Seminars & Activities

1. The CCD international seminars of relevance for communication, culture and diversity (always in English)
2. The CCD working papers seminars (in English or Swedish)
3. The DoIT seminars (DoIT - Delaktighet och Inkludering Tankesmedja [the Participation and Inclusion Think Tank], most often in Swedish)

Teachers’ Intentions and Sociotechnical Imaginaries for Futures Day: A Phenomenological Longitudinal Approach

Johan Bäcklund, doktorand, presenterar denna artikel som är ett work-in-progress där han inbjuder till tankar och kommentarer för fortsatt arbete. Texten fås i sin helhet vid kontakt med Johan, som då även inkluderar några specifika läsinstruktioner.

Abstract

This article explores the intentionality and lived experiences of teachers and school leaders involved in planning and executing Futures Day, a recurring, interdisciplinary pedagogical intervention at a Swedish upper secondary school (2023–2026). Futures Day uses narrative construction and the strategic integration of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) to address students’ reported anxieties about the future, shifting them from passive worry to active, critical agency.

Moving beyond technological determinism, the study employs a critical analytical framework rooted in Science and Technology Studies (STS), specifically the concept of Sociotechnical Imaginaries (STIs), to interpret the underlying political, moral, and ideological forces shaping institutional choices. This is complemented by Frame Factor Theory (FFT), which assesses how abstract visions must navigate concrete organizational constraints (e.g., time and resources). The methodology is based on a phenomenological analysis of six semi-structured interviews with key personnel, focusing on their subjective experiences and meaning-making processes.

The findings reveal that the project is driven by a profound humanistic and future-oriented intentionality, prioritizing students’ imaginative and existential needs over technological adoption. A relational-interdisciplinary lifeworld of deep trust, courage, and interdependence among the core planning team fundamentally sustains this work. The choices made are continuously negotiated against a dynamic sociotechnical-organizational horizon characterized by external pressures to focus on AI (as it “pays the bills”) and the necessity of building new administrative structures to ensure the innovation's sustainability and mitigate its vulnerability, which currently rests on a few key individuals.

Crucially, the study finds that the strategic use of AI's limitations, such as its tendency to produce stereotypical outputs, becomes a vital pedagogical opportunity, fostering critical engagement and confirming that students must understand the underlying bias, proving that technology “is not neutral.” The research highlights that the intervention's purpose is to cultivate proactive agency, equipping students to shape desirable futures rather than merely respond to dystopias. This research offers a critical lens on how educational futures are fabricated and sustained amidst sociotechnical flux and organizational constraints.

Reading the Void: Att läsa litteraturens tomrum

Mersiha Bruncevic är författare och postdoktoral forskare i kreativt skrivande och litteraturvetenskap vid Göteborgs universitet, Institutionen för språk och litteraturer. I sitt projekt, Reading the Void, undersöker hon hur litterära tomrum – utelämnanden, tystnader och osynliga begränsningar – inte är brister utan generativa krafter i skrivandet. Genom exempel som Georges Perecs La Disparition och Anne F. Garrétas Sphinx visar hon hur avsaknaden av bokstäver, genusmarkörer eller hela textpartier kan skapa nya former av mening. Projektet utvecklar ett teoretiskt ramverk som förenar Bachelards och Yves Kleins tankar om tomhet med Perloffs och Massumis begrepp om mikropoetik och mikroperception. Reading the Void vill därmed öppna för ett nytt sätt att läsa: inte bara det som är närvarande i texten, utan också det som medvetet har utelämnats. Mersiha Bruncevic disputerade i romanska språk med en avhandling om intertextuella och intermediala aspekter i Marcel Prousts skildringar av sömn och drömmar. Hon intresserar sig för experimentell litteratur, OULIPO, exil och minne. Hennes texter har publicerats i The London Magazine, The Financial Times, Tablet Magazine, The Literary Encyclopedia och andra publikationer. För ett urval av publicerade texter, besök www.mersihabruncevic.com.