City of cracks: Tracing (re)orientation and place-making in Eindhoven with photovoice

Cities are constantly transforming due to different policy interventions, economic shifts, and climate change. In Eindhoven (NL), urban change is driven by the knowledge economy and an influx of highly skilled tech workers. Yet these transformations are uneven. As urban landscapes are rearranged, they alter how people experience places and relate to them. This paper explores how vulnerable inhabitants, who have been long-term unemployed, experience the city’s transformations and develop strategies of (re)orientation. By collaborating with a community center, we use the method of photovoice to foreground their lived experiences through photos and oral stories. Through our concept of crack – a point of interference where the same place with the same qualities can both orient and disorient the body in different instances – we show that place is not neutral but a dynamic field of forces, shaped by bodies, objects, politics, and histories. We unveil how vulnerable inhabitants resist and negotiate these cracks, inventing alternative forms of belonging and engagement with the city – and the world.