Paper short abstract:

Tomorrow’s Cities is a global interdisciplinary and collaborative research Hub working across four cities: Istanbul, Kathmandu, Nairobi, and Quito. We propose to re-imagine research ethics and “impact” through reflexivity and everyday ethics of care from a feminist and decolonial perspective.

Paper long abstract:

Tomorrow’s Cities is a global interdisciplinary research Hub working with academics, communities and policy-makers across four cities: Istanbul, Kathmandu, Nairobi, and Quito. Its main aim is to bring multi-hazard disaster risk management to the centre of urban policy and practice, and it is funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). The project mission is to generate ‘impact’ across geographical scales and actors to benefit urban communities that are most at risk. In this context, and from the start of the project, researchers across the four cities and the UK have been discussing the ethical implications, power relations and framings involved in generating ‘impact’ through co-production of knowledge, and interdisciplinary research, including participatory methods . In this presentation, we would like to explore what ‘impact’ means to us. Is there one definition of impact or can there be different pathways for each city’s authorities, for each research team, and the communities we work with? We are particularly interested in discussing how ‘impact’ translates for us into everyday tensions in our research and practices: What kind of knowledge(s) are we co-producing? Who decides when this is ‘impactful’, for whom and why? Using examples from the four cities, and from a central Hub operational perspective, we will show how we attempt to navigate these tensions and power relations through an everyday ethics of care and reflexive practices highlighted by feminist and decolonial lenses (e.g. Lawson 2007; Segato 2018; Smith 1987).