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Paper short abstract:

A Chennai, India (2021-2023) qualitative study posits homeless people's survival strategies in alternative dwelling spaces challenging mainstream narratives. This aligns with the panel's emphasis on diverse urban knowledge practices & the need to prioritise homeless concerns in both policy & praxis.

Paper long abstract:

In urban and rural landscapes, homelessness persists as a complex challenge. This study delves into the lived experiences of individuals without stable housing, shedding light on their alternative knowledge practices in the context of homemaking and place-making within the city. This qualitative study, conducted in Chennai from 2021 to 2023, involved sixty homeless individuals through a demographic survey, 16 in-depth interviews, and continuous engagement via focus group discussions, dialogues, and participant observation.

Amidst inclement weather and pandemics prompting the state's directive to 'stay at home,' this research challenges existing narratives surrounding homelessness. We acknowledge that some individuals and families, despite their homeless status, manage to build support systems and find innovative solutions to living on the streets, prompting the question of whether homeless people are truly homeless or houseless.

Our argument suggests that homeless individuals navigate the blurred lines between place-making and homemaking, challenging the monolithic identity attributed to them. Through creative strategies for survival, resilience, and community-building, they contribute to alternative notions of dwelling spaces, offering a unique perspective to the discourse on urban knowledge practices. Furthermore, it engages with the entanglements and tensions between mainstream perspectives on homelessness and the diverse experiences of those lacking stable housing. We underscore the intersectionality of homelessness and alternative knowledge practices, and diverse ways of knowing. This study supports a multi-axial consolidation of homeless priorities to improve policy, services, and research, contributing to the broader discussion on alternative urban knowledge practices.

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This paper traces the emergence of city farms in London as a socially and ecologically innovative process of place-making, and focuses specially on the knowledge practices of the participants who were involved in this process, including the co-agency of non-human farmed animals.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 1970s, London, and subsequently also other UK cities, witnessed the emergence of so-called ‘city farms’. The term refers to community-based projects, which seek to bring urban dwellers into contact with agricultural practices and animals, and which thereby make creative use of, hitherto neglected, patches of urban space. The focus on life-stock and other farm animals sets these projects apart from recent efforts to promote sustainable food growing in community gardens. Unlike commercial farms, they have offered farming as a service to the 'community', for example, by providing a space for weekend outings, children's play, volunteering, or therapeutic and educational activities. This paper traces the emergence of London’s city farms as a socially and ecologically innovative process of place-making, and focuses specially on the knowledge practices of the participants who were involved in this process. It asks (1) how participating actors came to share their understanding of city farms and animal-keeping as a service for the city and urban dwellers, and (2) how they engaged in the active shaping and appropriation of the agricultural skills needed to make animal keeping work in line with these aspirational ideas. It will be shown that this was a historically situated and conflict-ridden process of relational tinkering and negotiation that participants referred to as ‘experiments’, and which involved the political agency of activists and councils, as much as the non-human agency of farmed animals. The paper thereby seeks to complement recent scholarship on sustainability-related alternative urban knowledge arrangements with a wider historical-sociological perspective.

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Through interviews and ethnographic work, we focus on revealing how, in Chile, urban designs for children often overlook their diverse needs. Here we argue that by incorporating their perspectives and embracing otherness, we can foster reciprocal care between inhabitants and their urban environment.

Paper long abstract:

Historically, Latin American cities have lacked comprehensive urban planning, resulting in disjointed urban spaces and flows. In Chile, urban space production has lacked foresight into its consequences. Instead, it's primarily driven by individual efforts, later socialized by powerful groups, typically characterized by a traditional humanistic perspective, leaving little room for otherness. As a result, urban spaces are often perceived by minorities such as children, the disabled, and marginalized groups as alienating and neglectful of their bodies, experiences, and abilities.

