Subjectivity policies: Comparing housing after 1945 in Portugal and the USA
Channel: Centro de Estudos Sociais da Universidade de Coimbra
Date: 21/06/2023

This presentation reflects on housing as politics, as well as on the circulation of policies between the US and Portugal after the partition of the European region in 1945. It recalls the political rationality that projected forms of suburbanization in the US after 1945, and the related subjectivities; as well as the effects outside the US of the concept of self-help for development. It discusses the formation of a dual housing regime. In the same period in Portugal, "clandestine" forms of suburbanization are evoked, as well as colonial self-built housing; and the dual regime created through the Housing Development Fund is examined. The presentation concludes by defending the urgency of a geopolitics of housing knowledge.