Dr. Jasmin Jossin

My academic work operates at the intersection of psychology, sustainability, and futures literacy. Prior to my current position at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, I spent several years at the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu), where I conducted transdisciplinary research on sustainable development at the local level and supported municipalities in sustainability management. Furthermore, I have been involved as a research associate at various universities in projects focusing on stress and pain research, biocultural diversity, and education for sustainable development. As part of the DFG Research Training Group "Urban Ecology III," I completed my doctorate on the interaction of various environmental stressors and resources (urban greenery) concerning the health of urban residents. I previously studied Psychology in Frankfurt am Main and Amsterdam. Since 2020, I have been focusing intensively on future visions, transformative research, and transformative learning. These themes form a central pillar of my P3 Dual project, as well as my freelance work as a facilitator and speaker.

Project in ProfDual: „Xtopias of digital urban futures“ 

The complexity of the great transformation toward a more sustainable society, along with the openness of future developments, requires that as many members of society as possible enrich public futuring discourses with their diverse perspectives and ideas. To do so, people must be empowered and motivated. This is where Xtopias come in: Xtopias are interventions that invite people to engage speculatively and in a playful, interactive way with different kinds of futures, to develop new, personal visions of the future on this basis, and to critically reflect on them. In this way, Xtopias aim to train futures literacy—that is, the ability to imagine possible futures and to consciously use this thinking in order to make better decisions in the present.

The Xtopia approach emerged from an own research project ‚Urban Xtopias‘. Within the P3 Dual project, I further develop this approach through interdisciplinary courses in the Department of Design and through collaboration with various practice partners for the implementation of public interventions. In terms of content, I focus on futures of love: love has a strong transformative power that, in my view, receives too little attention in sustainability discourses—even though love is not only a private matter but, for many reasons, also a political one. Through my courses and the resulting Xtopian interventions, I pursue the goal of broadening societal understandings of love, making them more inclusive and socially just, while also providing students and visitors to the interventions with small impulses for action toward active participation in the socio-ecological transformation.

A particular focus lies on urban society and on questions of digital transformation. Concretely, the courses approach speculative questions such as the following: What might future urban “love reserve areas” look like? How can a city of the future be not only smart but, above all, caring and loving? What future demands on housing might emerge from the pluralization of life models? And to what extent might artificial intelligence influence how we shape relationships? Empirical research activities and my freelance work in adult education accompany my Teaching-Research Nexus.

Tandem partner: Prof. Myriel Milicevic

Further co-teachers: Prof. Alexandra Martini, Prof. Dr. Antje Michel and Katja Stephan

Practice partners in P3 Dual:

Startbahn Berlin / Genezarethkirche; BHROX bauhaus reuse / zukunftsgeraeusche GbR; Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U); Bundesverband der Familienzentren e.V.; INF8T – Initiative für eine achtsame und wirksame Transformation