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| "My Public Living Room’’, M. Galanakis |
We see Transdisciplinary Urbanism (TU) as a new, emerging
methodological framework according to which social and action
researchers, artists, animators, performers, activists, and local
communities come together to study uncertainty, chance and
open-endedness, and to transparently renegotiate power structures in
urban space. TU builds upon the social aspects of Urbanism; it connects
different theories and practices, and crosses disciplines in order to
study and improve everyday life. The disciplinary crossovers entailed by
such practices push inhabitants and professionals out from their
comfort zones, encouraging co-operation and co-creation in
non-predetermined ways.
…Our personal background encouraged us to adopt a transdisciplinary research approach (Doucet and Janssens, 2011 and Ramadier, 2004) to study our areas, by integrating three major discourses: Social–Spatial Research, Complexity Theories of Cities, and Urban Activism. We also argued that Transdisciplinary Urbanism (TU) underpins a new way of knowledge production that has been labeled by Gibbons et al. (1994) “Mode 2”, i.e. knowledge produced by multiple research agencies/players, within an evolving and dynamic framework, in which empirical data and theory are combined. The fields chosen and the linkages made are indicative of our understandings of cities and urban studies that are evolving and open-ended.
We deployed Urban Artistic Interventions (UAIs) in Tallinn, Helsinki and Toronto as a tool to contest social norms and to openly renegotiate power structures in public space (Zukin, 1995: 20, 279). All three projects provided settings where “Otherness” and foreignness, admittedly in a naively straightforward way, were acknowledged and welcomed. Framing opportunities for dialog to occur was a worthwhile endeavor that created opportunities for even a temporary shift of perspective and yielded results beyond our expectations. we found that the immersion in the poetry and complexity of the everyday was a groundbreaking research experience.”
more infos:
Rizzo, A., & Galanakis, M. (2015). Transdisciplinary Urbanism: Three experiences from Europe and Canada. Cities. 47, 35–44.
