Fairville workshop: ethics of collaborative research and sharing of knowledge
- Philippe Urvoy
- Jul 1
- 7 min read
On February 7th, as part of the Fairville project, a full-day workshop organised by the CNRS/Paris 8 coordination team (A. Deboulet, J. Plouhinec, P. Urvoy) was held in collaboration with the Ethics and Advisory Board of the project. We share below a report of this rich day of discussions.
Within a project based on collaborative-action-research such as Fairville, the ethical dimensions of research involves a constant critical reflection on the meaning, the objectives and the effects of the co-production initiatives. Beyond the criteria often required by university ethics committees (such as following a strict protocol for the secure management of personal data, having an approach of transparency and constant dialogue with the different groups involved), we believe that the ethics of research implies many other questions, which are not always theorized. Among them : what are the effects of collaborative research in social science and urban studies on the territories and people concerned ? Which are the dynamics of power and knowledge sharing that can permeate such kind of research ? What specific types of inequalities can permeate co-production dynamics ? What methods and devices actually promote a critical consideration of these questions and a democratization of research approaches?
To discuss all the issues related to the ethical dimensions of research, the Fairville project has set up, since the beginning of the project, an Ethics and Advisory Board comprising a team of researchers and representatives of civil society who are not directly involved in field research or in the coordination of project tasks (including a wide range of profiles, from internationally recognised researchers to civil society representatives). It is composed by : Eva Alvarez de Andrés (professor, architect, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) ; Catherine Baron (professor, development and environmental studies, Sciences Po Toulouse) ; Mona Fawaz (professor or town planning, American University of Beirut); Fatima Idrissi (local councillor, Droit au Logement, Plaisir, Yvelines) ; Jakub Galuszka (Dr in planning and sociologist, HCU Hamburg) and Julien Talpin (political scientist, research director CNRS, co-director of the GIS Démocratie et Participation).
On February 7th, we held a full-day workshop dedicated to these topics in collaboration with our Ethics and Advisory Board. This workshop took place at Paris Nanterre University, with online access, and brought together members from all the Fairville consortium.
We were particularly pleased to welcome several guests present for the occasion at the University of Nanterre that day: Eva Alvarés de Andrés (member of the Ethics and Advisory Board, who came from Madrid for the occasion), Marcela Silviano Brandão (architect and professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, guest speaker at this workshop) and Rafael Soares Gonçalves (historian, professor at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, who took part in the discussions).
The day was divided into three parts.
The Fairville Ethical chart (coordinated by P. Urvoy)
The first part of the meeting with the Ethics and Advisory Board intended to conclude the final version of the Fairville Ethical Chart and Sensitive Management Plan. Thanks to Fairville team and the CNRS support, this charter is now finalized, and accessible through this link. It summarizes not only our ethical protocol for research and data management, but also the shared vision within the consortium on this point. It was informed by a series of discussions held within the various labs, and followed specific recommendations shared by the CNRS and Europe.
Co-producing the city in front of the contemporary democratic challenges (coordinated by A. Deboulet)
Secondly, we had a very rich discussion on the inclusion of the Fairville project within the framework of the theme of democracy. You can access here the powerpoint shared with some guidelines for this discussion.
One of the questions raised was then: how to set up collaborative research in a context of democratic decline? By democratic decline, we mean here both the growing distrust towards the representative institutions and the mechanisms supposed to ensure citizen participation (particularly in Europe), but also the rise of the far right and authoritarian governance postures (in Europe and in the rest of the world).
Within Fairville, we have notably examined the links between the democratic crisis and the increase of socio-territorial and sharp housing inequalities. Based on a series of testimonies collected from field actors (residents, activists, social workers), it is noticeable that the precariousness of daily housing or working conditions constitutes a considerable obstacle to the engagement of citizens in public life. On the other hand, the situations of injustice experienced inspire many actors to actively engage in forms of community organization and radical and local democracy, which constitutes a very rich breeding ground towards a co-production of the city "from below". Nevertheless, this situation results in a growing gap between this group of active citizens (often a minority) carrying out local democracy initiatives, a significant part of the population distant and distrustful towards the public arena, and the institutions of representative democracy.
Thus, intermediary groups such as those involved in the Fairville project (civil society associations, sometimes supported by research projects) often find themselves in a mediating position between these different groups. These actors are sometimes able to produce pleas aimed at bringing residents' needs to the level of public policies, at the risk of sometimes getting stuck into technical language that is not always accessible to the people locally concerned. This position sometimes proves untenable in neighborhoods where relations between citizens and institutions are undermined by postures of clientelism or corruption, which prevent the construction of a dialogue or collaborations with concrete results. As several members of the Fairville lab - La Belle de Mai remind us, the role of researchers and associations involved in co-production is not to fill the void left by the State, in terms of the production of urban services or consultation with residents, but above all to support the needs of those primarily concerned without speaking on behalf of them. All these elements highlight the various challenges that arise in the field of collaborative and action-research, carried out in an adverse political context, questions that we will continue to explore in the upcoming Fairville seminars – Dialogues in Co-Production - over the coming months, with guests from different contexts.
