INHABITING LIMINALITY: The Temporal, Spatial and Experiential Assemblage of Emancipatory Practices in the Lives of Housing Squatters in Rome, Italy

Abstract

In this article I question notions of urban liminality by foregrounding the temporal, spatial and experiential dimensions underpinning their formations. I focus on liminal practices of inhabitation in the context of a housing squat in Rome, Italy, by investigating how a permanent housing deprivation condition, once politically organized in a squatted building, can anchor processes of empowerment and political mobilization. To do so, I put forward a rereading of liminality, not necessarily as a temporary state but rather as a more comprehensive spatial–temporal assemblage, by offering a tripartite reading of liminal conditions in their spatial, temporal and experiential dimensions. My goal is to offer an analysis of urban and housing liminality that transcends totalizing narratives of exceptionality, temporariness or straightforward annihilation, advancing instead a more nuanced reading—where liminality can be seen either as a vehicle for social depotentiation or as the grounds for collective forms of emancipatory practices.