Understanding Learning Cities as discursive, material and affective infrastructures

Abstract

We recognize that we live in a complex, fast-changing world where social, economic and political norms are constantly redefined. Economic growth and employment, urbanization, demographic change, scientific and technological advances, cultural diversity and the need to maintain human security and public safety represent just a few of the challenges to the governance and sustainability of societies. We affirm that, in order to empower citizens-understood as all residents of cities and communities-we must strive to give them access to and encourage their use of a broad array of learning opportunities throughout their lives. (Unesco Learning Cities Network, Beijing Declaration, http://www.uil.unesco.org/fileadmin/keydocuments/LifelongLearning/learning-cities/enunesco-global-network-of-learning-cities-guiding-documents.pdf) This attention to learning as a means of adapting to social change is not simply the concern of agencies such as Unesco. Increasingly, urban studies scholars are arguing that without attention to learning, knowledge and education, all other moves toward, for example, resilient, smart or sustainable cities, will not be achievable (e.g. Hambleton, 2014a/b; May & Perry, 2018). Urban planners, city mayors and engineers around the world are therefore exploring new ways to integrate development, engineering, adaptation and learning processes that frequently frame cities as 'living labs' (Folstad, 2008). Such experiments, however, are often conducted with little reference to existing literatures and theories of learning and urban education or to the education research field in general. At the same time, the educational research field has not yet fully engaged with these city-scale developments and has not yet begun to provide substantive empirical analysis or theoretical foundations to address this question of how 'cities' can be understood to 'learn'. As Sandlin et al have argued: the shift from spaces that are governed by institutional metaphors and hierarchies to spaces in which education and learning take on more performative, improvisational, subtle, and hidden representations potentially calls for researchers and theorists to examine their methods, epistemological and ontological assumptions, and language to avoid the synecdochical association of education as schooling.

The Stuff of Contention and Care: Affective Materiality and Everyday Learning in Bristol, UK

“…As we argued elsewhere, these dynamic spaces and gatherings, rather than distinct neighborhood locations, constitute an interconnected, informal, precarious learning infrastructure of the city (Facer & Buchczyk 2019a). The multi-sited approach provided an understanding of the myriad social lives of learning captured in socio-material co-productions and interwoven knowledge practices (Kemmer 2020).…”

Learning cities and learning communities: Analyzing contextual factors and their impacts on adult and lifelong learning in urban settings

“…According to the Government's (2016) understanding: "Smart Cities' mission is an innovative and new initiative by the Government of India to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technology as a means to create smart outcomes for citizens." According to Facer & Buchczyk (2019), "A smart city is a municipality that uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to increase operational efficiency, share information with the public and improve both the quality of government services and citizen welfare." From this we can assume that the Smart City model considers the city as a "laboratory" and all policies, industries and academic institutions work together to promote and develop learning environments.…”

Towards a research agenda for the ‘actually existing’ Learning City

“…The first paper (Facer and Buchczyk, 2019) in this Special Issue draws on this tradition to develop a theory of the 'learning infrastructure' in the city. Drawing particularly on the concept of 'lively infrastructure' (Amin, 2014) the paper offers a detailed 11-month case study of the city of Bristol, England, tracing how learning infrastructures are produced, accessed, and reshaped by individuals facing challenges in terms of mental health, economic exclusion, and precarious citizenship.…”