Maja Van Der Velden

• Kjøde, Svein Gunnar; Van Der Velden, Maja & Motevallian, Mahsa (2021). Sustainability Concepts in Nordic Business Research: A Critical Perspective . Sustainability. ISSN 2071-1050. 13(9). doi: 10.3390/su13095160.
• Van Der Velden, Maja (2021). ‘Fixing the World One Thing at a Time’: Community repair and a sustainable circular economy. Journal of Cleaner Production. ISSN 0959-6526. 304. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127151. Show summary

  The notion of a circular economy is often presented in discourses on a more sustainable future. A circular economy proposes more efficient material flows in growth-based economy and in support of sustainable development. Repair is presented as one of the phases in a circular economy and supports product lifetime extension. The paper brings a particular form of repair, community repair, into discourses on a circular economy. Data from a world-wide initiative in community repair and from participant observation in a Repair Café provide new insights in the possible roles and challenges of repair in a circular economy. Notions of efficiency and economic growth are contested in community repair; repair contributes to product lifetime extension and product attachment through acts of tinkering, sharing, and care. The analysis points to an inseparability of the material and social in community repair, contributing to a non-reductionist understanding of a circular economy. Community repair is a sociomaterial entanglement of people and things. This enables a different perspective on the role of repair, from merely a phase in the material flows in a circular economy to a sustainable way of living with things in a circular economy.

• Van Der Velden, Maja; Gjelsten, Børge Kile & Jensen, Siri Annethe Moe (2021). Sustainability Competence in Computer Science Education . Nordic Journal of STEM Education. ISSN 2535-4574. 5(1). doi: 10.5324/njsteme.v5i1.3953. Show summary

  Digitalisation creates opportunities and challenges, both socially and environmentally. Are computer science students interested in addressing these opportunities and challenges and is their education providing them the desired competencies? Theoretically, the paper focuses on the concept of competency and presents the eight sustainability competencies formulated in UNESCO’s Education for the Sustainable Development Goals. Two sets of data are analysed to address the research questions: data from a questionnaire focusing on their aspirations for future work and data from a deductive content analysis of the learning outcomes of six bachelor programmes in informatics. Sustainability-related factors scored important/very important in the aspirations for future work. The analysis of the learning outcomes indicates a very weak connection between learning goals and sustainability competencies. An integrative approach is proposed, which may contribute to the development of sustainability competencies that enable the students to take up normative and critical positions in digitalisation and sustainability discourses.

• van der Velden, Maja (2021). ‘I felt a new connection between my fingers and brain’: a thematic analysis of student reflections on the use of pen and paper during lectures. Teaching in Higher Education. ISSN 1356-2517. doi: 10.1080/13562517.2020.1863347. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper presents an analysis of a hundred and one handwritten essays by master students in Informatics. The students reflected on their experiences of working with pen and paper for reading and writing as a mandatory assignment for the duration of a five-week intensive course. Taking an inductive approach, reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify patterns of meaning across the full dataset. The essays elicited insightful student reflections on learning, knowing, and being. One overarching theme, New connections, and four sub-theses were identified: Handwriting as note making, Being present for learning, Freedom to think, and Materiality of reading and writing. This study contributes to an improved understanding of the affordances of paper and laptops in the lecture room, based on a student-centred approach, and reflects on how student perspectives can be implemented during lectures.

• Oteng-Ababio, Martin & van der Velden, Maja (2020). Connectivity in Chaotic Urban Spaces: Mapping Informal Mobile Phone Market Clusters in Accra, Ghana. Journal of Asian and African Studies. ISSN 0021-9096. doi: 10.1177/0021909620960147. Show summary

  This article investigates the proliferation of informal mobile phone markets and contributes to the understanding of the changing urban economic geographies in Africa. It enriches comparative research by modestly bringing new theoretical ideas to bear, and explores how the spatial geography of mobile phone markets mediates urban governance. We argue that regardless of where in Accra mobile phone markets emerge, the same kind of processes and activities develop, and this recognition contrasts other works, which either focus on the city as a whole or on specific sites. Using key informant interviews, augmented with cognitive mapping, we observe the geography of mobile phone repairs and sales, intersecting socio- economic factors, and a collaborative culture among participants. Ultimately, our article touches upon the issues of power and agency by elucidating the relational dynamics between the informal operators and city authorities.

• Oteng-Ababio, Martin; van der Velden, Maja & Taylor, Mark Beaumont (2020). Building Policy Coherence for Sound Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Management in a Developing Country. The Journal of environment & development. ISSN 1070-4965. 29. doi: 10.1177/1070496519898218. Show summary

  This article explores the compatibility of Ghana’s e-waste policy (Act 917) in the country’s socioeconomic context. Our article starts with two main questions based on our empirical engagements with the act which, contextually, mimics the extended producer responsibility. First, we question the pessimistic imaginaries about the e-waste industry that seeks its outright trade ban or promotes a single version of recycling. Second, we query if the underlying assumptions and basic mechanisms of extended producer responsibility can create the enabling environment to actualize sound e-waste management. Based on prevailing context, the imaginaries appear socially peripheral, isolated, and powerless, and we call for a broader, unbiased, in-depth, critical systems thinking for understanding the complexities and multidimensional nature of the waste electrical and electronic equipment industry. We suggest that it is by fostering the positive synergies across sectors and among policies that environmentally sound e-waste policy outcomes can be achievable.

• Taylor, Mark Beaumont & Van Der Velden, Maja (2019). Resistance to Regulation: Failing Sustainability in Product Lifecycles. Sustainability. ISSN 2071-1050. 11(22). doi: 10.3390/su11226526. Full text in Research Archive

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• van der Velden, Maja (2020). Apple uses trademark law to strengthen its monopoly on repair. repair.eu.
• van der Velden, Maja (2019). March 8 – Women’s Health, Decent Work and the Electronics Industry . Blogging for Sustainability.
• Maitre-Ekern, Eléonore; Taylor, Mark Beaumont & van der Velden, Maja (2020). Towards a Sustainable Circular Economy: SMART Reform Proposals. University of Oslo. Show summary

  The European Union (EU) has developed ambitious strategies to transform the economy, but it is happening too slowly and not uniformly. There is need to set up a smart regulatory mix governing products sold in the EU, designed to achieve coherence and reduce fragmentation of the existing framework pertaining to products and waste, consumer protection, and trade rules. Moreover, CE policies must be developed for the purpose of limiting environmental and social impacts throughout the life cycle of products, extending product lifetime notably through repair and reuse activities and shaping more sustainable consumption behaviours. The new Circular Economy Action Plan released in March 2020 offers great prospects for developing a policy framework for sustainable production and consumption , but the real challenge will lie in developing specific measures to transform objectives into effective legislation.

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