In this presentation, we draw on empirical data from an ongoing investigation into childhood, care, and urban spaces in Chile. We focus on how urban spaces designed for children are primarily based on abstractions and normalizations of childhood and otherness, both human and non-human. To explore this, we employ expert interviews and ethnographic work with children regarding their usage, imagination, practices, and emotions in these spaces. We examine how they envision the transformation of these spaces alongside other commonly overlooked actors with whom they share these environments.

Building upon advancements in 'care' and 'attentiveness' from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and posthumanist theory, we contend that a heightened sensitivity to the needs of others can facilitate the creation of more caring cities. By embracing otherness and incorporating diverse perspectives, we can cultivate a culture of caring for the urban environment, thereby fostering reciprocal care between inhabitants and their city.

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With our case study ‘Researching the City: Mapping Imaginaries’ of Amsterdam Zuidoost, we explore grass-root, collaborative knowledge practices through mixed methods of counter-mapping that fosters critical emancipatory awareness and affective engagement with areas in the urban semi-periphery.

Paper long abstract:

Urban transformations often result in ‘affective displacement’ and have consequences for the health and well-being of residents (Butcher & Dickens, 2016; Brummet and Reed, 2019). Displacement is a form of violence, that includes processes of ‘cultural appropriation’ (Elliott-Cooper et al., 2020) and its impacts need to be better ‘documented and resisted’ (ibid). Responding to this call, with our case study of ‘Researching the City: Mapping Imaginaries’ of Amsterdam Southeast (Zuidoost), we turned to medium specific, embodied, non-representational (Thrift, 2008) counter-mapping to better engage (in terms of cultural sensitivity and inclusivity) with the urban ‘semi-periphery’ (Blagojevic, 2009).

We used digital methods (Rogers, 2013) to explore how Amsterdam Southeast is ‘seen’ through search engine results (stakeholders networks). We intervened in the mapping with local expert knowledge of activists, artists, and researchers. We also used affect as an intervention and collaboratively collected sensory data (recording with images, sounds, videos) with students and local communities. In this process we created a counter-archive, bringing to the forefront imaginaries, senses, emotions, and memories -- a repository of local affective knowledge.

Our case study shows that "counter-mapping" can be a meditative and reflective practice that fosters critical and emancipatory awareness in students, partners, and local communities. It opens space for reimagining and productive affective engagement with areas in the urban periphery. It also enables various themes of consideration: ‘body as an archive’, and archiving 'imaginaries' practices such as performance, memory, and digital objects.

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Experts evaluate the risks in an urban environment through tangible and measurable indicators, like noise level, structural stability, or pollutant concentrations in the air, water, or soil. However, society adds a small but significant human factor to the debate on risk perception. Here, we instigate a discussion on public risk perception.

Paper long abstract:

Currently, urban environments represent some of the most intricate human constructs, characterized by layers of complexity that inherently entail various risks and vulnerabilities. Over time, experts have diligently studied these tangible risks and vulnerabilities, proposing strategies to mitigate, prevent, or adapt to various risks and crises. However, as cities continue to evolve in complexity, the influence of public opinion and action becomes increasingly important. Thus, for effective risk and crisis management, it is imperative to include human factor.

The recent study was conducted in Klaipėda city, Lithuania, the third largest city in the country, situated near the Lithuanian-Russian border. Here, risks were evaluated through participatory mapping activities with local communities. Citizens were actively engaged, providing their insights and perspectives on the perceived risks within their city and immediate surroundings. Subsequently, these community-generated insights were juxtaposed with the expertise of professionals in the field, culminating in the creation. The final map shows society’s perceived and expert-evaluated risks and vulnerabilities.

Beyond its scientific implications, such a map could provide suggestions for political and city administrative decisions, shape agendas and direct resources towards areas of heightened concern. By integrating community perspectives with expert knowledge, this approach not only enhances the understanding of urban risks but could also foster a sense of collective ownership and empowerment within the community towards addressing these challenges.

