Asa Jonasson: Asa.Jonasson@unisa.edu.au
Robert is Deputy Director of the China Australia Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, a partnership with Tianjin University, where he is also a guest researcher. With an Oxford doctorate in early modern European history of science and philosophy, Robert's current research focuses on sustainability, and the relationship between consumption, waste and design. He has published widely on this theme, most recently in two co-edited books, Subverting Consumerism: Reuse in an Accelerated World (Routledge 2018) and Unmaking Waste in Production and Consumption: Towards a Circular Economy (Emerald 2018). His recent book, Somebody Else’s Problem: Consumerism, Design and Sustainability (Greenleaf 2016), won gold in the Axiom... Read more
About me
Robert is Deputy Director of the China Australia Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, a partnership with Tianjin University, where he is also a guest researcher. With an Oxford doctorate in early modern European history of science and philosophy, Robert's current research focuses on sustainability, and the relationship between consumption, waste and design. He has published widely on this theme, most recently in two co-edited books, Subverting Consumerism: Reuse in an Accelerated World (Routledge 2018) and Unmaking Waste in Production and Consumption: Towards a Circular Economy (Emerald 2018). His recent book, Somebody Else’s Problem: Consumerism, Design and Sustainability (Greenleaf 2016), won gold in the Axiom Best Business Books for 2017 (sustainability). He has spoken at many community and cultural events on themes relating to consumption, waste and design for sustainability, including the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (Bali 2017), and the 'Be Waste Wise' global platform on waste matters (2017).
About me
Coordinator UniSA DESIS Lab, Desis Network for Social Innovation and Sustainability
Associate Editor of the Journal of Design Business and Society (Intellect, UK)
About me
| Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 17/02/2017 |
Awarded best book (gold) in the category, Sustainability/Non-Profit/Philanthropy, Axiom Best Books in Business Awards, 2017, : http://www.axiomawards.com/77/2017-winners |
About me
Doctor of Philosophy University of Oxford
Robert began his research career in the history of early modern European science, philosophy and religion at Oxford, where he gained his doctorate in 1987. Following seven years teaching modern history at Adelaide and Flinders Universities, he came to UniSA to teach the history and theory of design and research methods in 1996. He now has over twenty years experience teaching history and theory of design and design for sustainability, and was instrumental in establishing the 'theory' part of the AAD School's successful design for sustainability program, alongside the Zero Waste SA Research Centre for Sustainable Design and Behaviour, where for a time he was Acting Director, between 2014 and 2015. He currently serves as Deputy Director of the China Australia Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, a research partnership with Tianjin University in China, where he is a regular visiting lecturer, and a guest researcher.
Robert is an active researcher and PhD supervisor. His research focuses on the role of consumption and design in our present environmental crisis, and he has hosted 3 international conferences on this theme, most recently 'Unmaking Waste', in September, 2018. He has published eight books, including most recently, Subverting Consumerism: Reuse in an Accelerated World and Unmaking Waste in Production and Consumption: Towards the Circular Economy. His book, Somebody Else's Problem: Consumerism, Sustainability and Design (Routledge / Greenleaf, UK), won gold in the annual Axiom Business Books awards for 2017. He has spoken at many public events, including Womadelaide Planet Talks (2015), the Ubud Writers' Festival (2017) and Be Waste Wise, a New York-based global platform for public engagement with waste and waste matters, where he is currently a moderator.
Robert's research is mainly focused on the problem of consumption and waste and the challenge to design presented by today's escalating environmental crisis. Robert is especially interested in the 'wicked problem' of overproduction and overconsumption presented by the growth economy, and the present failure of mainstream economics and government policy and regulation to deal effectively with this, or indeed with the escalation of 'excess' global consumption and waste over the last thirty years. He is currently involved in a number of small collaborative research projects relating to this theme, ranging from studies of coffee drinking and waste to small scale local food production and consumption. He is... Read more
Research
Excludes commercial-in-confidence projects.
2015-2018: Adelaide Living Labs Hub: Co-Creation Methodologies for Eco-Precincts (with Jane Andrew and Aaron Davis, PhD candidate)
Research
Research since 2008 is shown below. To see earlier years visit ORCID, ResearcherID or Scopus
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Recent Research Publications
Robert Crocker, Christopher Saint, Guanyi Chen and Yindong Tong (eds), Unmaking Waste in Production and Consumption: Towards the Circular Economy (Emerald, 2018)
Robert Crocker and Keri Chiveralls (eds), Subverting Consumerism: Reuse in an Accelerated World (Routledge, 2018).
Robert Crocker, Somebody Else's Problem: Consumerism, Sustainability and Design (Greenleaf / Routledge, 2016). (awarded Gold, Sustainability and Non-Profit Category, Axiom Best Business Books of the Year, 2017).
