The potential and pitfalls of co-producing urban knowledge: Rethinking spaces of engagement

Abstract

Securing sustainable and just transition pathways in cities is recognised as key to addressing global environmental challenges. There is increasing acceptance that transformative change in cities must be shaped by the co-production of knowledge between diverse partners. The creation of spaces of collaboration, referred to in the literature as ‘third spaces’, is integral to such co-production of knowledge. However, evidence to support a direct relationship between third spaces of engagement and securing urban transformation is largely undocumented. This paper deepens and develops the idea of shared spaces for knowledge co-production by drawing on the experiences of City officials and PhD researchers in a City-University knowledge partnership in Cape Town. It uses the data to critique the third space for its limited engagement with how the relationship between individual knowledge brokers and their home institutions effects change. The findings of the paper show that, despite the benefits of boundary crossing between the academy and practice, such crossings also leave individuals peripheralised from their ‘home’ institutions. This disconnect and sense of ‘homelessness’ limits the potential of co-production to affect urban transformation. To address the conceptual lacunae of the third space, I develop the idea of the portal to reflect the dynamic exchange required between individuals and their home institutions for realising relevant change. The form of the portal is not spatially bound, but reflects dynamic processes of entering and exiting sites of knowledge exchange to secure a sense of belonging. By highlighting the need to include processes for anchoring institutional learning, the concept of portals for knowledge exchange offers additional scope for securing urban transformation.