UNCOMFORTABLE COMMONS. the paradigm of comfort and the promise urban commons: a conceptual, critical and empirical exploration

The project unpacks, analyses, and mobilises against each other two key concepts of contemporary urban politics: comfort and the urban commons. Three are the main hypotheses: [1] that the urban commons are the battleground of contemporary urban politics; [2] that the politics of comfort directly and indirectly frame this ‘battle’, in material, normative and aesthetic sense, shaping the way in which urban commons are ordered, regulated, consumed, inhabited, and valorised; [3] that the turbulent encounter between comfort and commons in the city is an invaluable, and yet so far overlooked dimension for investigating the urban conceptually, critically and strategically. These hypotheses are pursued via genealogical exploration, critical analysis, and empirical investigation.