"What does space do to us? The anthropologist and the space turn", edited by Ferdinando Fava

What does space do to us? It welcomes us, confuses us, transforms us.
This book brings together a plurality of voices to show that space is never a mere décor: it shapes our relationships, our practices and our imaginations, just as much as we shape it in return. Ferdinando Fava, initiator and scientific coordinator of this collective work, invites us to explore what space does to its inhabitants, and how ethnography can understand urban transformation.
Step by step, encounter by encounter, the Spatial Turn becomes an ethnographic gaze, revealing how space is constructed in a constant tension between actors, temporalities, desires and fears. From the streets of Barcelona to the suburbs of Naples, from the undesirable spaces of the Goutte-d’Or to the inhabitants deemed undesirable in Montreuil and Bagnolet, the texts plunge us into the heart of cities criss-crossed by contradictions and permanent negotiations, and demonstrate the power of an attentive analysis of what space does to us, from everyday micro-gestures to major urban projects.