An initial range of inspirations and questions as starting points are:

• While revolutions run like rivers through city streets, and anthropologists rush to street level to follow the action, who is relatively ‘still’ on the balconies: children hiding, the elderly watching curiously, shocked non-activists secretly filming as budding citizen-journalists?;

• When friends and family post enigmatic photographs to social media of the views from their balconies of home or holiday, overlooking city-ports or mountain retreats;

• When interlocutors guide the anthropologist to the balcony to show the view of sad or aspirational gentrification, or stolen lands, or ecological devastation – somehow these panoramic views provide forms of that are harder to determine from ground-level;

• We are especially keen to hear from Catalan colleagues, on the intriguing and somehow magical sound of “olles I paelles” – the banging of pots and pans from balconies in the call for independence;

• And what other forms of aurality draw people to balconies, such as cities of with the call to prayer coming up to balconies? What atmospheres do people seek to connect with from their balconies?;

• What of biblical ‘gardens of Babylon’, such as Milan’s and other developments to ‘green’ and ‘forest’ high-rise urban living?;

• Balconies also make us think of ‘small space living’ replete with phrases: stylish urban living, fashionable city dwelling, also some debate in city wildlife, ideas about the ‘concrete garden’ in midst of large metropolis, eco-friendly/sustainable living, creativity, sensitivity to climate change/wildlife/extinction of species (urban gardeners, guerilla gardeners, community gardens etc), balcony gardens as modern trend in urban horticulture; high-rise=high-density; skyscrapers;

• for an interesting multi-species article, see Kelly and Lezuan (2017) in Cultural Anthropology: The Wild Indoors: Room-Spaces of Scientific Inquiry

• Architects design high-rise modern living, the high-level/sky-level urban landscape, luxury high-rises, balconies as ‘greening the city’…changes for the conventional balcony, curtains of glass promising picturesque views, sunlight, year-round indoor-outdoor living space. Always that search for urban rooftop gardens with gorgeousness, ultra stylish/chic

• Balconies have long been used by politicians to deliver speeches, and although we feel there is more to explore than ‘politics’, the Ecuadorian Embassy has triggered the ‘Julian balcony’ given Julian Assange’s statements to the media from it. And apparently the Juliette balcony is a falsity – some historians note that Romeo and Juliette interacted from a window in the original text. So, when do humans put themselves on or off (changing history) balconies?;

• On the other hand, all the above suggests a the world outside the home. So when do balconies form a shield, a ‘curtain’ or a restful oasis from the outside world. Here we think of tightly packed city streets where balconies are like beady eyes upon the world, where shutters blink open & shut, or glazing becomes mirror-like – what are the distinctions when people ‘display taste’ (Bourdieu 1984) or block neighbouring gazes?;

• What of the ‘merging’ of gardens and balconies – different gentrification forces have the effect of moving gardens and/or balconies up and down, in and out, with changing fashions, classes, ages etc;

• Then there is ‘small space living’ and Ikea-isation, as modern trends in urban horticulture for high-rise=high-density human life: gardening or interior design styles for the balcony, stylish urban living, fashionable city dwelling; huge debates around city wildlife, ideas about the ‘concrete garden’ in midst of large metropolis and ‘wilding the city; eco-friendly/sustainable living, creativity, sensitivity to climate change/wildlife/extinction of species; urban gardeners, guerrilla gardeners and community gardeners versus architects and urban planner – dystopic utopias and vice versa;

• What cultural variations are there of luxury and hedonism: sky-level urban landscape, changes of the conventional balcony such as curtains of glass promising picturesque views and sunlight, ideas about year-round indoor-outdoor living spaces, ultra-stylish/ sky-high vis a vis hedonistic, glossy, iconic travel images overlooking crystal blue seas, of private suites/hotels with own patio/terrace ‘overlooking’; and tourists seeking windows with a view;

• But moving back down to the ethnographic detail, can balconies be microcosms – cosmos and cosmologies; does life jump across balconies; or life suspended, anchored or between; what unfolds on or along balconies? What are the ethnographic moments of life worlds of balconies, where, for just one post-Malinowskian moment, we can imagine balconies as beyond Foucault’s ‘little things’ in urban spaces – balconies taking centre stage for an analytical moment, as momentary centres of universes for those who briefly use them to sit, wait, settle and move on;

• And what of “absences” – of people, things, dereliction, war/bombing, holidays – as well as dwellings where there are no physical balconies. Do people make alternative arrangements and configurations; are balcony-like spaces a necessity that might just have been forgotten to be built, must/are they always “occupied”? Likewise, we always think of going on/up to the balcony, but what of tragedies of falling off;

• How do balconies appear in romance and love? We think of fine art paintings, of sex workers advertising the body from panoramic windows, of intimate gatherings of friends to eat and talk together, of declarations of love or marriage engagements on picturesque platforms, of royal kisses as public performances of legitimacy;

• So too are balconies places of banishment, such as smokers as banished undesirables, the elderly unable to take part in the dynamic street…

• And of viewing platforms for the spectacular – observing, performing, absorbing things like fireworks, bombs, revolution, weather and natural phenomena.