Maja Van Der Velden

• 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. . 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. Show summary

  International policy and law have long sought to ensure that states regulate the negative impacts of production processes on people and the planet. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12 targets sustainable production and consumption; international conventions, such as the Basel Convention, or the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the International Labour Organisation Conventions, all seek to regulate toxic or labour-related impacts associated with industrial production. However, there is ample evidence that such impacts continue. At a time of increasing pressure to develop sustainable systems of production and consumption, we asked whether the existing legal frameworks are appropriate to the task of regulating for sustainability in consumer products. Drawing on research conducted into sustainability in the mobile phone lifecycle, this paper examines the regulatory ecology of hotspots of unsustainability in the product lifecycle of electronics. This paper finds that the interaction of regulatory disjunctures, business models, design of technology, and marginalisation combine to ensure that our systems of production and consumption are predisposed to resist regulation aimed at sustainability.

• Junge, Ines & van der Velden, Maja (2018). Obsolescence in Information and Communication Technology: A Critical Discourse Analysis, In David G. Kreps; Charles Melvin Ess; Louise Leenen & Kai K. Kimppa (ed.),  This Changes Everything - ICT and Climate Change: What Can We Do?.  springer.  ISBN 978-3-319-99605-9.  14.  s 188 - 201 Show summary

  Responsible production and consumption is one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Fast Tech, resulting in premature obsolescence, is perceived as an important factor in unsustainable production and consumption patterns of information and communication technologies. In order to investigate societal perspectives on planned obsolescence and its root causes in Norway, we implemented a critical discourse analysis of the Norwegian written media. Technology discourses are often inspired by particular understandings of technology-society relations. We therefore mapped our findings on Andrew Feenberg’s four theories of technology. All articles presented a critical perspective towards the phenomenon of obsolescence. The majority of articles expressed an instrumentalist understanding of technology as the cause of planned obsolescence, while the rest communicated technological determinism as the main worldview underlying planned obsolescence. Both instrumentalist and determinist understandings of technology are based on the understanding that technology is intrinsically neutral and can be used for good or bad ends. We argue that this technology is neutral perspective can undermine the development of policy and design interventions that can contribute to sustainable technology. A thorough engagement with the politics of technology is needed to reach the goal of responsible production and consumption.

• van der Velden, Maja (2018). Digitalisation and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: What role for design. ID&A Interaction design & architecture(s).  ISSN 1826-9745.  (37), s 160- 174 Full text in Research Archive. Show summary

  This paper investigates the relation between digitalisation and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Digitalisation is often presented as a transformative power, changing the way we live and work. The SDGs describe digitalisation technologies such as ICTs as enablers of sustainable development. The unsustainability of these technologies themselves may actually undermine the gains made in digitalisation. This becomes clear when we locate the discussion of digitalisation and the SDGs in a discussion of the Planetary Boundaries framework. The example of one of the most emblematic digital technologies of our time, the smartphone, shows the negative impact of its production and consumption on the biosphere, the basis for all life on our planet, and on many of the social aspects of the SDGs, such as poverty, child labour, decent work, and peace. But rather than promoting sustainable digitalisation, this paper proposes the notion of sustainment as a foundational principle for the sustainability of digitalisation. While sustainability has become a mean to an end, sustainment is about sustaining life itself. With sustainment,digitalisation and its design can strengthen our ability to respond to the challenges of living on a finite planet.

• van der Velden, Maja (2018). ICT and Sustainability: Looking Beyond the Anthropocene, In David G. Kreps; Charles Melvin Ess; Louise Leenen & Kai K. Kimppa (ed.),  This Changes Everything - ICT and Climate Change: What Can We Do?.  springer.  ISBN 978-3-319-99605-9.  12.  s 166 - 180 Show summary

  This paper investigates the relation between information and com- munication technology and sustainability through two frameworks that promote sustainable development: the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Doughnut Economics. The instrumentalist technology perspective underlying the SDGs, guiding the perceived universality of ICT, presents ICT as a neutral tool. Doughnut Economics enables a more integrative approach, making the unsustainability of ICT itself visible. What these frameworks have in common is that they are located in the discourse of the Anthropocene. Feminist perspectives on this epoch by Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing focus the attention on dif- ferent figures, rhythms, and futures made invisible by the centrality of the human species in the debates on the future of our planet. The idea that humans- with-technology will get us out the predicament of the Anthropocene needs urgent refinement and critical investigation.

