Contemplating (Dis)Comfort in Humanitarian Spaces

Organized by

Bronte Alexander
Early-Career Fellow 2024–2025

Informations

This event is intended for an interested professional audience, with limited places available. To attend the round table, please email the Events Office. The organizer will reach out to confirm your participation.

The round table is followed by a small reception.

Comfort is often equated with luxury, and yet it encompasses some of the most fundamental elements of human rights: adequate safety, protection from thermal extremes, and spaces of privacy. While humanitarian shelters are designed to provide immediate housing relief, can—or should—they prioritize comfort?

Leading experts tackle this question across two roundtable discussions, examining how we conceptualize comfort, what it means for humanitarian practice, and if and how we might include it in design and planning. Each speaker brings their unique perspective based on their experience in the field and expertise in political geography, architecture, design, international relations, and anthropology. Together, they will reflect on (dis)comfort—its unequal distribution, historical legacies, and future possibilities

Program

Preliminary and subject to future updates.

Round table participants

Polly Pallister-Wilkins
University of Amsterdam, NL

Elisa Pascucci
Tampere University, FI

Tom Scott-Smith
Refugee Studies Centre at University of Oxford, UK

Grégoire Castella
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH

Martina Tazzioli
University of Bologna, IT 

Mahmoud Keshavarz
Uppsala University, SE