavior change, Sustainable design, Context change, Activity theory
National Category
Design
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-172011 (URN)10.3384/diss.diva-172011 (DOI)9789179297169 (ISBN)
Public defence
2021-01-21, 10:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2020-12-17 Created: 2020-12-17 Last updated: 2024-09-30Bibliographically approved

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Chu, WanjunWever, ReneeGlad, Wiktoria

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