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This paper analyses four figures in which city administrations perform knowledge in the European city: the laboratory, the forum, the exhibition and the ceremony. It examines how experimentation, collaboration, display and triumph are modes of constituting urban expertise as a collective concern.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past decade, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, European cities have experienced a shift towards collective practices and democratic episodes in urban planning. As public sector performance succumbed to new circuits of performing and viewing 'the urban', with feedback loops operating across multiple entities, urban expertise underwent multiple reconfigurations. Beyond technocratic bureaucracy, there has been an increase in focus on public issues. Issues such as affordable housing and public spaces have gained momentum, highlighting the importance of liveability and equity. Rather than simply the management of urban growth, the modern approach of city builders and planners has been extended by what David Stark (2020) calls the 'performance complex'. As well as suggesting that our society is saturated with performance, this approach argues that we are living a paradox in which challenges such as environmental change and smart innovation, once scripted by ideals of managerialism, now support emotionally charged preoccupations that transform technical and political expertise beyond the realm of efficiency, favouring collaboration and engagement by responding to the growing expectations of communities, stakeholders, investors and diverse urban actors.

This paper will conceptualise and analyse four figures in which city administrations perform public knowledge in the European city: the laboratory, the forum, the exhibition and the ceremony. Drawing on ethnographic research in various European capitals, we will not only see how city governments bring planning knowledge to the public stage, but also examine how experimentation, collaboration, display and triumph are modes of constituting and sharing urban expertise as collective concern.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper confronts the tensions between formal and informal learning processes in urban mobility experimentation. It argues that whereas formalization of experimental learning likely improves upscaling, less formal embodied knowledge production may offer advantages that should not be overlooked.

Paper long abstract:

This paper confronts the tensions between formal and informal learning processes in urban mobility experimentation. Recent scholarship on Urban Living Lab (ULL) experiments has foregrounded learning as central to the success of these endeavours. With its processual and experiential qualities ULL experimental learning could be characterized as an alternative means of building ‘bodies’ of transformative urban knowledge. However, the ‘success’ of ULLs and their knowledge production can be interpreted in multiple ways, and some have suggested that the failure of many experiments to ‘scale up’ is indicative of insufficiently formalized learning processes. Drawing on both epistemological and pedagogic theory, as well as empirical data from two research projects that investigate grassroots and ULL mobility infrastructure experiments in Maastricht, London, and São Paulo, we argue that whereas formalization of urban experimental learning processes is likely to improve scaling, the importance of the embodied knowledge associated with immersive experience should not be overlooked. This is because the informal dimensions of learning, such as playfulness, unpredictability, or unfolding connectivity may build situated, tacit knowledge as equally motivating and guiding as the ossified knowledge acquired through more formal learning processes.

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Paper short abstract:

Fab labs are institutionalising, and they are aligning with various institutional partners in ways that indicate pathways of future prosumption in cities. Examining maker culture as an “industrial transitions movement” focuses on the dynamics of alternative and mainstream design and production.

Paper long abstract:

Makerspace and fab lab communities encourage others to actively participate in locally relevant and socially good design and production, by offering shared technology workshops in urban milieu. Such spaces include access to digital fabrication equipment as well as traditional craft workshop facilities. Maker groups align with institutional partners to mobilize publics, and they create and promote sociotechnical imaginaries also at national, regional and international scales. Their visions proselytise openness in democratising and localising technology. Moreover, municipalities leverage maker communities and spaces to explore their own ambitions related to citizen participation, material circularity, creative industry development, and so on. As fab labs have been operating since the early 2000s, they are institutionalising, and their aims and alignments indicate various pathways for how citizens are engaging in production and consumption – such as alignment with education or entrepreneurship. I examine fab labs as an industrial transitions movement and technology- and product-oriented movement (David J Hess). I study how makers engage their publics, with whom they align, and how sustainability is represented in their practices and imaginaries. I will present insights from my longitudinal research on open design and fab lab communities in Europe. I also discuss how Hess’s framework of industrial transitions movements guides analysis of such urban activism, bridging STS, transitions studies and social movement studies, and the tensions of ‘mainstream’ versus ‘alternative’ in maker practices and discourse.

