Call for Papers: Voisinage. Faces #80
The theme of the next issue of the magazine FACES concerns a notion with sociological connotations: the vicinity. Coming back to the Old English meaning of « nearness in place », this notion makes us reflect on the scale of the common (or on the stable spatial figures that allow us to think of living together) — putting back into play other notions such as the neighbourhood, the city etc. The vicinity wishes to bring a plural and multi-scalar approach of the city. The urbanism of the XIXth and XXth century has been defined by planning from above (the plan) and via geography (relief maps, urban models). It instatures an order that we could deem « cold », made out of systems of space thought according to principles of good succession and hierarchy. However, this issue of FACES will focus on the « warm » and « dispersive » dimensions of living together, based on interactions, frictions, ambiguity of limits, blurring of boundaries, diversity, « moments of resistance ». A right to the city made out of inhabitant appropriations and the reinvention of ways to live together, asking at the same time questions on hospitality and dwelling, of difference and communality.
The tools needed to think the scale of the lived and of experience seem to us closer to anthropology and sociology. There is no collective space without an adjustment of coexistances that passes through languages and rituals, rules and familiarities, but also thresholds and objects where the fragile and difficulty coded forms of vicinity are made. Therefore, the space of vicinity might per-haps be a place of a possible that escapes all planning. How are we to think it?
Submissions in French or English (maximum 5000 characters) and a short biography (maximum 500 characters) are due 30 June 2021 to info@facesmagazine.ch. Find more information in French and English here.