This paper reflects on a recent fieldwork-based initiative, themed around the ‘sustainable city’, which had four untypical characteristics. First, it involved PhD students (for whom collective fieldwork activities are not normally organised). Second, it was jointly organised by three universities (in London, Berlin and São Paulo) – a type of collaboration not normally considered in relation to student fieldwork. Third, it involved staff and students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (a strikingly rare approach given the ongoing valorisation of interdisciplinarity in higher education). Fourth, the students committed to multiple field trips, as well as ongoing collaboration between these: ten first-year PhD students from each institution were to spend a week together in one of the cities over three summers, working in groups to design and complete a project of their own choice. While acknowledging several limitations to the potential replication of this initiative elsewhere, the paper discusses two of its features with wider pedagogical relevance: (a) fieldwork taking place in multiple phases, enabling deeper engagement and longer learning lines; and (b) fieldwork organised jointly by different universities, or by different departments, enabling the development of richer skill sets and peer learning. A series of related coordinatory problems and uncertainties are highlighted, but recast as generative of a ‘flatter’ organisational structure giving students co-creative agency in their collective learning experience.

Dr. Robert Cowley
Department of Geography, King’s College London

 
ID Abstract: 384