Theoretical Reading Group

Upcoming: June 2026

Creativity is the topic chosen for June's reading group:

• Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihail Csíkszentmihályi

May 2026

During the theory reading group of May the topic of Valuation Studies will be discussed:

• Valuation Studies as a frame is STS by Kristin Asdal, Liliana Doganova and Maximilian Fochler
• What Is a Good Tomato? A Case of Valuing in Practice by Frank Heuts and Annemarie Mol

April 2026

This month the reading's topic was Resource Stewardship as a Form of Sustainability in (Medical) Settings:

• Doctors as Resource: Stewards Translating High-Value, Cost-Conscious Care to the Consulting Room by Marjolein Moleman et al.
• Environmental sustainability in healthcare Managerial concerns and solutions by Pascal Verdonck and Isabel Verniers

March 2026

This edition of the reading was centered in Pluriversal Design:

• Introduction. Designs for the Pluriverse by Arturo Escobar, Design for the Real World. Designs for the Pluriverse by Arturo Escobar
• Design for/by “The Global South” by Tony Fry

February 2026

Indigenous Data Governance was the topic chosen for February, and this was the material discussed

• The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance by Stephanie Russo Carroll et al.
• Indigenous data, indigenous methodologies, and indigenous data sovereignty by Maggie Walter and Michele Suina

January 2026

This new edition was centered on the topic of Machinic Anthropology and was guided by this material:

• Editorial introduction: Towards a machinic anthropology by Morten Axel Pedersen
• Introduction: Towards an Anthropology of Data by Rachel Douglas-Jones, Antonia Walford, and Nick Seave

December 2025

In the Upcycled Clinic Project, the year 2025 was closed with the Sensory Ethnography reading group. The material discussed was:

• How to make an omelette: A sensory experiment in team ethnography by Anna Harris, Andrea Wojcik, and Rachel Vaden Allison:
• An ethnography inventory: Field devices for anthropological inquiry by Tomás Sánchez Criado and Adolfo Estalella
• The qualities of a new sensory ethnography: An introduction by Philip Vannini

November 2025

The Theory Reading Group of November was centered on Dirt, Clean, Schoon and the content for it was the following:

• Is Waste Really Dirt? Some Reflections on Mary Douglas, my iPod, and the Performativity of Partial Understandings by Joren Peeters
• Not quite clean: Trailing schoon and its resonances by Annemarie Mol

September 2025

The academic year started centered on the theme of Purity and Danger, and the following material was discussed:

• Creating with traces of life waste reuse and design by Staffan Appelgren
• Purity and Danger: Ritual Uncleanness by Mary Douglas
• Purity and Danger: Secular Defilement by Mary Douglas

June 2025

The last reading group of the academic year was about Degrowth and was hosted at the Limestone bookstore in Maastricht. The reading material discussed was:  

• Less is More by Jason Hickel  
• Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism by Kohei Saito

May 2025

This edition of the reading group was co-hosted online with colleagues from Edinburgh and centred on the concept of Waste.

• Spectacles of Waste by Warwick Anderson  
• Waste Works: Vital Politics in Urban Ghana by Brenda Chalfin

April 2025

The topic of this reading group was Affective investigations and guided by the reading proposed here:  

• Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth by Matthew Fuller and Eyal Weizman  
• Lexicon for an Affective Archive (ed) by Giulia Palladini and Marco Pustianaz

February 2025

Postcolonial theory was the centre of February’s theoretical reading group. The following material was discussed:

• Alter-politics by Ghassan Hage  
• Necro-politics by Achille Mbembe

January 2025

To kick off the new year, Use was the theme of this month’s reading group. The reading material for this session was:  

• What’s the Use by Sarah Ahmed  
• For a Pragmatics of the Useless by Erin Manning and Brian Massumi

December 2024

The topic of this reading group was Ways of Knowing and the following content was discussed:  

• Experimental Practice by Dimitris Papadopoulos  
• Knowing from the Inside by Tim Ingold

November 2024

This month’s the reading grouped focused on Design I (non-human, CRIP). The material discussed was

• What can a Body do: How we Meet the Built World by Sara Hendren  
• Things we Could Design for More than Human Centered Worlds by Ron Wakkary

October 2024

Publics was the topic of this months reading group. The material discussed was  

• Material Participation by Noortje Marres  
• Making Sense in Common: A Reading of Whitehead in Times of Collapse by Isabelle Stengers