On being [un]comfortably [un]comfortable

This slide seemed to go down well at the recent Space & Place Conference, and I was chuffed when a colleague said that they might use it in their own work. I was trying to work through a vague idea that had lurked in the background of the recent series of SPG events: all on the comforts and discomforts of dwelling and place. I wanted to think through how it wasn’t simply a binary (of either comfortable or uncomfortable) but that instead these qualities combine in different ways, producing different effects (and affects).

So with Donald Rumsfeld’s idea of ‘known unknowns’ to mind (and with a never-quite-fully-thought-through nod to AJ Greimas’ semiotic square) I stumbled upon my own formulation. I find it helpfully connects some of the strands I’ve been working on recently.

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