Sustaining Sites of Learning Beyond the University: Pedagogical Reflections from Iihs’ Inclusive Housing Programme

Discussions on the role of the university for public good place emphasis on the need for universities to engage in processes of knowledge co-production and co-learning, and to expand learning beyond the classroom. Other discussions draw attention to the need to unsettle the form of the university as the privileged site of knowledge production, and to engage beyond with other sites of learnings, with diverse learners that face systemic barriers to enter sites of higher education. In this paper we ask how such academic-community interventions sustain over time, where thinking about the sustenance of practice beyond the site of the university is also a question of equity and the public role of the university.

Since 2015, IIHS has been co-teaching and co-learning with housing rights activists across Indian cities, to build curricula, develop teaching tools and also co-produce research. This initiative seeks to expand the role of higher education to build capacity and learn from networks of community activists, researchers, and practitioners, who live and work within communities on housing and allied rights. This pedagogic experimentation has evolved incrementally over the years, and in its most recent form has been further structured to support the learning needs of cohorts of community activists who are working within their own communities on critical challenges of housing, planning, infrastructure and access to basic services.

This paper reflects from the recent-most iterations of this training initiative, as a series of workshops structured over 9 months with cohorts of community activists– in Delhi (2023-24) and Indore (ongoing 2024-25) in India. We reflect from the recent iterations in both cities and from our own experience of designing, co-teaching and implementing this program. We seek to share ways in which universities can meaningfully engage with diverse learners, who are engaged in critical practices to transform urban inequalities.