A Field of Contention: Evidence from Housing Struggles in Bucharest and Budapest

Abstract

The article offers a study of housing movements in Budapest and Bucharest, with the main focus on the developments since the financial crisis of 2008, stressing the role that both structural and contingent factors play in shaping the dynamics of this ''field of contention.'' It is argued that a structural view is enlightening for understanding the factors that form the interactive field between activists, such as differences in social positionality as well as ideological conflicts. Moreover, conceiving of a structurally produced field of contention can help explain the differences in housing contention in the two cities. The analysis situates housing movements and their allied, parallel, or opposing actors within the long-term processes of urbanization and global dynamics of commodification, including housing financialization. It demonstrates that to understand how structural and political factors interact in a complex field of contention, attention to processes beyond short-term local movements is necessary.

Mobilizing Grassroots in the City: Lessons for Civil Society Research in Central and Eastern Europe

“…Some countries badly hit by the 2008 economic crisis have seen the formation of multigroup alliances by the new middle classes and the new poor (including those afflicted by housing debt after 2008). For example, The "City is For All" was formed in Budapest in 2009, inspired by a similar initiative in New York (Udvarhelyi 2015;Florea, Gagyi, & Jacobsson 2018).…”

“…Among these was the (rather short-lived) architectural heritage protection movement in Bucharest, where a cross-class alliance of architects, middle-class activists, and poor Roma residents was formed to resist the neoliberal restructuring of the city (Florea 2015). Elsewhere, the "City is For All" alliance has united the homeless and middle-class activists in Budapest since 2009 (Florea et al 2018). Both cases suggest that CEE is a good site to explore what Brenner et al (2012) call alliances between the deprived (those who are immediately exploited, unemployed, and impoverished) and the discontented (those who are disrespected or otherwise constrained in their capacity to explore the possibilities of life).…”

“…In other cases, left-and right-wing urban groups do not cooperate but nonetheless constitute ideologically diverse components of what can be conceptualized as a common "field of contention," representing divergent responses to the same structural conditions. This was the case in leftand right-wing mobilizations over housing in Hungary fueled by the financial crisis (Florea, Gagyi, & Jacobsson 2018). A relational and process-based approach to social mobilization helps us account not only for such polarized dynamics but also for the co-existence of both progressive and conservative urban movements in CEE and elsewhere.…”

“…An analysis of contemporary urban activism reveals a new post-NGO-ization phase in the development of CEE civil society. Contemporary urban mobilizations are examples of domestically driven, grassroots activism opposing the professionalization and bureaucratization characteristic of externally sponsored civil society organizations (e.g., Aidukaitė and Fröhlich, 2015;Bitušíková 2015;Jacobsson 2015;Domaradzka & Wijkström 2016;Florea, Gagyi, & Jacobsson 2018). Thus, whereas post-socialist civil society has often been criticized as NGO-ized-i.e., elitist, detached from the people it claims to represent, and unable to address the most pressing issues brought about by rapid social and economic transformation-urban activists tend to be concerned with ordinary people's everyday problems, to be more able (and willing) to mobilize citizens around common interests, and to address the economic and social consequences of neoliberalism.…”

New Geographies of Residential Capitalism: Financialization of the Turkish Housing Market Since the Early 2000s

“…The withdrawal of the state in the overwhelming majority of countries symbolizes ‘the transfer of responsibility for housing provision to the market’ (Rolnik, : 1062) . Numerous studies on CEE countries have also documented the rapid state withdrawal from direct intervention in the housing sector after the early 1990s (Florea et al, ). Bohle () highlights the fact that the transfer of the predominantly public housing stock into private hands was among the first steps undertaken by post‐communist governments, often in close collaboration with international financial organizations such as the World Bank.…”