Csaba Szalo

This article reviews the current discourse on urban struggles to bring to the surface strategies of interpretation, which deal with theoretical concerns insinuated by the situated existence of struggling subjects. The first part, concentrating on the domain of “negative places,” contrasts interpretive strategies distinguished by their orientation to the phenomena of local solidarities, alternatively, solidarities organized by collective projects. The second part turns from “negative places” to “other places” to consider the strategy of interpretation operating with the concept of affective solidarities. The article argues for a critical reinterpretation of affective solidarities in reference to Foucault's idea of “other places” to disclose how the disobedient subject's transfiguration into collective subjects of solidarity is entwined with the diversity of modes in which the corporeal existence of subjects is situated in the world.

This paper explores the potential for enriching Jeffery Alexander's ‘aesthetics of iconicity’ within cultural sociology by further developing its engagement with embodiment and historicity. Cultural sociology, concerned with the meanings inherent in social life, distinguishes itself from approaches focused solely on functional unity or linguistic signification, emphasising instead the hermeneutical dimensions of understanding and the lived experiences of those who comprehend meanings. Alexander's description of the perceiving subject's immersion in the object of experience suggests a conception of the subject as a living being, possessing and being a living body. This paper proposes that a more nuanced understanding of iconic experience can be achieved by integrating a deeper exploration of how this embodied subject engages with icons within specific historical contexts. By attending to the lived dimensions of embodiment, we can further illuminate the complex interplay between iconic meaning and the human experience of social life.