Power to the People?

Evictions: Reconceptualizing Housing Insecurity from the Global South

“…Most scholars have attributed the prevalence of slum evictions to cities’ efforts to attract investment, promote development, and improve their global competitive position (Baviskar 2006; Berrisford and Kihato 2006; Ghertner 2014; Weinstein 2014; Bhan 2016). Studies emphasize different aspects of the drive to make cities “world class”–with some citing pressure from middle class elites (Coelho and Venkat 2009; Diwakar 2019; Bhan 2016; Ghertner 2014; Baviskar 2006), others emphasizing the role of growth coalitions or local governing regimes (Sami 2013; Berrisford and Kihato 2006; Chance 2018), and still others highlighting the influence of global consulting firms and domestic and international real estate developers (Weinstein 2014; Searle 2016; Anand and Rademacher 2011) – but nearly all have cited this pressure as a key explanation for recent slum evictions and clearance campaigns. Although not always explicit, this research tends to situate evictions (or expulsions or dispossessions) in the logics and practices of capital accumulation under conditions of neoliberal globalization (Sassen 2014; Harvey 2012; Hart 2006).…”