Outlining careful ways to build post-COVID-19 cities

ABSTRACT

This work recognizes the interdependence of cities with the natural environment whose effects, after an unbalanced relationship, range from extreme weather events to the spread of the COVID-19 virus. In this context, this research investigates the emergence of changes in urban daily practices that, from the pandemic, could build careful ways for the human and non-human life that form and transform cities. Everyday practices are framed and analyzed based on the ideas of posthumanism scholars;in particular, anti-essentialist eco-politicians such as Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Anna Tsing, Vinciane Despret, among others, who recognize the dialectical relationship between human settlements and nature. Through the application of digital surveys and semi-structured interviews in Mexican cities, seeds of changes in urban daily life are identified in three dimensions to dilute the separation between nature and culture;to connect with the territories where we live and on which we depend;and to build attentive and careful links. Although the results do not yet enunciate drastic transformations, they do outline deep and significant changes that, if further explored, could contribute to forging the cities to come.