What is criticality?

Why ‘critical’?

Critical, applied as an adjective, has many connotations. All are relevant to SLU Urban Futures’ task to spur change in favour of urban sustainability, to develop new research questions, to involve analytical and synthetic work modes in a cross-over of academia and practice. A critical feature is something

• on the edge, close to a tipping point, at risk
• crucial, the prerequisite for something else to happen
• positioned, inviting for change

Why ‘knowledge’?

All knowledge forms are relevant for SLU Urban Futures as a research platform fostering transdisciplinary research modes. These modes involve paradigm change in how knowledge is understood, and how different knowledges can be combined towards more society relevant outcomes. What counts as knowledge is at stake because knowledge gets defined differently within academic and professional arenas.

Why practices?

Practice puts knowledge to work. It is a way of enacting theory and identifying matters that need to be theorised.  As a research platform charged with encouraging a shift towards more inter- and transdisciplinary research formats, SLU Urban Futures refers to transformative science and other theories supporting paradigmatic change, while spotting and fostering projects within SLU that link such theories to concrete situations.

Well-honed critical practices lead to

• More productive engagement between urban researchers and societal actors, allowing for
• More relevant questions about contemporary urbanism to be formulated, leading to
• More effective ways to instigate change towards sustainable urban life.

Related publications

• Theme issue ‘Criticising practice – practicing criticim’ in SPOOL open access journal for design in architecture and the built environment
  
  
• Theme issue 'For Whom? Exploring landscape design as a political project’