Study Practices and the creation of a common world. Unearthing the educational dynamics of an urban farming initiative

Résumé

In this article, we propose study practices as a way to respond to the question Bruno Latour raised with regards to our current global predicament, namely where to land? In the first sections we explain the background of this question – socio-ecological challenges and transformations – and how study practices might help to offer an answer. The subsequent section sheds light on the theoretical developments in relation to which the notion of study practice has been conceived in the first place, in particular the methodological debates which saw a turn to practices on the one hand, and the theoretical discussions about the concept of study on the other hand. Analysis of the urban farming initiative Torekes in terms of a study practice allows for fleshing out the educational dynamics at play in such practices: composition, problematization, and attention. We contrast such an educational analysis with sociological and political analyses that understand this initiative as aimed at social cohesion or political subjectification respectively. In the last section, we argue how study practices, due to the ways in which they allow for the creation of a common world, might provide a response to the question how to live together on a damaged planet.