Theorising Housing Precarity Governance from A Relational Perspective: Affective Attachment of Debtors

This article aims to theorise the housing governance of vulnerable debtor populations from a relational perspective, developing the affective attachment concept. While the emotionality of housing has been studied in housing research, the relational understanding of affects/emotions offers a fruitful perspective for understanding the interface of power (re)production between subjects and structures. The argument is supported by a literature review and excerpts from a qualitative analysis of 30 interviews with overindebted people and 20 institutional actors which demonstrate the relevance of emotions in attachment to the precarious housing market. Linking the relevance of affective attachment with moral discourses, the article shows the potential to better understand how the (self)control and (self)discipline–(self)governance–of vulnerable people could be performed by morally modulated affects and emotions.

5 views

References

Aalbers, M. B., Christophers, B. 2014. ‘Centring housing in political economy.’ Housing, Theory and Society 31 (4): 373-394. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2014.947082

Ahmed, S. 2014. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. London: Routledge. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1g09x4q

Benson, M., Jackson, E. .2013. ‘Place-making and place maintenance: Performativity, place and belonging among the middle classes.’ Sociology 47 (4): 793-809. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038512454350

Chisholm, E., Olin, C., Randal, E., Witten, K., Howden-Chapman, P. 2023. ‘Placemaking and public housing: the state of knowledge and research priorities.’ Housing Studies 39 (10): 2580-2605. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2023.2206799  

Christie, H., Smith, S. J., Munro, M. 2008. ‘The emotional economy of housing.’ Environment and Planning A 40 (10), 2296-2312. https://doi.org/10.1068/a39358

Davey, R. 2020. ‘Snakes and ladders: legal coercion, housing precarity, and home‐making aspirations in southern England.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 26 (1): 12-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13175

Deville, J. 2015. Lived economies of default: Consumer credit, debt collection and the capture of affect. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203383254

Easthope, H., Power, E., Rogers, D., Dufty-Jones, R. 2020. ‘Thinking relationally about housing and home.’ Housing Studies 35 (9): 1493-1500. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2020.1801957

Flint, J. 2004. ‘The responsible tenant: Housing governance and the politics of behaviour.’ Housing Studies 19 (60): 893-909. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267303042000293991

García‐Lamarca, M., Kaika, M. 2016. ‘‘Mortgaged lives’: the biopolitics of debt and housing financialisation.’ Transactions of the institute of British Geographers 41 (3): 313-327. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45147041

García-Lamarca, M. 2022. Non-performing loans, non-performing people: Life and struggle with mortgage debt in Spain. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Hoření Samec, T. 2021. ‘“For the sake of consumer protection”: Blending paternalism and neoliberalism in the discursive financialization of households in the Czech Republic.’ Pp. 148-168 in M. Mikuš, P. Rodik (eds.) Households and Financialization in Europe. London: Routledge.

Hoření Samec, T., Trlifajová, L. 2023. ‘Protect or punish debtors? Policymaker discourse on the state’s role in personal debt governance.’ New Political Economy 28 (6): 958-970. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2023.2215703

Hoření Samec, T., Kubala, P.2024. ‘Dual responsibilization for housing in a housing crisis: young adults in the Czech Republic.’ Housing Studies 39 (4): 857-876. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2022.2091115

Hoření Samec, T., Decker, A., Trlifajová, L. 2024. ‘Consumption Loans Consuming Homes: Intersections of Housing Precarity and Personal Overindebtedness.’ International Journal of Housing Policy 24 (3): 501-520. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2024.2350134

Keasey, K., Veronesi, G. 2012. ‘The significance and implications of being a subprime homeowner in the UK.’ Environment and planning A 44 (6): 1502-1522. https://doi.org/10.1068/a44453

Kear, M. 2013. ‘Governing homo subprimicus: Beyond financial citizenship, exclusion, and rights.’ Antipode 45 (4): 926-946. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2012.01045.x

Kunz, R., Maisenbacher, J., Paudel, L. N. 2020. ‘The financialization of remittances: governing through emotions.’ Review of International Political Economy 28 (6): 1607-1631. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1785923

Jørgensen, C. J. 2016. ‘The space of the family: emotions, economy and materiality in homeownership.’ Housing, Theory and Society 33 (1): 98-113. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2015.1083052

Lancione, M. 2019. ‘The politics of embodied urban precarity: Roma people and the fight for housing in Bucharest, Romania.’ Geoforum 101, 182-191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.09.008

Lombard, M. 2023. ‘The experience of precarity: low-paid economic migrants’ housing in Manchester.’ Housing Studies 38 (2): 307-326. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2021.1882663

McKee, K. 2011. ‘Sceptical, disorderly and paradoxical subjects: Problematizing the “will to empower” in social housing governance.’ Housing, Theory and Society 28 (1): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036091003788120

McKee, K., Soaita, A. M., Hoolachan, J. 2020. ‘‘Generation rent’and the emotions of private renting: self-worth, status and insecurity amongst low-income renters.’ Housing Studies 35 (8): 1468-1487. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2019.1676400

Power, E. R., Gillon, C. 2022. ‘Performing the ‘good tenant’.’ Housing Studies 37 (3): 459-482. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2020.1813260

Read, Jason. 2016. ‘''The Affective Economy: Producing and Consuming Affects in Deleuze and Guattari''.’ Pp 103-124 in: C. Meibor, S. Van Tuinen (eds.) Deleuze and The Passions, Punctum Books. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.2354011

Samec, T. 2018. ‘Performing housing debt attachments: Forming semi-financialised subjects.’ Journal of Cultural Economy 11 (6): 549-564. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2018.1493611

Soaita, A. M., Searle, B. A. 2016. ‘Debt amnesia: homeowners’ discourses on the financial costs and gains of homebuying.’ Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 48 (6): 1087-1106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X16638095

Synek, M., Hradcová, D. 2023. ‘At home in the ‘home’? Narratives of home in repertoires of institutional dining.’ Housing Studies (in press). First published online 16 October 2023. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2023.2262949

Waldron, R. 2023. ‘Experiencing housing precarity in the private rental sector during the covid-19 pandemic: the case of Ireland.’ Housing Studies 38 (1): 84-106. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2022.2032613

Waldron, R. 2024. ‘Responding to housing precarity: the coping strategies of generation rent.’ Housing Studies 39 (1): 124-145. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2021.2022606

Please, login first to add a comment.
Document Type
article
ISSN
2336-2839
Volume / Issue
11 / 2
Pages
175-183
Date of publication
9.12.2024

Cite this article

copy
Hoření Samec, T. 2024. ‘Theorising Housing Precarity Governance from A Relational Perspective: Affective Attachment of Debtors.’ Critical Housing Analysis 11 (2): 175-183. https://doi.org/10.13060/23362839.2024.11.2.575