As evidence of the links between growing inequalities and democratic strains is growing, is co-production well equipped to address such challenges ? How can we move forward towards more influential spatial, environmental and housing policies ? Isn’t this transformative drive towards co-production not at risk to become an expert co-production ?
Collaborative research and knowledge sharing
Finally, the third part of this workshop, in the afternoon, took the form of a seminar open to the public on the theme: Circulation of knowledge and ethical questions in co-production: tools and issues. On this occasion, Professor Marcela Silviano Brandão, architect and lecturer at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), presented a series of action research experiences developed alongside the Natureza Política research group, that she coordinates, in support of the movements of the poorly housed and houseless people in the city of Belo Horizonte, for more than ten years.
She presented the concept of university extension in Brazil. This notion, widespread in Latin America since the 1920’s, initially aimed to put scientific knowledge at the service of society as a whole. In Brazil, it was strongly influenced by the ideas of the pedagogue Paulo Freire, in order to refers in particular to the methods of knowledge production associating academics and citizens, seen as a lever for social transformations. It constitutes nowadays one of the pillars of the public university in Brazil (alongside research and teaching).
The field of university extension has allowed for several decades to structure technical support activities provided by university groups from various disciplines to social movements, particularly towards movements mobilized for the right to housing and the right to land. It is in this context that the university group Natureza Política, affiliated with the School of Architecture of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte), has been supporting the Movement for Struggle in Neighborhoods and Favelas (MLB - Movimento de luta nos bairros, vilas e favelas) for more than ten years. This movement was at the initiative of the creation of several self-built and self-organized neighborhoods, born from occupations of vacant land by poorly housed families, in the southern suburbs of the city of Belo Horizonte, in the Barreiro region.
In several of these neighborhoods, such as Eliana Silva and Paulo Freire, created in 2013 and 2015, university extension groups have supported collaborative urban planning, land regularization, the construction of urban infrastructure and environmental risk management activities. Marcela then shared with us more specifically the experience of the Natureza política group, which was notably involved in the Eliana Silva occupation, in the Barreiro region, questioning in particular the social, architectural and environmental issues involved in this territory. While this neighborhood received an eviction order in 2012, justified by the alledged risks of contamination of neighboring waterways and the water table, the Natureza política group developed several works aimed at deconstructing this hegemonic discourse that usually oppose in Brazil the struggles for housing and the environmental preservation. They thus developed several in situ methodologies, aimed in particular at mapping the complex relationships between inhabitants of the territory and biodiversity, but also the practices of popular ecology rooted in the specific knowledge and trajectory of the dwellers. Referring to the open and dialectif conception of knowledge defended by Paulo Freire, the Natureza política group has thus developed several methodologies promoting the circulation and sharing of knowledge between residents, activists, architects and technicians (collaborative mapping, interactive games, graphic montages and collages, etc.).
These different researches led the group, in collaboration with the MLB, to formulate a land regularization project based on an integration between popular housing and the natural environment. This project provided for the creation and recognition of a protected environmental zone including several self-built neighborhood. This “occupations park” would include the preservation of waterways and local vegetation as well as the preservation of popular housing and self-built and self-managed urban production. This initiative was directly inspired by the practices of the MLB and other housing movements, which use to promote specific toponymies in the occupied territory, in order to consolidate a narrative aimed at politicizing and expanding urban imaginaries.
This fascinating presentation was followed by a commentary from Eva Alvarez de Andrés, which opened a lively debate with all participants.
You can find the full recording of her presentation and the debates that followed on this link (available here only in its original version, in French, with a short introduction in English), and the full powerpoint shared on this other link.
Fairville mutual learning seminar - February 7, 2025
The session was recorded mainly in French, with simultaneous translation in English. Unfortunately, the recording is only available in the original language (presentation in French, introduction in English and debate in both languages).
Introduction and coordination : Philippe Urvoy (LAVUE - Paris Nanterre University)
Speaker : Marcela Silviano Brandão (Natureza Política - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)
Discussant : Eva Alvarez de Andrés (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
Special guest for the discussion : Rafael Soares Gonçalves (LEUS - Pontífica Universidade de Rio de Janeiro)
Translators : Juliette Lefeuvre - Elouan Guignette
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