Fairville focuses on the formation and consolidation of collaborative frameworks and forms of inter-mediation with civil society organizations, buttressing urban and environmental democracy. Its starting point builds on confidence from on-going initiatives by residents and citizens, i.e. from a ‘bottom up’ perspective rather than defining externally what value/input should be brought. It brings together partners, most of whom have previous experience in urban and/or environmental co-production in areas marked by profound structural inequalities and democratic deficit.
The proposed topics relate to three social issues that are catalysts for inequality and democratic crisis in planning policies, namely, housing, environment and risk.
The consortium understands the articulations between multi-scalar urban inequalities, democratic quality and citizens confidence in public action. The research also documents this relationship through an examination of the terms associated with co-production. To this end, a reasoned and annotated repository of resources offer data relevant to the Fairville topics. Some of the collected interpretations are focusing on inequality within spatial dynamics, e.g. spatial segregation, as well as the multiple factors impacting on urban inequalities. In the last one year, the glossary has evolved into “words in action” section.
Bringing together researchers, community groups and a number of local authorities, the consortium is now operating eight Fairville Labs according to a principle of participatory action-research relying first on an exploration of the main issues of the affected groups. These labs are now in full motion in Brussels, Marseille (Marseille Belle de Mai and Atelier 4-5), Region Attica, London, Berlin, Giza and Dakar. These pilots of urban intervention engage co-production collectives organised in interconnected circles aiming, in particular, at producing alternative expertise including surveys, collective explorations, mapping, etc. These Fairville labs are also laboratories for ‘epistemic justice’, i.e. the cooperative production of knowledge with a horizontal focus.
The participants are also engaged in a process of co-evaluation, the main challenge being to include the protagonists, including the ones who are most removed from public decision-making and in the monitoring of the co-production.
Finally, they started to set the first steps of an international network of co-production, made of various civil-society organisations working with community groups at various scales and also international alliances for participatory democracy and/or spatial justice, including local authorities. Throughout this process, and in particular from 2024 onwards, Fairville is seeking to disseminate the scientific message in an accessible language.
