Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, community

Paul Auster's Sunset Park tells the story of a group of youngsters that become homeless in the wake of the American economic recession in 2008. Together, they form an alternative society within an abandoned house. By occupying that house, they engage in an everyday practice of cooperation and c...

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Main Author: Rafaela Scardino
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2017-01-01
Series:Ilha do Desterro
Subjects:
Online Access:https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/45618
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author Rafaela Scardino
author_facet Rafaela Scardino
author_sort Rafaela Scardino
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description Paul Auster's Sunset Park tells the story of a group of youngsters that become homeless in the wake of the American economic recession in 2008. Together, they form an alternative society within an abandoned house. By occupying that house, they engage in an everyday practice of cooperation and communal work. Such engagement is analysed through the lenses of sociologist Richard Sennett, who suggests that the cooperation – and the social group that emerges from cooperation – can act as an escape for those who lie outside the economic order. Sennett also proposes that, by cooperating among themselves, those outsiders can look beyond their limitations – or rather the limitations that have always been imposed on them. In Auster’s novel, the characters continually negotiate and reconfigure emotional and economic relations, learning to open up to each other, and to put themselves always on the margins of predetermined social roles. And these small displacements, as well as literary writing, have a great potential for contamination, for effectively touching others in a recognition of the power that conforms us.
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spelling doaj.art-0856d448b232425d95065b74e4c5127e2022-12-21T20:40:52ZengUniversidade Federal de Santa CatarinaIlha do Desterro0101-48462175-80262017-01-01701616810.5007/2175-8026.2017v70n1p6126671Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, communityRafaela Scardino0Universidade Federal do Espírito SantoPaul Auster's Sunset Park tells the story of a group of youngsters that become homeless in the wake of the American economic recession in 2008. Together, they form an alternative society within an abandoned house. By occupying that house, they engage in an everyday practice of cooperation and communal work. Such engagement is analysed through the lenses of sociologist Richard Sennett, who suggests that the cooperation – and the social group that emerges from cooperation – can act as an escape for those who lie outside the economic order. Sennett also proposes that, by cooperating among themselves, those outsiders can look beyond their limitations – or rather the limitations that have always been imposed on them. In Auster’s novel, the characters continually negotiate and reconfigure emotional and economic relations, learning to open up to each other, and to put themselves always on the margins of predetermined social roles. And these small displacements, as well as literary writing, have a great potential for contamination, for effectively touching others in a recognition of the power that conforms us.https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/45618paul austercooperaçãosquattingsunset park
spellingShingle Rafaela Scardino
Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, community
Ilha do Desterro
paul auster
cooperação
squatting
sunset park
title Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, community
title_full Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, community
title_fullStr Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, community
title_full_unstemmed Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, community
title_short Claiming the right to the city: cooperation, occupancy, community
title_sort claiming the right to the city cooperation occupancy community
topic paul auster
cooperação
squatting
sunset park
url https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/45618
work_keys_str_mv AT rafaelascardino claimingtherighttothecitycooperationoccupancycommunity