Call for papers, deadline 25 March 2019
International conference, Stockholm, 26-27 September 2019
Tenants organizing- precarization and resistance
Following Peter Marcuse’s (2008; 2010) appeal to: expose, propose, politicize, we are organizing a conference casting light on the housing crisis and especially on the historical and contemporary organization of tenants to contest the neoliberal turn in housing. The neoliberalization of housing, resulting in its commodification and in particular precarization of the housing situation among the working classes, has not remained unchallenged, although it has spread globally and is a natural part of the current capitalist order. By placing housing struggles and tenants’ organization in the center of the debate we aim to expose and politicize current development and, hopefully, propose a different view by discussing how resistance can be used, with what effects and how it can be connected to other struggles (workers, migrant, or other). We therefore invite contributions including following themes:
● Organization and mobilization: focusing on practices, methods and strategies. Which are the core issues of current struggles?
● The historical and current emergence of tenants´ movements and mobilizations: causes, victories and current state
● Precarization of tenants’, workers’ and migrants’ rights: how are these linked and how is solidarity built?
● Power to repress: revealing the practices of landlords/market/ authorities/media
This international conference will be held in Stockholm on 26-27th September 2019, in collaboration with Södertörn University. The conference will gather activists and researchers around issues of tenants’ organization in different contexts and welcomes academic and non-academic contributions dealing with different forms of organization among tenants in various contexts, challenging the neoliberal turn in housing. Academic contributions where research has been conducted in close collaboration with tenants will be given priority. In cases where this is not applicable, we prefer contributions dealing in depth with tenant mobilization and organizing.
The conference will mix paper presentations, panel discussions, sightseeing tours and workshops.
One practical outcome of the gathering will be a documentary of the different tenants’ struggles represented at the conference. Another will be a special issue with texts presented at the conference and to be published in a journal.
Practicalities and deadlines
We aim for a fairly small conference, with a limited number of participants, to allow for a rich and engaging atmosphere and fruitful exchanges between all presented papers. Participants are expected to either present a draft paper (around 6-8,000 words), to be circulated among all partakers before the conference, or hold a workshop, intervention, presentation, exhibition, poster presentation or any other kind of contribution related to any of the themes.
The conference is free of charge and contributors may be eligible for a travel and accommodation grant(covering up to 300 Euros). If you would like to apply for
this contribution, please indicate this in your application and explain why it would be helpful to you. In the selection we will give priority to contributors lacking institutional funds.
Each proposal should include:
· A 300-500 word abstract with keywords
· a short bio (maximum 300 words) and contact details
The conference will include social activities with local activists. All the meals will be provided for the contributing participants.
For more information, see https://tenantsorganizing.blogspot.com/
Please send your proposal to scott.springfeldt@sh.se.
Deadline for submission of proposals: 25 March 2019
Notification of acceptance: 25 April 2019 at latest
Submission of papers: 16 September 2019
The organizing committee:
Sarah Degerhammar sarahdegerhammar@gmail.com
Dominika V Polanska dominika.polanska@ibf.uu.se
Åse Richard ase.richard@ibf.uu.se
Hannes Rolf hannes.rolf@esh.se
Scott Springfeldt scott.springfeldt@sh.se
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