Toward sustainable lifestyles through collaborative consumption platforms: a case study of a community from Montevideo city.
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
Location:
P1 OPINNÄYTTEET D 2019 Malrechauffe Came
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Authors
Date
2019
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Creative Sustainability
Language
en
Pages
100
Series
Abstract
In a world in which market-oriented economies steer human endeavours on a global scale, the urgency for moving towards more sustainable futures has become more than evident. The role design plays as co-producer of everyday life, both in its physical and social construction, demands today designers to lead collective action through visions of sustainable lifestyles (Manzini, 2015; Irwin, 2015). Urban citizens, concerned with the unsustainability of dominant practices have been actively participating in such transitions, bringing changes into the lifestyles of their communities. Described as collaborative organizations, these bottom-up initiatives use social media and act as grassroots organizations (Manzini, 2015). Alternatively, these initiatives also fall under the umbrella notion of the collaborative or sharing economy. However, this notion is not representative of the diversity in those organizations as the phenomenon encompasses diverse endeavours wherein aims, motivations, organizational structures, and consequent societal and environmental impact vary widely from case to case. This research aims to learn, from an empirical viewpoint, how and why citizens interact and engage in these practices, through a case study of a citizen-led initiative from Montevideo, Uruguay. This platform and community propose a solution to the problem of accumulation of disused goods, configuring alternative practices of consuming, using, and disposing of goods. The case is analyzed with literature from collaborative economy studies; relevant concepts from Design for Social Innovation; and several theories brought together by Transition Design, used as a conceptual framework for sustainable lifestyles. The study suggests that on top of various motivations, engagement in community-oriented collaborative platforms can be explained by technological and cultural arrangements that foster a sense of belonging through giving active roles to participants in the community. Therefore, it is argued that these practices represent a step in transitions toward sustainable lifestyles as they engage citizens in self-organization and increase the possibilities of local and endogenous satisfaction of needs, at a global scale (in the sense of ‘cosmopolitan localism’). However, challenges for these platforms are building governance that prevents centralization of power and supporting its technological infrastructure without compromising their non-profit character with financial arrangements. Moreover, an important shortcoming is the reliance on centralized mass production and consumption, as these systems do not propose a distributed alternative to production but only to consumption practices. For that reason, environmental benefits cannot be claimed without further research.Description
Supervisor
Berglund, EevaThesis advisor
Ferreira Litowtschenko, MaríaKeywords
case study, way of life, sustainable consumption, design, social innovation, transitions, community, sharing economy