Robert Crocker, 'The 'Good Corporation': The Uneasy Relationship between Reputation and Responsibility', in G. Muratovski (ed), Consumer Culture: Selected Essays (Intellect, UK, 2016), Chapter 8
Robert Crocker, 'Acceleration in Consumerism, Technology and Sustainability', in G. Muratovski (ed), Consumer Culture: Selected Essays (Intellect, UK, 2016): Chapter 9.
Robert Crocker, 'Unmaking Waste' in Jonathan Chapman (ed), The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Product Design (Routledge, 2017).
Recent Conferences and Exhibitions
Convenor, Unmaking Waste conference and exhibition, City West Campus,University of South Australia, September 2018
Convenor, Futures of Waste exhibition and seminar, City West, September 2016
Convenor, Unmaking Waste conference and exhibition, City West, September 2015
Information on these events is available here
Research
Robert's research is mainly focused on the problem of consumption and waste and the challenge to design presented by today's escalating environmental crisis. Robert is especially interested in the 'wicked problem' of overproduction and overconsumption presented by the growth economy, and the present failure of mainstream economics and government policy and regulation to deal effectively with this, or indeed with the escalation of 'excess' global consumption and waste over the last thirty years. He is currently involved in a number of small collaborative research projects relating to this theme, ranging from studies of coffee drinking and waste to small scale local food production and consumption. He is presently developing a photography exhibition and book project with Gini Lee (University of Melbourne) and Cecilia Loschiavo (University of Sao Paulo) on 'landscapes of waste', and two other book projects deriving from the Unmaking Waste conference (2018), alongside a second, expanded edition of his book, Somebody Else's Problem: Consumerism, Sustainability and Design (Routledge 2016), which is to be reissued in a Greenleaf series on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 12). He is actively engaged with the problem of sustainable consumption, and is frequently asked to talk on some aspect of his research.
Robert is an active advocate for sustainable consumption and waste reduction, and has been asked to speak at many events over the last few years, including at Womadelaide 2015, Be Waste Wise (2017) and the Ubud writers and readers festival (2017). Robert regularly speaks at community events on the consumption and waste crisis and what can be done about it. He has also spoken to a number of high school groups on the above theme for 'Plan for the Planet', and on its relationship to the Sustainable Development Goals.
External engagement & recognition
| Organisation | Country |
|---|---|
| Central Queensland University | AUSTRALIA |
| Tianjin University | CHINA |
| University of South Australia | AUSTRALIA |
External engagement & recognition
| Engagement/recognition | Year |
|---|---|
Associate EditorJournal of Design Business and Society, Intellect |
2018 |
3rd in publication awardsInternational Solid Waste Association |
2017 |
Associate EditorJournal of Design Business and Society, Intellect |
2017 |
Deputy DirectorChina-Australia Centre for Sustainable Urban Development |
2017 |
Gold in the sustainability categoryAxiom Best Business Books |
2017 |
Coordinator UniSA DESIS Lab, DESIS Network for Social Innovation and Sustainability. http://www.desis-network.org/
The history and theory of modern design broadly understood in terms of cultural and environmental change, especially industrial design, and its changing relation to culture, technology, economy and society. Qualitative research methods in design history and theory, in industrial design, and more broadly in the environmental humanities. Although now employed part-time in a research only capacity (0.6), I regularly give guest lectures on sustainable design, consumption and waste, and teach at the Tianjin summer school.
Teaching & student supervision
Teaching & student supervision
Supervisions from 2010 shown
| Thesis title | Student status |
|---|---|
| Australia Awards | Current |
| Co-creation: an asset not a liability. Toward an understanding of the optimal conditions for the application of co-creation to projects in the built environment. | Current |
| Communicating sustainability: The role of narrative, identity and human values | Current |
| Designing for change: the role of transformation of self and practice in transitioning a design practice beyond greener things | Current |
| Despair is not an option: Artistic responses to the Anthropocene | Current |
| Develop a draft of Australian site waste management protocol (AUSiWMaP) as a best practice of decision making tool in the construction industry. | Current |
| Developing a framework for waste informatics using a case study apporach in Jakata, Indonesia | Current |
| Investigation towards effects of adaption of waste and resource management practices in community organisations at work home and in other settings | Current |
| A strategic waste management framework and tool for the development of zero waste cities | Completed |
| Desire for less: communicating sustainable consumption through creative artefacts by and for children | Completed |
| Developing a co-design model through the production of education materials in the health environment | Completed |
| 'Dresses are annoying. I like to design them myself': A post-phenomenological exploration of everyday artefacts | Completed |
| In pursuit of the marvellous: exploring the role of memory in the surrealism of Czech emigre Dusan Marek (1926-1993) | Completed |
| Nintendo, Japan and longing: videogames embodying and communicating cultural desires | Completed |
| Such endless pleasure: the illustrated private press books of Christine Margaret MacGregor | Completed |
| Visual and cultural mutations of the miraculous image : the role of religious pareidolia in shrine formation | Completed |
