Spatial Justice

Marginalized communities around the world are disproportionately impacted by the distribution of unjust infrastructure and environmental conditions. However, through distributive, procedural, and restorative frameworks, it is possible to teach spatial designers to challenge, inform, and reshape the world toward a more just and equitable future. This chapter delves into the various themes developed as part of the “Spatial Justice” professional elective at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which offers an interdisciplinary perspective on urban studies, urban design, and the roles that social, environmental, and ecological justice play in designing a more just and equitable urbanity. In this course, students explore critical urban theory, justice, counter cartographies, design activism, participatory systems, and spatial agency using alternative mapping methodologies to render legible latent sociospatial asymmetries.

Timescales and the Temporal Emergence of Musicking

The aim of this chapter is twofold: to present a new way of mapping timescales of musicking, and to elaborate an explanatory approach that overcomes philosophical reductionism and allows interdisciplinary conversation. It proposes that the emergence of organizational properties in musicking is best understood by looking at the relations between timescales, using the heuristic of inter-scale relationships within temporal ranges. The chapter argues that simpler models of timescales have limited explanatory use and do not naturally capture the experiential richness of musicking. In contrast, the mapping of temporal ranges highlights the relations between many processes that mutually enable and constrain one another across timescales, and across brains, bodies, and environment. The map guides research into the complexity of musicking without sacrificing disciplinary focus. It consists of three domains of organization—sensorimotor, social life, and person/Self—interweaving ecological-enactive concepts of embodiment, self-organization, participatory systems, attunement, normative constraints, habits, and sense-making.

Identifying Climate Adjacency for Enhancing Climate Action Using Systems Thinking and Modelling

This paper presents findings from a process aimed at identifying the climate linkages of non-climate focused environment and development projects in India. Findings from four case studies based on workshops using participatory systems thinking are summarized. These climate adjacencies are documented as systems stories using the tools of systems thinking—behavior over time graphs and causal loop diagrams. These place-based stories highlight how the environment and development projects have linkages with climate change mitigation and adaptation. An attempt has been made to convert one of the systems stories into a computable simulation model using system dynamics modelling. A small concept model has been created thus and used to perform simulation runs. Four scenarios have been generated and the results discussed. Our learning from converting feedback maps into stock-flow models is presented. The insights generated from interpreting the feedback maps and simulation results are also presented. These insights are then compared and the benefits of simulation evaluated. The paper highlights the need to document climate linkages of non-climate-focused development projects and the benefit of converting systems stories into simulation models for developing operational insights. The important role such methods can play in developing capacities for enhancing climate action is also discussed.

Increasing physical activity among elementary school students during distance learning: The StandUp Kids Study

Sedentary behaviour among primary school students has been associated with unfavourable health outcomes, which have been believed to be exacerbated by distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. We present the methodology used to design and develop interventions to increase physical activity in 4th grade students using a participatory, systems approach while online learning. Preliminary formative evaluation of training has indicated a positive reception by the stakeholders. This study highlights the importance of a systems approach to engage stakeholders in the betterment of our students’ health.

Undergraduate Research as System

This study examines the written and visual results of a participatory systems-mapping process used to explore undergraduate research at a large, public research university in the United States. With the university’s transition to a high-impact practice model, the institutional value of undergraduate research has increased, but challenges remain in implementing the practice equitably and inclusively, especially in the complex environment of higher education. The systems-mapping process reveals the subtle, often conflicting dynamics that underlie the undergraduate research enterprise, while simultaneously supporting the emergence of a shared vision, or story, of what the undergraduate research experience could be.