Vol. 17 No. 33 (2026): Precarious dwelling. Everyday practices, caring relations, and meaning-making processes
Articles

Dwelling Among the Ruins

PDF
  • Paolo Do
Paolo Do
University of Trento, Italy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-17093

Published 2026-08-04

Keywords

  • homelessness,
  • archaeological ruins,
  • urban ruins,
  • Rome

How to Cite

Do, P. (2026). Dwelling Among the Ruins. SocietàMutamentoPolitica, 17(33), 59–69. https://doi.org/10.36253/smp-17093

Copyright (c) 2026 Paolo Do

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This article examines how people experiencing homelessness in Rome use archaeological ruins to secure a minimal continuity of dwelling under conditions of radical precarity. Ruins, in this reading, are not simply spatial supports or remnants of the past. Rather, they are material devices through which time becomes spatially available and through which space is experienced, inhabited, and reorganized through temporal practices. From this perspective, the article contributes to debates on space and time by shifting the focus from the general theoretical claim that space and time are inseparable to the empirical question of how this inseparability can be observed. Adopting the analytical lens of the situated project – understood as a mundane and incremental organization of urgency across space and time sustained through tactics of duration – this contribution focuses on the micro-practices of people experiencing homelessness. It shows how ruins are reconfigured into provisional forms of dwelling and how these practices redefine boundaries, functions, and tacit norms of use while producing alternative spatial orders and temporal rhythms within the city.

PDF

References

  1. Barad K. (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Duke University Press, Durham, NC.
  2. Barnao C. (2004), Sopravvivere in strada: Elementi di sociologia della persona senza Dimora, FrancoAngeli, Milano.
  3. Baxter J.-S., Heinrich A. J., Marguin S. and Sommer V. (2025), «Introduction: Multiple Spacetimes and How They Matter», in J.-S. Baxter., A. J. Heinrich., S. Marguin and V. Sommer (eds.), Spacetimes Matter: A Collection of Mapping Methodologies, Jovis Berlin, Berlin, pp. 7-21.
  4. Bergamaschi M. (2009), «Between Mobility and Sedentariness: Homeless People in Urban Space», In M. Bergamaschi, M. Colleoni and F. Martinelli (eds.), La città: bisogni, desideri, diritti. Dimensioni spaziotemporali dell’esclusione urbana, FrancoAngeli, Milano, pp. 204-220.
  5. Bonadonna F. (2005), Il nome del barbone. Vite di strada e povertà estreme in Italia, DeriveApprodi, Roma.
  6. De Rosa E., Di Leo F. and Scambia F. (2025), «Homelessness in Rome 2024: The PIT Count», in European Journal of Homelessness 19 (1): 205-223.
  7. de Certeau M. (1984 [1980]). The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, Berkeley.
  8. DeSilvey C. (2017), Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
  9. Do P., Fassari L. G. and Pompili G. (2025), Marginalità ibride. Pratiche di rifigurazione spaziale, Carocci, Roma.
  10. Do P. and Fassari L. G. (2023), «The Quality of Public Space Among Hybrid Nature-Ruins: The Case of Bullicante Lake in Rome», in Quaderni di Sociologia 91(LXVII): 29-45.
  11. Duneier M., Kasinitz P. and Murphy A. (2014), The Urban Ethnography Reader, Oxford University Press, New York.
  12. Duneier M. (2016), Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York.
  13. Edensor T. (2005), Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality, Berg, Oxford.
  14. Ferrarotti F. (1970), Roma da capitale a periferia, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
  15. Ferrarotti F. (1974), Vite di baraccati: contributo alla sociologia della marginalità, Liguori, Napoli.
  16. Fondation pour le Logement des Défavorisés, FEANTSA (2025), Tenth Overview of Housing Exclusion in Europe 2025, Report. September 2025.
  17. Haraway D. J. (1988), «Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective», in Feminist Studies, 14 (3): 575–599.
  18. Harvey D. (1990), The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change, Blackwell, Cambridge MA and Oxford.
  19. Lefebvre H. (1991 [1974]), The Production of Space, Blackwell, Oxford.
  20. Löw M. (2008), «The Constitution of Space: The Structuration of Space through the Perception and Action of Social Actors», in European Journal of Social Theory 11 (1): 25-49.
  21. Lynch K. (1972), What Time Is This Place?, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
  22. Massey D. (2005), For Space, Sage, London.
  23. Meert H. (2006), The Changing Profiles of Homeless People: Conflict, Rooflessness and the Use of Public Space, FEANTSA, Brussels.
  24. Mela A., Battaglioni, E. and Palazzo L. (2024), La società e lo spazio, Carocci, Roma.
  25. Przywara A. (2023), «Mining for Embodied Coal: Building Material Reuse in the Postwar Reconstruction of Warsaw», in Ardeth, 13: 141-159.
  26. Przywara A. (2025), «Wartime Circularity: Adapting Buildings, Salvaging Materials, and Designing Supply Chains for Ukraine», in Urban Research & Practice, 19 (1): 139-156.
  27. Rossi G. (2016), Le forme dello spazio nella tarda modernità, FrancoAngeli, Milano.
  28. Schnapp A. (2020), Une histoire universelle des ruines: Des origines aux Lumières, Éditions du Seuil, Paris.
  29. Simmel G. (1958), «The Ruins», in The Hudson Review 11 (3): 371–385.
  30. Simmel G. (1985), La moda e altri saggi di cultura filosofica, a cura e trad. di M. Monaldi, Longanesi, Milano.
  31. Simmel G. (2018), The Art of the City: Rome, Florence, Venice, Pushkin Press, London.
  32. Stewart S. (2020), The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western Culture, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
  33. Suchman L. A. (1987), Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human–Machine Communication, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.