Abstract
How do housing cooperatives, squats, or community land trusts affect the resolution of the public problem of lack of affordable housing? This research examines direct civic action: flexibly organized collective efforts tackling problematic situations hands-on. Despite proliferation, scholarship remains fragmented, failing to explain how such interventions relate to public problem-solving. Three gaps persist: cultural mechanisms coupling problems and solutions remain unexplored; how actors navigate hybridization with state and market logics lacks action-level analysis; and processes through which direct interventions gain public recognition are undertheorized. This project develops an integrated framework combining civic action theory with the sociology of public problems. Through ethnographic investigation of five housing projects in Bologna, it traces how culturally-informed scene styles shape problem-solution coupling, how actors develop claims about public value within bicentric discursive fields, and how hybrids affect problem-solving. The inquiry has four objectives: identifying problem-solution coupling mechanisms; investigating claims-making; analyzing hybridization effects; examining public evaluation dynamics. The ethnographic approach enables intensive observation of interaction patterns and public claims. The project promises theoretical innovation for understanding direct civic action across domains while offering practical insights to address the housing crisis.
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