Thomas Moore

Project title: 
Liminal Spaces of Urban Civic Education: Between the University and The City 

Project outline:
The Civic University has emerged as a means to address the gap between the university and the city, However, I argue for a rethinking of this institutional impact approach, from the embedding of civic engagement within the university (Goddard et al, 2016), to a ‘liminal civic education’ which employs spatial practice to embed civic engagement in the city and its public space. This research will explore the many and varied ‘betwixt and between’ positions of the ‘civic university’ in relation to the city and consequent manifestation of novel forms of civic education. Working within the context of Sheffield, a UK city with a historical civic university, I explore through my own teaching and design practice with Sheffield University’s civically engaged urban room, Live Works, how spatial practice might catalyse and support everyday practices of knowledge production and knowledge exchange to envision the city and it’s institutions as a place of democratic ‘learning for an increasingly uncertain future’ (Stein, 2019).

The term Liminal describes a position, space or point in time between several entities which is characterised by its dissolution of traditional hierarchies and structures, becoming a moment of experimentation or play with existing identities. This study of a liminal civic education, first explores those existing liminal practices of civic education which challenge structure and identity and propose new ways of being. This before looking into interfaces which have begun to link such practices as new forms of urban education linked to urban policy making through the production of ‘urban knowledge commons’ (Levine, 2007, Hess ,2008) and the technologies of ‘smart cities’ (Calzada, 2018). Finally, I will explore possible thresholds between the university and the city which have sought to spatialize such practices and interfaces, allowing contribution to emerging debates on urban rooms and laboratories. 

Primary supervisor: 
Doina Petrescu

Co-supervisor: 
Carolyn Butterworth

Date started: 07/10/2019