Emancipatory housing. A secular, operational and multidirectional utopia.

Abstract

Housing has, in many contexts, ceased to be a space of shelter, community and rights, and instead become an object of speculation, a tool of exclusion, and a symptom of an increasingly dehumanised system. In response to this situation, this special issue revolves around an idea that, while not entirely new, has gained renewed urgency: emancipatory housing. This is understood as an open, plural and operative concept, offering a horizon of possibility for rethinking dwelling beyond the confines of the market. This issue brings together a diverse range of contributions from different disciplines, scales and geographies, exploring how housing can be conceived, designed or lived in ways that not only provide shelter, but enable liberation — that go beyond fulfilling material needs to activate rights, relationships, and dignified ways of life. Within these pages, readers will find perspectives rooted in feminist care ethics, Latin American self-managed housing, cooperative movements, critical theory, and alternative architectural pedagogies. What they all share is a common intent: to question the dominant paradigm and chart new maps of possibility. Rather than offering a single answer, the issue embraces a choral perspective that acknowledges the complexity of the housing crisis and the need to address it on multiple fronts: legal, architectural, social, economic and cultural. Emancipatory housing is presented here as a secular utopia — not totalising, but orientational; an asymptotic horizon that helps us to imagine, desire and construct alternative futures. We invite the reader to approach this issue as one would a chorus of diverse yet harmonised voices — not to close the debate, but to open it through critical hope and a shared commitment to making life more liveable for all.