Beyond the Presence: Dwelling with People and with Their Places

The author intends to indicate some epistemological and political nodes of ‘being there’ at the centre of ULLs, in different forms as implied by the SoHoLab project. At the root of the idea that urban sites can provide an arena of learning within which the co-creation of innovation can be pursued among research organisations, public institutions, the private sector and community actors, lies the possibility of establishing meaningful relationships as a medium to know these sites, construct social design, implement and govern local and national housing policies. In the light of the modus operandi of anthropological field research, on another way to ‘being there’, the author shows how ‘these meaningful social bonds’ to be epistemologically and politically relevant need to be coupled with a strong critical reflexivity able to deconstruct continuously the discursivities (of policies, of disciplinary as common and mainstreaming narratives) and practices of the ULL itself. A cognitive strabismus has to be developed to catch these place-based laboratories and contexts dependents, to make them ‘up close’, apprehend ‘from inside’ and ‘from below’. Analysis situ and analysis in situ are not disjointed: the third space of knowledge construction allows to join them and recognise the logics that govern these social bonds.