Abstract
Transition arenas are organised to facilitate and guide sociotechnical system change. The organisers invite identified stakeholders in the set problem area to design desirable futures and develop transition pathways. Typically, a transition arena is organised by a transition team who wield power and authority in the transition context. Our broader research project develops transition arenas to facilitate a transition towards gender-equal futures in the Finnish music industry. This research-through-design study investigates how transition arenas can be organised in alignment with intersectional feminist values, specifically focusing on the establishment phase of the process. Through workshops with industry stakeholders, we explore avenues for transition arenas to become industry driven, centre the impacted people and decentre the transition team. In our analysis, we bring forward both how stakeholders are given power and agency over the transition process before the transition team is formed and the impact that this approach has.
Keywords
transition design, transition arena, transition team, intersectional feminism
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1739
Citation
Rantanen, T., Marttila, T., and Gaziulusoy, I. (2026) Redesigning transition arenas for power-sensitive participation, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1739
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Redesigning transition arenas for power-sensitive participation
Transition arenas are organised to facilitate and guide sociotechnical system change. The organisers invite identified stakeholders in the set problem area to design desirable futures and develop transition pathways. Typically, a transition arena is organised by a transition team who wield power and authority in the transition context. Our broader research project develops transition arenas to facilitate a transition towards gender-equal futures in the Finnish music industry. This research-through-design study investigates how transition arenas can be organised in alignment with intersectional feminist values, specifically focusing on the establishment phase of the process. Through workshops with industry stakeholders, we explore avenues for transition arenas to become industry driven, centre the impacted people and decentre the transition team. In our analysis, we bring forward both how stakeholders are given power and agency over the transition process before the transition team is formed and the impact that this approach has.