University of Gothenburg
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Helena Kraff

Senior Lecturer

The Design Unit
Mail
helena.kraff@hdk.gu.se

Programme Supervisor

The Design Unit
Mail
helena.kraff@hdk.gu.se
Visiting address
Kristinelundsgatan 6-8
Göteborg
Postal address
Box 131
40530 Göteborg

About Helena Kraff

I have a base in the MFA program in design with specialization in Embedded Design, where I am engaged as a teacher and program director. In embedded design our students explore the role of design in complex organizational setting, in which designers incorporate their critical perspectives as well as transformative aims for organizational and societal development.

I have a PhD in design (2018) and my main research focus lies in the exploration of participatory practices within and outside the field of design. Projects and publications focus on pitfalls of participation, the diversity of participants, agonistic participation and time as an issue of power in participatory design.

My research is often action based, transdisciplinary and done in collaboration with scholars and practitioners from other fields disciplines. Many of the projects in which I explore participation and collaboration are within the area of sustainable tourism. Former project has dealt with participatory community-based tourism development projects in a Kenyan context, the role of tourism in labor market integration, and the future of tourism agencies in the age of digitalization. In the research project, TiMS, I explore the role of tourism in multicultural societies. Apart from academic publications examining for example the political aspects of co-creation, multiculturalism in relation to food events, and issues of exclusion in tourism, the TiMS project also resulted in a policy brief a short film and a special issue defining the concept of Inclusive tourism. Present in all projects is the interrelation between critical perspectives on the one side, and pragmatic and transformative aims on the other.

I am also engaged in the cross-faculty research centre, Centre for tourism, the Business & Design Lab and the research cluster Economies: organizing, valuating and working.