Spatial Reappropriation through Transformative Practices. Belonging in Deinstitutionalised Patterns

This essay addresses the relevance of a performative approach to urban space, using practices that involve a fantastic reinterpretation of established norms (Vanhee, 2021). Such an approach offers opportunities to create spaces where to breathe, benefiting both places and bodies. The concept of New Social Urbanism is explored with the underlying notion that spatial reappropriation is necessary, focusing on the concerted action of bodies to recentre the status of the inhabitant (Butler, 2015). The contemporary context, where the boundaries between the real and virtual are increasingly blurred and the public and private spheres overlap, requires a revaluation of the body as a dense entity, encompassing both human and non-human elements. Within this interplay, how do the domestic and urban realms interact? How do they mutually enhance each other in a generative sense for inhabitants? How residents engage with urban spaces assumes great significance: do they simply pass through them, occupy them, or existentially inhabit them? This article introduces the concept of transformative inhabitating to overcome and reimagine the boundaries between city and home, urban and domestic, physical and virtual spaces.