Everyday activism: private tenants demand right to home

Soaita, A. M. (2022) Everyday activism: private tenants demand right to home. Housing Studies, (doi: 10.1080/02673037.2022.2036329) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought under the spotlight home’s severe inadequacies, which take a particular intensity in the various unregulated, insecure rental housing markets across the globe. It is now timely to deliberate what it takes for a rented property to be made home, and in that debate tenants’ voices should be heard. Taking the UK as a case-study and drawing on data collected through an online qualitative questionnaire, the paper focuses on a group of tenants theorised as ‘everyday activists’ to address the empirical question of what they demand from the government for the sector to improve. Considering participants’ legitimising narratives and assertions for self-representation in policy construction, the paper then proposes a reading of the demands made through the ‘Right to Home’, a concept carefully grounded in Henri Lefebvre’s Right to the City. The Right to Home calls for home-ing and democratising current de-radicalised understandings of the right to housing in order to craft more transformative futures.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding: The Economic and Social Research Council, Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (grant number: ES/P008852/1).
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Soaita, Dr Adriana Mihaela
• Authors: Soaita, A. M.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Journal Name: Housing Studies
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• ISSN: 0267-3037
• ISSN (Online): 1466-1810
• Published Online: 10 February 2022
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 The Author(s)
• First Published: First published in Housing Studies 2022
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
300119		UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE)	Kenneth Gibb	Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)	ES/P008852/1	S&PS - Urban Studies