Speaker
Description
Co-producing knowledge with urban communities within a community-engaged research framework is crucial for developing effective indicators and strategies to achieve just urban transitions, which is the fusion of climate action and justice concerns at the urban scale. While the concepts of co-production and actionable knowledge are prevalent in sustainability discourse, their intersection with the urban just transitions debate is less explored.
This paper addresses this gap by examining the contradictions and potential of community-engaged research focused on actionable knowledge co-production processes. The paper will address two key questions: What are the main potentials and challenges of collaborating with community partners to understand and act on urban just transitions? Additionally, how have these co-production experiences deepened our understanding of urban just transitions and facilitated their realization?
This paper will explore these questions drawing on the example of a community-engaged research project, called Listening Project, which aims to understand how climate actions aimed at achieving “net-zero” futures align with the everyday concerns and aspirations of residents in Scarborough—a vibrant, multicultural as well as unserved neighbourhood on the outskirts of Toronto. The project partners include various organizations dedicated to enhancing the quality of life and social services for local residents and the project involved wide-ranging research activities such as neighborhood walks, art workshops, and community mapping. This paper will expand the already rich literature on community-engaged research agenda, with reflections, and suggestions for new directions on how such an approach can facilitate and support equitable transitions at neighborhood and urban scales.
| Keywords | urban just transitions; community-engaged research; knowledge co-production; climate actions; Canada. |
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| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
