Badanie jako uczenie się. Zwrot edukacyjny i wiedza w środowisku zurbanizowanym

This article proposes a model of urban space research that is related to processes of consultation and participation, and thus leads to changes. The author refers here to new concepts of knowledge about the city and urban competences, such as Colin McFarlane’s proposal of learning the city. Based on the analysis (adopting the perspective of critical urban studies) of an example of a city centre revitalisation project (Project CENTRE in Poznań), the text calls for changing the research model (scientific, scientific-participatory, diagnostic, consultative), so that it enables the acquisition of anticipatory knowledge through a collaborative process. Anticipatory knowledge is here understood as the knowledge that can be applied not only to address the status quo (conflicts over the rights to the city, economic and demographic conditions), but also to predict and thus consider changes in the future (for example climate change). Learning encompasses the processual, embodied and situated nature of knowledge about the city, which is necessary in today’s conditions of urbanised environment and its ongoing transformation. As such it turns into a political concept where to have the knowledge of the city (finally recognised as a living environment) means to know how to ensure that city management conditions are more just and fair.