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- Convenors:
-
Chiara Cacciotti
(Polytechnic and University of Turin)
Michele Lancione (Polytechnic of Turin)
AbdouMaliq Simone (University of Sheffield)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Music Building (MUS), Lecture Room 101
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel will discuss the condition of liminality related to housing precarity by questioning its conventional definition as a temporary in-betweenness, together with how it can become an example of social depotentiation or transform itself into collective political stances.
Long Abstract:
Conventionally, anthropological understandings of 'liminality' define it as a condition of temporary in-betweenness, in which a transition to a differential state is assumed. In other disciplines - such as urban studies - the same notion is related for the most to describe so-called 'marginal' contexts. In this panel, we are interested in exploring differential and more nuanced ways of understanding 'liminality' beyond current readings. We are doing so, inspired by research that has looked at conditions of housing precarity in a processual and situated way (Baxter and Brickell 2014; Vasudevan 2015), where the 'liminal' and the 'marginal' cannot be simply defined by 'transitionary processes' and/or social exclusion (Thomassen 2014; Cacciotti 2020). With this we mean to explore those situations in which experiences of 'housing precarity' show that the 'liminal' is both a space of potential annihilation and dispossession, as well as a space that can be inhabited against prevailing forces (Lancione 2020; Simone 2016).
We are interested in contributions that situated experiences of precarious housing and their politics of liminality at the intersection of everyday experiences and longitudinal and structural processes of economic, cultural, societal and racial dispossession.
Through conceptual and empirical work (involving, for example, squats and other informal occupations, evictions, homeless centers, reception centers), this panel will shed light on how a localized liminal and precarious housing condition can become an example of social and economic depotentiation or transform itself into collective political stances.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to see the liminality of urban constructions, as a form of potential dispossession, by looking at the conditions of production of urban formalities and the forms of control by the state to which they give rise.
Paper long abstract:
This paper looks at how urban formalities (such as construction permit) are negotiated on a daily basis between citizens and the State around the production of buildings in the African urban environment. The aim is to show how the mechanisms of production of these formalities and the forms of control (by State agents) to which they give rise, create in short, medium and long temporalities, conditions of social dispossession. Such experiences are increasingly observable in Cameroonian cities where demolition operations multiply year after year. Our reflection is based on a case study conducted in the city of Douala with different municipal administrations, construction actors (contractors, owners), citizens victims of demolition and civil society actors. The results of this research show that: a) state regulation of construction activities implies, through urban formalities, a social contract between state and citizens ; b) The latter inscribes the buildings constructed in a complex regime of legality that on the one hand legitimizes different modes of construction in the city, but locates, on the other hand, many buildings and their residents in a form of liminality ; c) This liminality emerges as the product of a differentiated relationship of constructions to different forms of protection and risk; d) Understanding the liminality of urban constructions, as a structuring effect of the modes of urban regulation by the state, involves going beyond binary oppositions such as formal/informal, legal/illegal, authorized/unauthorized that are most often used to analyze housing precarity in the context of the global South.
Paper short abstract:
In recent decades, the Czech Republic has produced a specific form of a never ending liminality by not regulating non-bank loans, non-existent housing first policy, and high salary deductions via enforcement proceedings, leaving ex-prisoners living in work dormitories with no chance to move on.
Paper long abstract:
In recent decades, the Czech Republic has produced a specific form of housing precarisation by refusing regulations of non-bank loans, abused in a unique predatory system aimed at marginalised populations. The raison d'etre of this system was not to loan money for a high interest, but, rather, to make debtor to breach the contract that would trigger contracted sanctions. Until 2016, these sanction were not regulated by a law, so creditors could, potentially, put any obligations to the contract and it was no exceptions that several hundreds Euros loan has became several thousands Euros loan after a couple of years. The creditors aimed at various marginalised populations because of their weak social position and poverty, producing life-time slaves, as in some cases sanctioned interest was higher than the sum that was repaid. This situation also applies to Czech ex-prisoners whose indebtedness is extremely high (the average owed sum of an ex-prisoner is as much as nearly 27,000€) and practically all of them have some debt. The indebtedness is a life-limiting factor since deductions via enforcement proceedings are so high that the rest of the money are barely enough to meet subsistence needs. This is especially the case of housing because ex-prisoners cannot afford standard housing after deductions so they have to live in work dormitories, a sub-standard form of housing originally intended to be a temporary housing for industrial workers. Many ex-prisoners cannot move on to the a standard housing due to lifetime indebtedness, living a never ending liminality.
Paper short abstract:
This study aims to unsettle the notion of 'river land' through 'kali mati' to understand the process of displacements under flood-control policy in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia.
Paper long abstract:
The study offers an attention to grounded understanding of space and time in riverbank settlement based on how the place is named and lived in the present and represented in history. 'Tanah kali' or river land refers to temporary space river and embodied history of settling on river, while the 'kalimati' or dead river refers to dry and stagnant flowing water that constitutes life of river. They propose the temporality of river to rethinking displacements and flood-control policy in urban history.
Paper short abstract:
In this talk, I will sketch protests against the dire conditions in a homeless shelter in Munich. I will argue that the shelter can be analyzed as space of solidarity and resistance but also -- and at the same time -- as tool for disciplining, precarizing and locking away the racialized poor.
Paper long abstract:
In 2013, the German city of Munich opened a winter shelter for those houseless people who ostensibly did not have access to the city’s regular homeless shelters due to a lack of social rights on federal level. Since then, many EU citizens without formal employment contract have taken shelter in this substandard facility. As so-called “inactive” intra-EU migrants, they were excluded from social benefits as an attempt to control their mobility and to divide spaces of wage labour and social reproduction.
As movement-based ethnographic researcher, I participated in protests led by people experiencing homelessness against the dire conditions in that shelter since its opening. The protests achieved small improvements. First only open during winter nights when temperatures fell below freezing, houseless people can sleep there the whole year round now. At the beginning of the pandemic, people using the shelter staged another protest. They demanded better hygienic conditions, among other things. During a preparation meeting for a rallye, a Venezuelan and a Bulgarian citizen met and decided to write a sign in their common language Italian: “Vogliamo la liberte per nato liberis” – “We want freedom, because we were born free”.
In this talk, I will argue that the homeless shelter is paradigmatic for current liminal spaces at the junction of migration and social policy characterized by differential inclusion. It can be analyzed as space of solidarity and resistance but also and at the same time as tool for disciplining, precarizing and locking away the racialized poor.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I would like to explore differential and more nuanced notions of liminality to help understand spaces of homelessness as well as the diverse experiences of people facing homelessness.
Paper long abstract:
Liminality has been described by scholars, as a time of marginality and invisibility (Turner 1987) or as periods of chaos, confusion, uncertainty, anxiety and searching for meaning (Bridges 2009). Others have highlighted that liminality entails ambiguity, disruption, and displacement, as well as possibilities (Arvanitis et al. 2019). In this paper, I would like to explore differential and more nuanced notions of liminality to help understand spaces of homelessness as well as the diverse experiences of people facing homelessness. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this exploratory study is part of a joint comparative research project (CSRP) on homelessness and social inclusion in Croatia. Rather than being seen as a period of ‘between states’; of existing ‘betwixt and between’ findings show that experiences of homelessness are often understood and felt as a state of being stuck or trapped (Smith & Dowse 2019), unable to move or transition (Thomassen 2009). If transition does take place, this often involves moves from one precarious housing situation to another in the absence of sustainable support. For this reason, the fluid and dynamic nature of liminality often characterised by ongoing, cyclical shifts between different (homeless) environments (i.e., into shelters, onto streets into inadequate/insecure housing) is also considered.