„[Capitalism] has to continually inhibit the capacity for consciousness, and it’s done a very good job.“ (Fisher und Colquhoun, 2021, p. 131)

Having dealt with the everyday dirty realities of cheapness, the next step will be to reclaim the term “value” beyond economic understandings. UDP2 draws our attention to be conscious about the value we create and the values we assign. Cultural scientist Mark Fisher illustrates what happens when systems are not involved in creating economic profit: „In this consciousness and through it the special objective character of labour as a commodity, its ‘use-value’ (i.e. its ability to yield surplus produce) which like every use-value is submerged without a trace in the quantitative exchange categories of capitalism [Fisher later also defines this as ‘exchange-value’], now awakens and becomes social reality.“ (Fisher and Colquhoun 2021, 139) In UDP2 we wish to focus on “sensing urban values” (Birdsall, Halauniova, van de Kamp 2021) and how citizens and urban designers re-claim, create and cultivate them aside from mere capitalist agendas.

In order to adapt a conscious assessment of value (Tsing 2013), able to counter exploitative economies, we want to know: How are (monetary, inter-personal, cultural) values socially constructed? How can we actively produce value through joyful alliances, commoning practices and critical thought? What is the role of desire in anti-capitalist practices (Pohl 2022; Pohl and Swyngedouw 2023) and how can we make it work for us? Can value rise while degrowth happens? What can we learn from experimental value systems? How can we embrace the agency of fragility of certain systems as porous entry points for alternative futures rather than following fearful narratives of potential breakdown?

 If the systems seemingly in power are not working towards futures that we look forward to, we seek agency in systems that we can design for value making in the urban context and by gaining critical awareness for broader social constellations and conflicts. In the upcoming semester we will look specifically at urban typologies such as (self-organised) community centres, safe spaces of marginalized communities, housing cooperatives and alternative housing projects, re-claimed sites of vacancy or speculation, alternative sites of production, spaces of grassroot alliances, sites for artistic production and cultural exchange, while being aware of places and groups where notions of nature, family and community are re-evaluated in traditionalist dynamics, that feature also in exclusivist or far-right narratives.

We seek to develop critical methodological frameworks for our own playful cultural practices of analysis (Schulze and Waltenspül 2025) and understand: How do such sites emerge, and what are their social, political, economic and ecological contexts? Which everyday practices and which tactics constitute them (de Certeau 1984)? How are these spaces maintained, when do they fail, evolve, and flourish? Can they be institutionalized, without losing their agency? Can we understand these sites as multipliers, that can scale and be repeated elsewhere, or do they then lose their situational value?

References
Birdsall, Carolyn, Halauniova, Anastasiya, & van de Kamp, Linda (2021). Sensing Urban Values: Reassessing Urban Cultures and Histories Amidst Redevelopment Agendas. Space and Culture, 24(3), 348-358. https://doi.org/10.1177/12063312211000654.
Certeau, Michel de. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1983. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fisher, Mark, and Matt Colquhoun. 2021. Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures. London, UK: Repeater.
Pohl, Lucas. 2022. ‘Gebaute Umwelten als Objekte des Begehrens. Kommentar zu Jan Hutta und Nina Schuster „Infrastrukturen städtischer Intimität“’.
Pohl, Lucas, and Erik Swyngedouw. 2023. ‘“What Does Not Work in the World”: The Specter of Lacan in Critical Political Thought’. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 24 (1): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2021.1872667.
Schulze, Mario; Waltenspül, Sarine (2025) String Figures. A Cultural Practice between Art, Anthropology, and Theory, Zürich: Diaphanes.
Tsing, Anna. 2013. Sorting out commodities: How capitalist value is made through gifts. in: HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3:1, 21-43 https://doi.org/10.14318/hau3.1.003