Urban Attunements: Potentialities of a City’s Discomfort

Abstract

This thesis investigates the affective implications of the politics of(non)belonging in the making of places. It asks the question of what a place feels like and it explores, through the concept of “palimpsestuous attunements” its multiple sensorialities (as theorised by Hamilakis). Drawing on the work of Kathleen Stewart, palimpsestuous attunements are defined as a labour to get attuned to the city’s
multiplicity, its presences and absences, and its (im)materialities. Data was collected through participant observation during eleven months of fieldwork (June 2015 – May 2016) in Latina (Italy). It explores people’s use of the hyperbolic statement “there is nothing here” and it proposes a twofold argument. On one side, Latina finds itself in a
relation of cruel optimism (drawing on Berlant’s work), because of its inability to perform according to the normativity of Italian localism. On the other, ironies, hyperboles, and lamentations are used rhetorically as a political potential to exist otherwise (drawing on the works of Povinelli and Bryant and Knight). Through this analysis, this thesis provides a commentary on contemporary localisms in Italy, which are defined as kinship-inspired distributed genealogical imaginaries. It also offers an exploration of the affective excess exuded in the urban environment by presences and absences, (im)materialities, and sensorialities.