Generative pedagogies from and for the social production of habitat: Learning from HIC-AL School of grassroots urbanism

Author(s)
Julia Wesely, Adriana Allen, Lorena Zárate, María Silvia Emanuelli
Abstract

Re-thinking dominant epistemological assumptions of the urban in the global South implies recognising the role of grassroots networks in challenging epistemic injustices through the co-production of multiple saberes and haceres for more just and inclusive cities. This paper examines the pedagogies of such networks by focusing on the experiences nurtured within Habitat International Coalition in Latin America (HIC-AL), identified as a ‘School of Grassroots Urbanism’ (Escuela de Urbanismo Popular). Although HIC-AL follows foremost activist rather than educational objectives, members of HIC-AL identify and value their practices as a ‘School’, whose diverse pedagogic logics and epistemological arguments are examined in this paper. The analysis builds upon a series of in-depth interviews, document reviews and participant observation with HIC-AL member organisations and allied grassroots networks. The discussion explores how the values and principles emanating from a long history of popular education and popular urbanism in the region are articulated through situated pedagogies of resistance and transformation, which in turn enable generative learning from and for the social production of habitat.

Organisation(s)
Department of Geography and Regional Research
External organisation(s)
Global Platform for the Right to the City, Habitat International Coalition, University College London
Journal
plaNext - next generation planning
Volume
11
Pages
26-43
No. of pages
18
ISSN
2468-0648
DOI
https://doi.org/10.24306/plnxt/72
Publication date
07-2021
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
509001 Action research, 503033 Political education, 507027 Sustainable urban development
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Geography, Planning and Development, Urban Studies
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/238232f0-6ae6-43c9-a177-2e70cd22ef27