This lecture will examine the precarities of dwelling in the contemporary settler-colonial city. Specifically, how the structuring dynamics of settler-colonialism render and normalise some forms of dwelling unbearable, subjecting specifically racialized (gendered, classed etc) bodies to injury. To do so, we will travel the lines of connection between different sites in contemporary Melbourne: inner-city public housing estates slated for demolition and ‘renewal’, public housing towers whose residents were subjected to punitive and severe lockdown conditions under COVID19, and a high-rise city-centre apartment block called the Portrait Building which exemplifies the contemporary desire to represent ‘Indigeneity’ in the city. Thinking along the lines of connection between these sites, which are not at all immediately obvious, offers useful insights into the formation and structuring of precarity and dwelling in the settler-colonial city.
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