Rigon, Andrea; (2022) Power relations and incentive structures in university Public Engagement with urban marginalised actors. Presented at: European Urban Research Association Conference 2022 (EURA 2022), Milan, Italy.

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Abstract

There is an expanding body of work examining knowledge coproduction between universities and urban actors (Hemstroem, Palmer, Polk, Perry, & Simon, 2021; Nesti, 2017), reflecting on the pedagogical and social impact of these experiences (Cognetti & Castelnuovo, 2019). This paper will discuss two models of public engagement (PE): the experience of partnering with informal settlement communities and their organisations in setting up a research centre in Sierra Leone (Rigon, Macarthy, Koroma, Walker, & Apsan Frediani, 2017) and the long-term relationship with civil society actors in London and Salvador de Bahia within the framework of an MSc in Social Development Practice. Based on these engagements, the paper will argue for PE to be structurally planned within teaching and research and not as an afterthought. We found that it is only when it is planned as a core activity that it is possible to sustaining it in the long-term and a long-term relationship is fundamental for ethical and impactful PE. The paper will reflect on how planning public engagement at the core of teaching and research transforms the type of knowledge coproduced (Osuteye et al., 2019), and on what role the university and this new type of knowledge can play in relation to urban justice struggles. We found that such knowledge can often provide legitimacy to urban actors and, when used strategically, the university presence can be turned into a powerful tool to get grassroots claims recognised by public institutions. The paper will also reflect on the open-ended and long-term nature of these experimental relations with partners in marginalised urban areas, outlining the challenges and the power issues involved with such knowledge coproduction. The paper will also engage with how the incentive structure of academics shape the public engagement work they do and how academics can find some ‘room for manoeuvre’ for political work within a depoliticised emphasis on ‘impact’ in the neoliberal university. Finally, the paper will consider the incentives and politics of other urban actors for engaging in this work with universities.

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