ABSTRACT
This chapter examines social scientific practice and what it might contribute to societal change at the urban level in the face of contemporary forces. It explores the conditions of uncertainty, doubt and complexity and the ‘wickedness’ of urban problems, before considering what different outcomes we might envisage and how social scientific knowledge production might be placed in service to a different kind of society. Deliberative spaces, exchange between groups and the fostering and upscaling of learning are all central aspects in realising this alternative promise. If we take seriously the ‘devilish dichotomies’ that beset relations between knowledge and action and focus on the knowledge needed for more sustainable and just urban futures, then we must also create space of mediation and participation to examine whose knowledge matters and what implications does that have for research practice. This requires ‘active intermediation’ in developing the civic university as a distinctive institution in which the integration of forms of knowledge for deliberation on urban futures might take place.
