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AFFINITY

@affectinthecity.bsky.social

110 followers 350 following 33 posts

Affect In the City (AFFINITY): The Emotional Dimensions of Urban Justice. Posting updates and lit reviews on philosophy, cities & affect. MSCA/YUFE4Postdocs EU-funded project (25-28) 📍Antwerp Views my own: @lopezcantero.bsky.social #philsky

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Aug 22

First publication out! It questions whether people who report loss of community due to gentrification and migration should both be treated as victims of injustice. My view is that we should, although injustice has different grounds in the latter case: the unjust distribution of affective burdens.

Gentrification, migration, and non-material injustice

Gentrification can harm residents at a personal and emotional level, even when they are not physically displaced. Recognising these non-material harms as a source of wrongful ‘phenomenological disp...

www.tandfonline.com

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Xavier Harmony @transitharmony.bsky.social · 7d

What if your ability to vote depended on your transport options? What if your ability to vote also shapes your transport options?🚍🗳️ My new Transport Reviews paper shows how democracy and transport are more connected than we think 👉 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

A screenshot of the first page of a new Transport Reviews article titled "Transport, elections and voting" and authored by Xavier Harmony.

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'M-Dash' Devereaux @michelledevereaux.bsky.social · 11d

The rather brilliant @stephencollins.bsky.social calling out the mass psychosis of car culture in today's UK @theguardian.com. Love it. @thewaroncars.bsky.social

A print cartoon of a meeting at the 'Transport Inventors Club' in which men in suits are having a conversation about a 'box made of metal that goes up to 120 mph'. The main speaker insists 'Once hundreds of millions of people have died and the world's started ending because of the fumes it'll all be normal'. The other men question his mental health, especially since the last proposal for a 'commuter travel device' was an 'iron maiden in a catapult'.

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · 15d

Urbanism evening with the @academyofurbanism.bsky.social. Norman+Fosters’ Spencer de Grey discussed urban interventions across Europe. One of the takeaways is that urban design needs to look beyond the place that is intervened itself, looking also at connections & surroundings + consultations

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Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory @memoryplace.bsky.social · 27d

Call for papers: Centre researcher Pablo Fernández Velasco is co-editing. Original research, case studies, and perspectives welcome. Examples: ecological grief, climate anxiety, solastalgia, displacement trauma.
www.frontiersin.org/research-top...

Frontiers | Advancing Conservation Science at the Interface of Collective Human Trauma and Earth Systems Change

Trauma is an increasingly common feature of the collective human experience, yet science-based discourse on the relationship between collective human trauma,...

www.frontiersin.org

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · 27d

Today, as part of Antwerp’s Deathcare project, Dr Ural presents on recent the history of burial laws and practices regarding religious minorities, and how the upholding of Muslim traditions in public space in contemporary Europe can function as an “act of citizenship”

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Owen Garling @ojgarling.bsky.social · Sep 1

Good to see @hetanshah.bsky.social highlighting our @bennettschool.cam.ac.uk work on the measurement of social and cultural infrastructure as well as @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social's The Measure of Progress.

www.bennettschool.cam.ac.uk/publications...

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Sep 1

The next 10 days:
'Distributive Affective Justice' describes the distribution process for affective goods & burdens (MANCEPT)
'Affective Rights to the City' specifies entitlements to emotional aspects of urban life that must be protected by policymakers (MANCEPT & The Future of Practical Ethics).

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Tim Altmann @timaltmann.bsky.social · Aug 24

The number of people killed or seriously injured on London borough roads reduced by 34% following the implementation of 20mph speed limits, with the number of children killed falling by 75%
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Dear Britain, it’s now clear: 20mph zones save lives and don’t slow traffic. Implement them | Sadiq Khan

There is too much bluff and bluster on this subject. Ordinary people just want safe streets for themselves and those they love, and we can achieve that, says London mayor Sadiq Khan

www.theguardian.com

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Aug 22

Gentrification, migration, and non-material injustice

www.tandfonline.com

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Aug 19

Petition: Mandate funding of active travel provision as part of any transport projects
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

Petition: Mandate funding of active travel provision as part of any transport projects

In light of the Chancellor's recent announcement of funding for transport infrastructure, we call for new legislation mandating funding for active travel provision alongside funding for transport proj...

petition.parliament.uk

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Caleb Ward @calebw.bsky.social · Aug 1

My turn for some local body of water posting

Marshlands and a stone wall in western Massachusetts

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Alison Stenning @alisonstenning.bsky.social · Aug 1

Lovely interview here with the creator of this mural, Anthony Downie, with a nod to neighbourhood play.

