Understanding the temporary appropriation in relationship to social sustainability

This paper will review the relevant literature about the conceptualisation of the temporary appropriation within the urban environment. A vast review of theoretical and empirical texts reveals that despite the lack of a defined theory in this specific field, the temporary appropriation is a key concept for the understanding of people’s sense of belonging to a place, and identity. The paper, therefore, attempts to fill the research gap through an extensive cross-disciplinary literature review that includes topophilia, space production, and environment and behaviour theories. Thus, the aim of the present writing is to frame, within the urban context, the relevance of the temporary appropriation in relation to social sustainability. To do so, it identifies and categorises the temporary appropriation into three main groups of activities featuring the urban landscape.