Urban Space Unsettled: The Unraveling of Routines, Temporalities and Contestations in Urban Studies

Contemporary urban space appears to be uncertain, presented with challenges and filled with threats. Rather than seeing this development as a transition from stable to unstable patterns of urban life, this chapter frames a proposition: Urban space has always been an unsettled ground unfolding through the sedimentation of routines, temporalities and contestations. In this chapter 'unsettled' is introduced as an open and speculative analytical lens, involving synchronic and diachronic perspectives, and interweaving social, cultural and political readings of urban life. With the focus on contingent and troubled relationships among (collective) bodies, space and society, 'unsettled' is identified as a manifestation, motivation, cause and target of social change, which is consolidated, modulated and contested across multiple dimensions of urban life. It may stretch or redefine social orders, urban infrastructures and everyday life, while unlocking the potentials for moments in history to turn out differently.