Who and how learns the city. Attuning as a newcomer and re-attuning to others' arrival processes

This contribution aims to discuss the challenges and possibilities that are opened up by approaching the research's field as a restless and tentative navigation of its contingent dispositions. It examines the (ordinary) situation of inquiry in a setting where the researcher has a personal experience with the process under scrutiny - adopting thus certain knowledge and assuming some commonalities in developing her positioning towards listening -, and yet she is inherently distant and different for how meanings, powers and temporalities play out a subjective understanding and practical knowledge. Building on the concept of attunement understood «not only as being with, but being with in a similar way» (Ahmed, 2014, p.16), the paper seeks to examine the processes of constant and generative re-attunement and un-learning (Jazeel & McFarlane, 2010) that take place "in the field". To do so, I will present the actual reconsiderations and reframing issues of my investigation concerning processes of settling (physically and affectively) and newcomers' subjectivities constructions in Brussels. My respondents and myself share the condition of having to learn the city and the one of migrant, as well as the urban context in which our practical enskillment and situated knowledge is constructed. This often sets an open ground for confrontation, but nevertheless needs to be continuously decentred through the process of listening and re-weaving together unexpected narratives (both as in stories and in forms of narration) and the emergence of multiple components, processes and forces that make up life (Lancione 2016) and arrival atmosphere. So doing, I hope to contribute to the debate of how the development of a flexible and ongoing sensibility through the act of re-attuning to aspects that had not been accounted for in an initial stage, might brings a transformative impact both in terms of knowledge production and in invigorating the potential of the research encounter.