The Home Hub warmly welcomes you to this interdisciplinary symposium. Organized by dr. Michela Borzaga and dr. Flore Janssen (UU Comparative Literature), the event is framed by the question of how the nuclear family has shaped urban space, social relations, and inequalities across class, gender and race.
At a time of growing housing precarity, social fragmentation, and ecological crisis, the event critically examines how the spatial design of cities has historically reinforced the bourgeois nuclear model of the family and its exclusions. Bringing together scholars with backgrounds including architecture, urban and cultural history, anthropology and cultural studies, the symposium seeks to foster dialogue between theory and lived practice. It connects interdisciplinary critiques of the family with contemporary debates on urban diversity and alternative housing models. By highlighting experiments in alternative ways of living, the symposium explores how communal forms of care, co-housing and shared domestic spaces may contribute to more inclusive, open and socially just cities.
Date: 9:45 – 16:30, Friday, 11 September 2026
Location: 2.02, Janskerhof 15A, Utrecht University
The event is free to attend, but registration is required. A registration link is available on the event’s webpage.
Contact: Dr M Borzaga <m.borzaga@uu.nl> and Dr F Janssen <f.w.janssen@uu.nl>