Since October 2023, we have witnessed the human and material devastation brought about by the horrific mediatised genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, itself preceded by a long history of ‘urbacide’—an intentional form of urban destruction characterised by siege and denied rehabilitation (Chiodelli 2022). In his research on modern warfare and ‘domicide’ in Syria (2022), Amar Azzouz has spoken eloquently about ‘…the millions of ordinary people caught up in today’s wars—wars which have transformed streets, towns and neighbourhoods into battlefields.’ With people’s homes at the cen ..read more

In Ohio and California, legislators have proposed replacing the terms ‘landlord’ and ‘tenant’ in rental regulations. Landlords and landlord lobbyists argue that the feudal origins of the term don’t reflect the contemporary reality of renting. How seriously should tenant organizers, housing researchers and policymakers take these efforts to move on from ‘landlord’? While in their relative infancy, I argue that efforts to rebrand the term expand beyond name changes in organizations to media and legislation. They also seek to obfuscate and muddle what is increasingly one of the key social relatio ..read more

Toronto is in a housing crisis. Many residents lack access to adequate and affordable housing. In response, neoliberals and reformers have radicalized their advocacy for more market housing as the only possible alternative. Drawing attention to the role housing plays in the reproduction of labour power and the crisis-ridden dynamic of capital accumulation, we highlight the inability of market housing to meet a range of social needs. We tackle crucial weaknesses of the housing supply argument, including, first, its quantitative orientation; second, its impatience with those who defend existing ..read more

Is it time to reconsider radical housing struggles? This is the main question animating the article, in the light of telling evidence from Abidjan’s contemporary evictions, where dwellers put in place a plethora of practices against their displacement, from collective to individual ones. The study builds on Abidjan’s eviction programs under the SDUGA (Schéma Directeur d’Urbanisme Grand Abidjan) to pick up three urban scenarios of neighbourhoods’ reaction to precarity, considering data from scientific and administrative papers, press review, and interviews and participant observations. Conventi ..read more

The contemporary housing system in England entraps temporary tenants in ongoing movement between different types of insecure, unaffordable, overcrowded and poorly maintained accommodations. Engaging with carceral geography scholarship and Black fugitive thinking, I argue that a legalised system of carcerality entraps temporary tenants in recurrent movement, thus reproducing a ‘vicious housing circle’. However, I also stress how temporary tenants and housing campaigners maintain spaces of care that hold open possibilities to escape the entrapment in movement. Grounded in my ethnographic researc ..read more

In this article, we share strategic lessons from applying a ‘structural field of contention’ approach to a comparative study of housing struggles in Hungary and Romania since 1989. The aim is not to highlight details and specificities, but to show the benefits of looking beyond individual progressive movements in focus of most previous literature, instead capturing the ideological and structural complexity of housing contention, with different positions on the political spectrum, in an integrated way. With such analytical approach, we can grasp the broader field of relations where various answ ..read more

In the conversation “Dismantling Rentier Logic: Tenants Struggles in Argentina,” Ana Vilenica and Moisés Quiroz engage with Garvazio Munoz from Inquilinos Agrupados (IA), delving into Argentina’s housing crisis and its effects on renters. Garvazio Munoz provides a historical perspective on tenant organising in Argentina, starting with Juana Rouco Buela’s leadership in the 1907 tenants’ strike against steep rent increases and the Movimiento de Inquilinos Peronistas of 1973. The conversation pivots to contemporary challenges, with Munoz describing the harsh reality of Argentina’s housing market ..read more

In “Tracing a long history of the Habitat International Coalition and the social production of habitat,” Ana Vilenica engages with Enrique Ortiz and Maria Silvia Emanuelli from HIC-AL to explore the evolution of housing justice movements and the role of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) in advocating for social production of housing. The conversation provides a historical perspective on the coalition’s inception. It outlines the foundational moments of HIC, detailing the coalition’s growth out of a collective need to address housing as a human right. Enrique shares experiences from the ..read more

This Conversation addresses the complexities of tenants displacement in Mexico City (CDMX), and examines the formation and evolution of the 06000 Plataforma Vecinal y Observatorio del Centro Histórico group and its strategies for organizing against eviction. It focuses on the iconic Edificio Trevi, detailing its history, and the community’s resistance to eviction and “whitening by dispossession.” The role of social action in fostering resistance and community solidarity is also explored, alongside the group’s interactions with local authorities and their efforts to negotiate. doi.org/10.54825 ..read more

‘Dialogical Devices and Political Possibilities of Art: Occupy, Inhabit, Resist’ is a conversation with Sandra Calvo, an interdisciplinary artist based in Mexico, exploring the intersection of art and struggles for home and territory. Sandra Calvo elucidates her dialogical approach in accompanying communities in struggle, employing dialogical devices that foster conversations and potential spaces for expression and re-signification in conflict scenarios. In this conversation Sandra talks about her work in Colombia and Mexico underlying the importance of listening and dialogue to denounce and c ..read more