Ed Stevens and Nayana Dhavan explore the case for activist-in-residence (AiR) programmes and how best to foster their impact.

As universities up and down the UK re/discover their civic purpose, new spaces for engagement are emerging such as that offered through activist-in-residence (AiR) programmes. In such programmes, activists are institutionally hosted – usually by research centres – and work alongside academics and students on activities oriented towards social change. The programmes mobilise collectives around shared social justice values, yet their constituent parts approach social change in differing ways.

Carving out an intentional institutional space for this change enables activists and academics to transcend their usual ways of working through constructive challenge and generative collaborations. Via mutually transformative and enriching encounters between students, academics, and activists, AiR programmes foster theory-informed activism and activism-informed scholarship, with the ultimate aim of driving social change in novel ways.

AiR programmes are rare across the UK; in North America, they are more common, but subject to funding precarity. Nevertheless, the experience from North American universities demonstrates a multitude of benefits. For activists, access to abundant institutional resources (offices, meeting spaces, IT equipment) and an opportunity to redress historically exploitative university-community relationships in favour of mutuality. For universities, access to on-the-ground perspectives about wicked societal challenges, enhanced understanding of the experiences of underserved groups, and exposure of students to community-based projects.

Since 2019, we in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at King’s College London have run several AiR programmes. In part, to coalesce changemaking collectives around social justice causes, but also, to disrupt common academic ways of working – of ‘being’, ‘doing’, and ‘knowing’ – in the hope of democratising academic practice.

Our pilot AiR programme ran from 2019 – 2021, a collaboration between ParaPride (a charity working at the intersection of LGBTQ+ and disability issues) and Queer@King’s (our Centre for Research and Teaching in Gender & Sexuality Studies). We’ve recently published learning from this pilot, producing a reflexive process evaluation framework to support the planning, design and delivery of future AiR programmes.

What’s in it for them? And for us?

The pilot launched with a frame of ‘what’s in it for the activists?’ A residency involves an ‘inviting in’ and so, it’s easy to default to the university’s offering, a one-directional pitch. Our pilot provided ParaPride with a (tiny) £2000 budget, alongside visiting fellowship status, which enabled access to King’s resources (venues, libraries, computers) and administrative support.

Significantly, some activist groups that we reached out to rejected the invite. For them, the university represented the status quo, an oppressive institutional structure, inimical to their work. They were concerned to connect their queer activism to such a structure; perceptions of an institution can fundamentally affect the conditions of possibility of collaboration.

AiR programmes are therefore likely to operate as diplomatic-collectives – collectives engaging with institutions – rather than as oppositional forces. Resident activists, akin to any other recipients of funds, are unlikely to challenge their host institution (well, unless explicitly invited to do so!). This is indicative of the uneven power dynamics inherent to an ‘invite in’, of the innate tension between funder and recipient.

That’s not to say that our pilot didn’t disrupt the academic, nor that there was nothing in it for the academics. Queer@King’s members benefited from a re-focusing of their perspectives on themselves, their queer work in research, and institutional practice. They were led to far-reaching reflections on how their embodied experience , for instance in terms of chronic illness, was related to their queerness and queer work in ways they hadn’t contemplated prior.

The proximity of an activist group ignited the activist potential of several, spurring them on as changemakers. And practically, activists enhanced the centre’s work. For example, encouraging its adoption of British Sign Language interpretation for events and providing content for educational offerings such as a co-curricular programme, At Home in Cultural London.

Ensuring mutually enriching, impactful encounters

The reflexive process evaluation framework that we devised is our attempt to foster relationships of mutuality and to redress power imbalances intrinsic to AiR programmes. Process evaluations aim to understand how change happens through an intervention. They explore three components – how an intervention is implemented, its activities and the impact of internal and external contexts. We added two additional – ‘motives for collaboration’ and ‘reflection on power and processes’.

It was easy for those involved in the pilot AiR to get lost in the ‘doing’. A busy-ness focused on delivery but to the neglect of the collaborative process. There’s benefit from centring the ‘how’ of collaboration. So, our framework emphasises a reflexive stance on the entireprocess of a residency – from inception to delivery.

Exploring ‘motives for collaboration’ at the outset involves honest conversation as to the ‘what’s in it for me?’ for both sides of a residency. This is an opportunity to explore differing views of what constitutes social change, of what may be gained from collaboration but crucially, what may also be lost. In essence, ensuring participants enter a residency with their ‘eyes wide open’.

Reflection on power and processes should be embedded throughout. This is about being attuned to, and consciously redressing, problematic power imbalances. Regular communication between activists and academics is key, feedback loops should be factored into activities, and meta-learning documented. This brings intentionality to the work and builds collective power.

Just getting started

Members of our pilot AiR reflected that their residency, perhaps, any residency, might best be understood as just a starting point. A period for exploring and understanding diverse working modes and interests of those involved and for facilitating institutional encounters for future collaboration.

It has proved so for us, with our pilot informing four onward AiR programmes funded through an AHRC impact acceleration account and with plans for future activity to be funded in-house.    

For those starting out on an AiR journey or in the midst, we hope that our framework helps ensure your work is mutually transformative and enriching for all involved. And that your residency itself might become a (diplomatic!) institutional ‘nuisance’.  

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