Making health public: a philosophy café in a disadvantaged neighbourhood.

In this article, we present an analysis of how researchers and citizens in low-income neighbourhoods collaborated to improve health and resilience. Citizens and researchers together organized a monthly philosophy café to discuss subjects related to health and wellbeing. We analyse the philosophy café as the activities of a public rather than a community. The philosophy café was set up as an open setting in which strangers could meet and exchange ideas and experiences. This resulted in lively exchanges and disagreements on what a good life entails. By presenting the philosophy café as a local public, our paper stresses the desire of neighbourhood inhabitants to meet strangers and exchange ideas, rather than to form close attachments to a neighbourhood community.