Problematizing Emancipation (and Considering its Spatial Dimension)

The paper sets itself within the horizon of critical theory and problematizes the concept of emancipation in order to delineate more appropriate outlines of meaning and investigate its normative extent. This implies firstly to highlight its possible ambiguities and semantic oscillations. Nevertheless, these do not erode its impact which, moreover, remains in an aura of positivity, and it can be stated that it is not a question of dismantling it but rather of re-perimetrating it. It is understood, therefore, as a dynamic vector whose transformative significance is completed from time to time within the different historical forms of symbolic and structural relations in which it comes into play. Emphasizing that every emancipatory process is played out in a socio-spatial-temporal dynamic, i.e. it lives in its own placeness, we finally ask about its possible preconditions, but here placing the focus only on the spatial dimension and, in particular, within the horizon of the capability approach, on the question of housing exclusion.