New competitive grant capture – Expanding ERC research toward Eastern Europe

I am thrilled to announce a new successful competitive funding application, from the Italian Ministry of University and Research. The scheme is called ‘FARE‘, which stands for Framework for the attraction and the strengthening of excellence for research in Italy.

My project, entitled Housing precarity in Eastern Europe: histories, geographies and urban political economies, will run for the next four years and has been awarded €238.000. These monies will complement the main ERC work, titled Inhabiting Radical Housing, by expanding its remit towards Eastern European geographies – allowing me to deepen my long-standing interest in Romania and in the wider region.

In particular, the project will focus on three main concerns: i) the financialisation of housing in Central Eastern Europe, and in specific the role of Western capital in shaping the contemporary urban housing question there; ii) modalities and politics of grassroots housing organising (expanding my work with housing activists in the region); iii) changes in everyday housing and urban affective regimes in three selected cities, investigated through audio-visual methods. A postdoctoral position will be offered to help me navigate the intricacies of the first concern, while the other two will be dealt with directly by myself and CEE members of the current ERC team.

Finally, the project’s resources will also be used to support and expand the workings of our Beyond Inhabitation Lab, providing further means of exchange and collective study with scholars and activists based in CEE.