School of Communication and Culture

In this paper we will demonstrate how a design ethnographic approach enables the tailoring co-design of future mobility in multi-stakeholder projects. As such, we advocate for a design ethnography that is helpful in imagining, anticipating and realising possible futures by playing in people’s everyday lives rather than playing against technology- and capital-driven innovation agendas (Pink et al. 2022, Smith et al. 2016). We will present the process and outcomes from the AHA II research project, and the key elements in embedding ethnographic fieldwork into co-design activities (in times of the pandemic). Examples include drive-along interviews, and online future workshops with citizens in Bergum-Gunnilse, Gothenburg and Drottninghög, Helsingborg, as well as speculative co-design workshops with partners in autonomous mobility and future city planning. We will demonstrate how tailoring diverse ethnographic and participatory approaches can engage stakeholders across communities, industry and academia in extended dialogues and hybrid explorations of possible future mobilities from a human perspective. We argue that such a design ethnographic approach can be generative of a transferable and responsible human approach to mobility futures.