Paper short abstract:

This presentation defines the scope of IIED’s housing justice work. It identifies and discusses four areas of intervention that such a definition opens for sustainability thinking and transformative learning spaces in/as/for housing justice, which also takes account of past inequalities and harms.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation defines the scope of IIED’s housing justice work, in dialogue with longstanding efforts led by social movements, grassroots groups, researchers and allies around the right to adequate housing. A housing justice agenda aims to tackle the perverse nature of current housing systems which reduce opportunities for transformative learning: they are exclusionary, extractive, exploitative, and enclosed. Building on spaces of solidarity and resistance that have been forged to contest these current dynamics of housing systems, the presentation proposes housing justice as a frame to challenge these orientations and transform policy and practice. We propose a placeholder definition of housing justice: housing justice is a vision that seeks the transformation of housing systems to ensure the equitable distribution of capabilities for people to live in housing conditions that enable just and sustainable human flourishing. The presentation unpacks each part of this definition, discussing: ‘just and sustainable human flourishing’ from a social justice perspective; ‘capabilities to live in housing conditions’ from a capability perspective, focusing on the personal and the collective; ‘ensure the equitable distribution’, drawing on feminist, decolonial and southern theories; and ‘a vision that seeks the transformation of housing systems’, asserting that justice is a horizon always in the making, requiring continuous deliberation and contestation to define meaningful pathways.   The main section identifies and discusses four areas of intervention that such a definition opens for sustainability thinking and transformative learning spaces in/as/for housing justice, which also takes account of past inequalities and harms. The paper concludes by reflecting on the challenge of mobilising this lens towards a collective horizon, and framing the collaborative work on sustainable housing we do at IIED, linking local struggles and transformative learning spaces with global processes.