“It’s just about daily life, isn’t it? I spent a lot of time as a kid playing in back lanes”

ilovenorthshields.com/elevation-mu...

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Jul 28

‘As Dave Cook, an anthropologist at UCL, says: “If you go to a place to take advantage of a lower cost of living, you are hacking inequalities, and there will be pushback”.’

'There's an arrogance to the way they move around the city': is it time for digital nomads like me to leave Lisbon?

Like so many others, I moved from London to Portugal’s capital for the sun, lifestyle – and the tax break. But as tensions rise with struggling locals, many of us are beginning to wonder whether we’re...

www.theguardian.com

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Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · Jul 27

This new article by Daniel Bruckner articulates an attractive view: to be a welfare subject, rather than sentience, you need to be an entity 'that engages in self-production in a way that is adaptive to its environment.' Plants qualify, maybe machines. I think groups, communities, cities do too.

Welfare Subjects and Autopoiesis | Journal of the American Philosophical Association | Cambridge Core

Welfare Subjects and Autopoiesis

www.cambridge.org

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Jul 21

Just saw the post here too:

Critical Legal Geographies Network @legalgeolsa.bsky.social · Jul 17

📢 @jagiellonskiuni.bsky.social just dropped a call on gentrification & the right to the city – legal, philosophical, and theory-driven case studies welcome.

📍 Kraków | 🗓️ Oct 23–25, 2025
📝 Deadline: Aug 31
🔗 drive.google.com/file/d/1fcek...

AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Jul 21

Very interesting call— hope to be there presenting one of the project’s works in progress!

Screenshot from social media with a call for papers on Gentrification and the right to the city

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Pilar Lopez-Cantero @lopezcantero.bsky.social · Jul 16

Just attended a fantastic panel on 'Just and Unjust Cities' as part of the conference dedicated to Jo Wolff's work (after a really cool panel on methodology and with some other interesting stuff to come on health, equality and public philosophy). Here's two works on urban justice to look out for:

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Journal of Applied Philosophy @the-joap.bsky.social · May 23

#NewArticle Housing Justice, Basic Capabilities, and Self-Respect | Niklas Dummer, Christian Neuhäuser #philsky
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/TPZKBM...

Housing Justice, Basic Capabilities, and Self‐Respect

You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · May 19

“It's not my duty as Mayor to make sure you have a parking spot. For me it's the same as if you bought a cow, or a refrigerator, and then asked me where you're going to put them.” — Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain (re-elected 6 times)

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · May 11

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · May 11

@labeler.urbanism.plus label

AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · May 11

@labeler.urbanism.plus listcommands

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Alison Stenning @alisonstenning.bsky.social · Apr 4

They also take up much more space on residential streets (even without parking bays), reducing the available space for play and hanging out, and making crossing and moving about on residential streets more dangerous, as visibility between cars is also reduced.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

More than 1m cars sold in UK each year too big to fit typical parking space

Campaign network calls on government to prioritise smaller cars and introduce higher charges for SUV owners

www.theguardian.com

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AFFINITY @affectinthecity.bsky.social · Mar 21

Looking forward to reading it!

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Alison Stenning @alisonstenning.bsky.social · Mar 21

In our new paper @tibg.bsky.social, 5 years after the first UK lockdown, @wendyrussell.bsky.social and I use the work of Donald Winnicott to explore how children’s lockdown play on their doorsteps signals the value of neighbourhood spaces of play as spaces of care, in crises and beyond.

Screenshot of abstract for paper entitled "The place where we live: Children, families, play, neighbourhoods and spaces of care during and after the pandemic"

Abstract
In this paper, we explore what the experiences of some children and families in their neighbourhoods during the first UK COVID-19 lockdown can tell us about the value and importance of neighbourhood spaces, relations and play in the wider contexts of neoliberalism, austerity and the mooted polycrisis. We use the work of Donald Winnicott, and recent interpretations of his work (by Bonnie Honig and Joanna Kellond), to explore neighbourhood spaces of play as spacesof care, drawing on concepts of facilitating (or holding) environments, potential and transitional spaces, transitional objects (or ‘public things’), the capacity for concern and care-cure. We reflect on how children and their families' engagement with their most proximate outdoor spaces—the streets, alleyways and greenspaces on their doorsteps—during the first UK lockdown signals the ways in which these spaces, and the play and the relations that can develop within them,should be enabled and nurtured beyond the pandemic. In this way, we argue for the political importance of neighbourhood spaces of care, in crises and beyond, and for the value of the possibility of play in these spaces.

K E Y W O R D S
care, lockdown, neighbourhoods, play, UK, Winnicott

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