Critical Education Understandings of an Urban Regeneration Partnership in the Republic of Ireland

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Alliance of Critical Educators and Researchers

Abstract

“I mean you’re reared as the little people, you’re you’re trod on, on all your life…you bring that in, an an and you cower at a table and you go …I’m afraid to speak in case I say the wrong thing…that’s the way you feel”.

Local Resident, Madeline

Madeline’s testimony arises from a doctoral study of one Urban Regeneration Partnership in Ireland. Government-led urban renewal focussed on low-income communities experiencing high levels of crime. Governance structures or ‘invited spaces’ (Cornwall & Coelho, 2006), brought residents to the table. Despite resident’s participation, policy enactment (Ball, 2015) recalibrated communities along the lines of market forces. This unsettles the orthodox view of partnership through an emancipatory lens (Engeström, 1987; Freire, 1970; Fricker, 2007).

Author

• Martin Galvin, University College Cork