Finding common ground on the threshold: An experiment in critical urban learning

Abstract

The paper delves into the role of academic institutions in urban commoning, which involves the sharing and collaborative management of common resources. It specifically examines the impact of Practices of Urban Inclusion, an experimental learning programme, in fostering new forms of collaboration across places and institutions. This programme was co-designed and co-run by a network of four architecture and urban planning schools and three third-sector organisations across four European countries. The paper mobilises the concept of 'threshold spaces' by Stavros Stavrides to discuss if and how urban knowledge and learning can be co-produced and circulated ‘on the threshold’ between academia and civil society. Practices of Urban Inclusion is thus seen as a threshold space that aimed to bring different subjectivities and forms of knowledge into connection by foregrounding experiential knowledge, fostering collaborative learning, and connecting temporalities. The paper reflects on the key characteristics of the programme and highlights some of its commoning outcomes. We suggest that conceptualising knowledge co-production through ideas of commoning and threshold spatiality allows for more nuanced understandings of the dynamics of academia-civil society collaborations.