Building caring neighbourhoods: Exploring unexpected connections through co-creative research

Research output: ThesisPhD Thesis

Abstract

This doctoral research explores how to build caring neighbourhoods in an urban context using a co-creative research approach. Caring neighbourhoods is an emerging model for a neighbourhood-oriented and integrated approach to health, care and well-being. The concept underlines the importance of neighbourhoods and local networks as physical and social spaces for care and well-being. Although it is currently promoted on a policy level in Brussels and Flanders, the same movements exist bottom-up and cover a wide range of practices. The study is based on MaN’Aige (2019-2022), a co-creative research funded by the Innoviris (funding agency for research and innovation of the Brussels Capital Region) Co-Create program that aimed to build a caring neighbourhood in inner-city Brussels. Within the context of two ‘mixed-use’ neighbourhoods, MaN’Aige investigated how building unexpected connections with users – e.g. companies, schools, theatres, commuters - could contribute to a caring neighbourhood. The results draw on the experiences and multiple discussions among co-researchers and participants, which were professionals involved in community health, neighbourhood residents and users and academic partners. In this dissertation I aimed to elaborate on two major aspects: (1) understand, experiment and evaluate how to realise co-creative research in practice. and (2) understand, experiment and evaluate how to build a caring neighbourhood with unexpected neighbourhood users. Participatory and co-creative approaches are key in caring neighbourhoods, but insights in the way these approaches realise the involvement they promise for are lacking. Furthermore, neighbourhood users are widely present in diverse and highly urbanized contexts, but they are rarely considered in caring neighbourhood practices.
The insights in these questions are presented in four different studies and one introductory chapter on my own positionality. Throughout these chapters, I explored the challenges that are experienced within co-creative processes and caring neighbourhoods, offering insights in real-life practices. I presented in this dissertation the elements that created a tension between principles and practices, but also building blocks that would allow more genuine practices in co-creative research and caring neighbourhoods. In the first section I focused on a co-creative research approach and discussed issues of power and exclusion that can be encountered when implementing projects in real-life settings. Power imbalances are shaped within a ‘project-funding’ and ‘academic research’ logic, creating a tension with initial principles of societal transformation, collaboration, shared ownership and empowerment. Co-creative research processes question these ‘project-funding’ and ‘academic research’ logics requiring a different way of working than what academic and funding institutions are used to. Instead, they require a non-linear process, introducing reflexivity as a transformative practice, and being aware of power dynamics. From the MaN’Aige experience, managing the tension between action-oriented goals and a research approach and dealing with discontinuity also showed the need for a different view on co-
creative research. Doing co-creative research is about adopting a critical and inquiring attitude. Co-researchers passed from an individual perspective towards a collective one, and highlighted the importance of valuing and including different knowledge types. Being reflexive became in itself a transformative practice.
In the second part of this dissertation, I focused on building caring neighbourhoods with unexpected neighbourhood users and the way caring connections are shaped. Care should be understood more largely as a caring attitude towards the other and the environment, as a relational and a spatial practice. Furthermore, care relations are not linear and individual but shaped collectively in networks. Green and public space are important actors in care. Green space plays an important role in well-being in neighbourhoods and can serve as connectors. However, when regarding it from an environmental-justice perspective, issues of power and exclusion are also at play and should be taken into account. In the discussion, I aimed to combining a relational care-perspective, emphasizing attentiveness and reciprocity, with a participatory one, emphasizing the political and emancipatory role of processes. Finally, I argue for introducing more explicitly a caring attitude in participatory and co-creative processes and introducing a justice-perspective in caring neighbourhoods.
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Supervisors/Advisors
  • De Donder, Liesbeth, Supervisor
  • Smetcoren, An-Sofie, Supervisor
Award date19 Jan 2024
Publication statusPublished - 2024

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