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Paper short abstract:

My paper delves into the policy imaginaries of Smart City Vienna, contrasting them with the realities of participatory urban initiatives. This juxtaposition highlights the discrepancies between policy rhetoric and practical implementations, revealing inherent tensions.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of the 'smart city' has become a cornerstone in the discourse of urban development, promising a future sculpted by citizen participation through advanced technologies and policies. My interest in participating in the workshop drives from three studies conducted during my PhD in STS department, University of Vienna, focusing on Smart City Vienna, to critically examine the interplay between policy imaginaries and the realities of participatory urban initiatives.

The first study delves into the policy frameworks of Smart City Vienna, contrasting them with the actual participatory initiatives employing smart and digital tools. This juxtaposition reveals discrepancies between policy rhetoric and practical implementations, highlighting tensions and misconceptions about citizen engagement. It argues for a re-evaluation of participatory methodologies, advocating for adaptable and responsive approaches to the evolving nature of urban transformation. This research, grounded in multi-sited empirical observations, interprets participatory practices as infrastructuring publics for digital futures, where participation normalizes the concept of technological 'smartness'.

The second study extends this analysis by examining the democratic deficit in the employment of smart technologies in urban governance. It reflects on participation assemblages in Smart City Vienna, problematizing the uneven relationship between the ends and means of participation in the context of new technologies. The study argues for a greater focus on the purpose of participation and the forms of responsibilities in smartification activities, where citizens become part of the digital infrastructure, often without a choice.

The third article investigates a specific technological intervention in Vienna – the intelligent pedestrian traffic lights (IPTL) initiative. This initiative, powered by AI, aims to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety but reveals a conflicting dynamic in temporal ordering and a lack of sociotechnical understanding. The lack of citizen engagement in the design process leads to multiple 'missing publics', limiting the system's ability to attend to the social fabric of streets beyond automobility. The paper proposes a reconstructive approach to rethink traffic lights as devices of urban temporal ordering.

Collectively, these studies contribute to the discourse on digital planning and participation, offering insights into the complexities of fostering responsive citizen engagement in smart city contexts. They highlight the need for a systemic view of participation, considering diverse and interconnected ways in which publics engage in shaping matters of concern, and the importance of rethinking technological interventions in urban spaces. This paper aims to stimulate discussion on how to effectively bridge the gap between policy and practice in the smartification of urban environments.

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Paper short abstract:

How do proponents of collaborative housing in Vienna exchange and negotiate socio-technical knowledge for cooperating with and challenging urban planning? I analyse how expertise and counter-expertise are enacted in their public communication.

Paper long abstract:

Self-managed collaborative housing aims to engage in and transform urban planning and housing in Vienna. These groups want to shape their own living environments and contribute to more sustainable, affordable and collaborative housing and living. Thereby the future dwellers act as a building contractor and plan and coordinate the construction of their house. They rely on a broad range of technical, social and political knowledges for realising their practical and political aims. Municipal planning actors welcome their engagement, yet they remain hostile of the housing projects’ apparent lack of certified expertise and democratic representativity.

In this contribution, I ask: How do proponents of collaborative housing exchange and negotiate their socio-technical knowledge and expertise for cooperating with and challenging urban planning and public authorities? I am specifically analysing what knowledge and expertise is of concern for collaborative housing in Vienna, and how expertise and counter-expertise is exchanged, framed and negotiated in their public and semi-public communication with collaborators and allies, broader publics, as well as political and planning actors. The findings indicate that legitimising their expertise through established technoscientific standards is balanced with enacting counter-expertise as alternative to and missing in mainstream debates. This research speaks to STS and urban studies literature on (lay) expertise in public controversies and in collaboration.

The empirical materials stem from a multi-sited ethnography in the Viennese collaborative housing scene, comprising document analysis, interviews and observation of public and semi-public communication on websites, social media, and events such as panel discussions, guided tours, and workshops.