Listen

About

Project LISTEN is a research project, set in place to encounter, examine and explore diverse interpretations of suburban neighborhoods, by listening to people engaging daily with these neighborhoods. Project LISTEN is a three-year long ongoing research project, commissioned by DUT (Driving Urban Transitions). The joint project is set in place to test and develop a framework to strengthen the capacity of civil servants and suburban entrepreneurs to guide citizens, organizations and institutions, collectively and simultaneously through the processes of Collective Listening towards planning a 15 min city. Project partners/Group of researchers from Belgium (Hasselt University), Sweden (Malmo University) and Austria (CIPRA, a non-governmental institution), each represent a suburban case where the developed framework will be applied.

LISTEN is part of the REWORLDING network. Supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2022 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network, REWORLDING examines the diverse interpretations of ecological issues across different actors, communities, and organizations. These differing viewpoints frequently lead to societal fragmentation and hinder the adoption of urgently required measures to address these issues. As researchers in Participatory Design (PD), the initiative highlights the importance of design strategies that promote inclusive participation among various stakeholders in addressing these challenges. The emphasis is on amplifying the voices of underrepresented groups, including both human and more-than-human entities.

Matter of Concern 

Neighborhood planning and its improvements, is always in focus when it comes to the topic of Urban transition. Concerned about various issues like mobility transitions, housing renovation, public private spaces etc., actors like citizens, citizen collectives, organizations, institutions, etc. always have ideas to improve their respective neighborhoods. But not everyone does have the same capabilities, social networks and resources to find support for those ideas. And thus, as a consequence, debates on neighborhood planning concepts like the Inclusive neighborhood, Integrated neighborhood, Super-Diverse suburbs, all pointing in the direction 15mC etc., come to a standstill.

Planning practitioners typically see three reasons for this standstill;

1) The fragmented development of suburban neighborhoods makes it difficult for authorities to involve citizens from all suburban elements in their processes.

2) The dynamic and diverse population makes it hard for authorities to understand the dwelling culture, mobility culture, etc. of all communities (and entrepreneurs) living in a given suburban element.

3) And the communities that they do reach, get stuck in polarized debates as the participatory processes typically focus on seeking public support for a particular policy agenda, ignoring the (often conflicting) agendas of the participants.

Matter of Fact 

As a response to this problem, the partners involved in the LISTEN project, are exploring how to approach Listening as a cyclical activity including registration, reflection and re-imagination, that can keep track of what citizens are concerned about, of things they struggle with and of initiatives they are setting up. Depending on the concerns, external experts can then be invited to provide support. At regular intervals all registrations, reflections and imaginaries are passed on to those having to implement policy ambitions and having to organize more explicit participation processes. Each project partner conducts research in their respective cases/sites/neighborhood in designing and testing a protocol that is tuned to their socio-cultural context. As a joint project involving 3 different partners from different countries within Europe, Project LISTEN works towards a common agenda, agreed between the project partners, i.e. to set up a Listening Infrastructure, during which we register practices, reflect on the values and conflicts behind these practices and imagine how to recalibrate them. Working towards building such an infrastructure, the project focuses on applying Participatory Design planning as an underlining method to engage and involve the concerned actors.