Reworking relations of epistemological authority in teaching collaborations

Abstract

Though knowledge about urban change is increasingly developed in partnership, knowledge production in teaching often remains entrenched in traditional roles of teaching and learning, research objects and subjects, and the attendant power asymmetries of these relations. Especially when working with partners historically the “subjects” of research rather than the authors of expertise, teaching can be a site to rework these relations. In this intervention, we reflect on an ongoing collaboration with undocumented immigrants in Zurich that aims to confront the function of epistemic authority through co-producing knowledge with students and undocumented immigrants in a classroom setting and consider the challenges of teaching projects to decolonize urban knowledge production.