[urban interfaces] research group at Utrecht University

Author Archive: Melisse Vroegindeweij

Re-centralizing the Human in More-Than-Human

Written by Bastiaan van Manen   In the context of the current environmental crisis that our planet is facing, more and more disciplines are refocusing their attention on taking what Lupton (2019) has dubbed a more-than-human approach to understanding the world. This perspective involves recognizing the various ways in which the human and the “nonhuman”…

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Rethinking the Traditional Moldovan Carpet as a Medium of Symbiosis between Human, Nonhuman and Culture

Written by Nicoleta Cîrlig   Moldovan Traditional Carpet. Source: Diez.md.   Deborah Lupton describes animism as a term used in sociocultural theory to refer to the attribution of life, human characteristics or spirituality to phenomena that are otherwise culturally considered non-living or nonhuman. It is a relational perspective that views humans and nonhumans as interconnected…

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Meditation or Friction?

Written by Hymke Theunissen   We face a crisis of imagination. These are the words of Roy Bendor (2018, 132). Bendor refers specifically to our inability to imagine what a sustainable future might look like. Before we know what measures to take, socially or economically, we first need to be able to image an alternative…

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Imagining Dark Ecologies

Written by Aishwarya Kumar     In his chapter Imagination, Roy Bendor (2018) posits that imagination appears to be “essentially incomplete,” in that it is suggestive, does not predetermine the outcome of the intervention. Bendor elaborates on the various ways these “unfinished media” perform, in that they “engage, evoke, provoke, or stir their users’ imagination”…

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