Austerity urbanism and Olympic counter-legacies: Gendering, defending and expanding the urban commons in East London

Abstract

This article reflects on an occupation led by single mothers to contest the destruction of social housing in post-Olympics East London. In the process, it argues for a more gendered theorisation of the urban commons. Drawing on auto-ethnography, participant observation and qualitative interviews, the article argues three central points: First, that the occupation demonstrates the gendered nature of the urban commons and the leadership of women in defending them from enclosure; second that the defence of an existing urban commons enabled the creation of a new temporary commons characterised by the collectivisation of gendered socially reproductive activities; and third that this commoning has had a lasting impact on housing activism at the city scale and beyond. This impact is conceptualised as an 'Olympic counter-legacy' that is characterised by the forging of new relationships and affinities, the strengthening of networked activism and circulation of tactics between campaign groups.

From Residualisation to Individualization? Social Tenants’ Experiences in Post-Olympics East Village

“…It also reminds us not to simply study those who are included in social housing in isolation, but to tie this into understandings of who is excluded. In this case research demonstrates that some of the most vulnerable households on the LB Newham's waiting list are not only excluded from East Village, but relegated to temporary accommodation and dangerous overcrowded rooms, increasingly out of borough and separated from support networks, with severe health and mental health impacts Gillespie 2016, Thompson et al 2017;Watt and Bernstock 2017;Watt 2018;Gillespie et al 2018). As such, East Village housing provision can be understood as part of wider moves to exclude, push out and renege on state responsibility for the unemployed and homeless, those deemed 'undeserving' and workshy, or, in Robin Wales terms, simply too poor.…”

“…The discursive context is that LB Newham and Robin Wales (the Mayor of Newham at the time of the research) wanted to attract wealthier residents, with Wales stating that Newham had too many low-income and homeless residents (LBN 2012; Troovus 2016), saying, "don't come and show us that you're poor and you're not working and the most needy" (Robertson 2011, 1). Wales utilised a variety of policy tools to push some of Newham's poorest residents out of the borough and into inadequate, insecure and unsafe accommodation, including prioritizing social housing allocations for those in employment and placing homeless households into the PRS sector (Watt and Bernstock 2017;Hardy and Gillespie 2016;Gillespie, Hardy and Watt 2018;Watt 2018). This, then, is the context for examining inclusions and exclusions of access to East Village.…”

Towards a pluralistic understanding of Chinese homeowners: the case of ‘ordinary’ buyers

“…These foci help address two limitations of existing research. First, despite a long history of understanding the role of 'key workers' in urban studies literatures (see Raco, 2008), current analysis tends to either focus on the bottom end of the market experiencing extreme and aggravated evictions in the name of the development of new homes (see Gillespie et al, 2018) or high-end, ultra-wealthy consumption patterns which cause displacement problems, especially in the context of international property acquisition (Atkinson, 2020). Second, analysis has concentrated on central locations within major cities or zones which immediately surround the central area (see Hubbard and Lees, 2018).…”

The right to be weary? Endurance and exhaustion in austere times

“…However, this collective national fantasy masks the uneven ways in which austerity is felt and experienced. Austerity measures have tended to have the most detrimental impact on those whose lives were already a struggle, and have thus deepened class, raced and gendered inequalities (Bassel & Emejulu, ; Brah et al., ; Durbin et al., ; Gillespie et al., ; Greer Murphy, ; Sandhu & Stephenson, ). In particular, existing inequalities have been exacerbated by severe cuts to state welfare.…”