Classical philosophy and social theory have long considered the ways in which the city is hospitable; open to the arrival of strangers, newcomers and migrants. In the Open City Project, working at multiple scales of the city as a whole, a single borough, a neighbourhood and a single housing estate, this sense of arrival, belonging and making a home was explored in collaborations across London with three artists. Drawing on different art forms, a scenographer (with a background in forensic architecture), a film-maker, and a socially engaged artist generated work that was central to our research. In this talk, we discuss these collaborations and consider how arts-based methods, often alongside co-produced or collaborative work, have become increasingly common across the social sciences. We discuss critically some of what have become conventional wisdoms of such work, surprising symmetries and asymmetries of knowledge production, especially within the affective register, the relationalities of churning urban life on the ground (and far below it!) and the always surprising insights of empirical research in migration studies, cutting across pasts, presents, and claims over the future.

Open City: www.compas.ox.ac.uk/project/open-city | opencitywarwick.co.uk