• van der Velden, Maja; Joshi, Suhas Govind & Culén, Alma Leora (2018). Designed for Learning: Experiences with the intensive course format in informatics. NOKOBIT - Norsk konferanse for organisasjoners bruk av informasjonsteknologi.  ISSN 1892-0748.  26(1) Show summary

  Bachelor and Master courses at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo are semester- long courses. Students and teaching staff meet two to four hours every week for lectures and group work. This was also the case in Design, Use, Interaction, a two-year master programme. In 2013 it became possible to teach intensive courses in this Master programme, creating an opportunity to implement three intensive courses successively in one semester. This resulted in the development of two intensive courses and the intensification of another course, which was normally taught as a semester-long course: Tangible Interaction Design, Advancements in Interaction Design, and Design, Technology & Society. Each course was five weeks long. In a presentation of each of the three courses, we will focus on the opportunities and challenges in teaching an intensive course. The main question we will address is: What are the characteristics of a successful intensive course? Based on a literature review, we have identified the following attributes that play a central role in the success of an intensive course: course methodology, teaching methods, exam format, and lecturer-student(s) interactions. We will present our experiences in teaching intensive courses along these four attributes. Our findings and discussion centre around our constructivist learning methodology, implemented through a wide variety of methods enabling creativity, hands-on experiences, theory-practice nexus, and critical reflexivity; new and adapted exam formats; and constructive lecturer-student interactions. While the experiences from the three courses are different, we were able to extract three common attributes for success: i) create a ‘learning home’ for the students, which provides them with a common understanding of the course methodology and enables them to identify their learning experiences; ii) actively work with the theory-practice nexus, using the theoretical literature as a lens to understand practice and practice to construct new knowledge; iii) cultivate constructive lecturer-student and student-student interactions both on an individual, group, and class level.

• Sommervold, Margaret Machniak & van der Velden, Maja (2017). Visions of Illness, Disease, and Sickness in Mobile Health Applications. Societies.  ISSN 2075-4698.  7(4) . doi: 10.3390/soc7040028 Full text in Research Archive.

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• Maitre-Ekern, Eléonore; Taylor, Mark Beaumont & van der Velden, Maja (2020). Towards a Sustainable Circular Economy: SMART Reform Proposals. 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.

• Oteng-Ababio, Martin & van der Velden, Maja (2019). “Welcome to Sodom” – Six myths about electronic waste in Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Standplaats Wereld.
• Oteng-Ababio, Martin & van der Velden, Maja (2019). 'Welcome to Sodom' - Six myths about electronic waste in Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Blogging for Sustainability.
• Taylor, Mark Beaumont & van der Velden, Maja (2019). Resisting Regulation: Failing sustainability in product lifecycles.
• van der Velden, Maja (2019). Fixing the World One Thing at the Time: Community Repair and the Circular Economy.
• van der Velden, Maja (2019). March 8 – Women’s Health, Decent Work and the Electronics Industry. Blogging for Sustainability.
• van der Velden, Maja (2019). Vi er alle tapere i saken Apple vant. Dagens næringsliv.  ISSN 0803-9372.
• van der Velden, Maja (2017). Design for living in the doughnut: The case of the mobile phone.
• van der Velden, Maja (2017). Thinking with Care: Exploring interdisciplinarity in a global research project.
• van der Velden, Maja (2017). Why the most sustainable mobile is the one you own. KLIMA - Et magasin om klimaforskning fra CICERO.
• van der Velden, Maja & Borge, Krister (2017). Rett til reparasjon. Dagsavisen.  ISSN 1503-2892.
• van der Velden, Maja & Taylor, Mark (2017). Sustainability Hotspot Analysis of the Mobile Phone Lifecycle.

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