Redirecting a Scattered Public Toward Alternative Matters of Concern: Shifting Perceptions of Urban Wastewater Governance in Indonesia

Tanja Rosenqvist is a designer and recent PhD graduate from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research is transdisciplinary and sits in the intersection between design, international development and governance. In her activist doctoral research project “Governing Futures—Voices and Wastewater,” she explored the governance of urban sanitation services in Indonesia and used design as a means of engaging low-income urban communities and government representatives in exploring and questioning current government relations and the societal norms and values underpinning them. The project sought to create change in sanitation governance in Indonesia and was inspired by Participatory Design, Design Activism, and Mundane Governance.