A collective study lab

Call for Papers – ICCG Mexico 2023 – Beyond Inhabitation Lab

9th ICCG MÉXICO 2023 International Conference of Critical Geographies

Mexico City, October 23 to 29, 2023
https://iccg2023.org/en/english/

Inhabiting radical housing: on the politics of inhabitation and intersectional struggles


A Beyond Inhabitation Lab session, organised by:
Michele Lancione, michele.lancione@polito.it, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy
Daniela Morpurgo, daniela.morpurgo@polito.it, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy
Chiara Cacciotti, chiara.cacciotti@polito.it, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy
Rodrigo Castriota, rodrigo.castriota@polito.it, Polytechnic of Turin, Italy

Three interlocking processes are redefining what it means to inhabit the planet and its cities: rising and expansive urbanisation (+2.8 billion people living in cities by 2050); widespread unequal access to decent and secure dwellings (1.6 billion people currently living in inadequate housing, and millions violently evicted every year globally); and responses by local communities in the face of these processes (in struggles that often include intersecting racial and gender injustices, violent bordering practices, problems of climate change and its management, and other paradigmatic challenges of our time). In this session, we are interested in hosting cutting edge contributions confronting these processes and questioning the intersection of ‘housing’ and ‘inhabitation’. How are urbanites re-doing inhabitation through mundane struggles against historical and contemporary forms of dispossession? We are particularly keen to hear from scholars who transcend the remit of conventional ‘comparative’ urban approaches, and those who go beyond the rubric of Western literatures and approaches for registering and understanding ‘housing struggles’ (Lancione, 2020; Simone, 2018; Oswin, 2020). To discuss and appreciate the propositional politics of struggles tackling housing as a gateway for wider forms of liberation, a situated understanding of history, power-geometries and longitudinal forms of dispossession is required (Massey, 1994; Roy, 2017; Rolnik, 2019). We welcome contributors who propose works that are both grounded empirically and historically/geographically. Particular attention will be paid to works grounded in decolonial, critical race, feminist and queer approaches to housing struggles.

Key themes of this session include:

I. Empirically grounded conceptualisation of the contemporary struggle for housing

II. Historical reconstructions of intersectional urban housing struggles

III. Ethnographic account of forms of racialised dispossession and related politics of resistance

Abstract submission deadline: March 26, 2023

In this session we use English as our lingua franca, so we accept only papers and presentations that will be presented in English. In your submission, please send us a word document containing:

· Title and 3-5 keywords

· Your full name, affiliation and e-mail address

· Abstract between 500-1000 words

Please send you abstracts to all of these addresses:

michele.lancione@polito.it

chiara.cacciotti@polito.it

cigc2023@gmail.com