The funding crises for the Social Care sector has been resolved for the foreseeable future according to the recent statements coming from government with a new 1.25% levy on earned income. This increased funding we are told is initially for the NHS and in subsequent years will help fund social care meaning families can feel reassured over the future care for their loved ones without selling their family homes.

All is not as it seems when the detail is examined. Firstly the 1.25% levy will be ring fenced (hypothecated) by law. Whilst true completely misleading in the message it sends – no other funding for the NHS or social care is ring fenced. This means that on present estimates no less than £12 billion a year will be spent on the NHS and social care. Given the current Department of Health and Social cares core funding is approximately £160 billion with an additional £22billion Covid funding the overall funding is never at risk of falling below £12billion.

As such the core funding is not guaranteed and will vary annually depending on levels of austerity or largesse of the then government. Given the state of the public finances it can be cut either in absolute or real terms at any future budget. The 1.25% is in simple terms a tax rise that means the funds can be used anywhere as long as at least £12billion is spent on Health and Social care (A classic example of fungibility e.g. earmark £12billion from the levy and reduce core budget to free up spending elsewhere).

Secondly the safeguarding of individual’s lifetime care costs does not include accommodation and food. The extra funding will be accompanied by a safeguarding on individual’s lifetime care costs. These are capped at £86,000 over the lifetime of an individual. This cap applies only to care costs, accommodation and food is the majority costs of residing in a care home. These will continue to be paid out of income/asset sales without a cap until assets have fallen below £100,000 at which point care and other costs will not diminish capital by more than 20% a year until savings and assets reach £20,000 after which all costs will be covered by the state. So, yes it will mean assets decrease at a much slower rate, but £86,000 of care costs will take a significant time to reach and accommodation and food costs will continue to diminish assets. It increases, on average, the assets that can be passed on particularly in areas of high asset (home) values.

Thirdly it will not solve the problems of having to change care homes in later life or continued partial funding. The calculation of what is allowable will be set by the Local Authority based on its own assumption of costs. In Scotland care home costs for this year are deemed to be £600 p.w. in a council care home, any costs above this level will not be covered by the new arrangements so many residents will need to move to low cost care/nursing homes to comply with the L.A. cap.
Fourthly, for care at home, the LA association has confirmed that eligibility criteria will remain the same as now. It will be interesting to see if the local authorities raise their care charges as there is no cap on the levels currently required. For low income areas this will now be covered by the meaning that there is no detrimental impact on low income families, but will release funds for local authorities to use elsewhere (fungibility again), but will mean diminishing assets more quickly for others.

Finally we are told that the levy is progressive, again this depends on the income range being examined. Because of the way that National Insurance works before it starts being paid at the lower income levels the tax can be regarded as progressive. Once we move into the higher income ranges the levy becomes regressive (Progressive taxes mean that the higher the income the higher the proportion of that income is given in tax).

In summary the ring fencing of a very small proportion of a budget is political window dressing with no practical implications on where the money is spent. The safeguards on individual costs will not impact on support given to families immediately and will take a few years before any reduction in asset sales to fund social care manifests itself to a significant level. In the medium and longer term it will slow down the asset disposals of individuals to fund care, but will not stop it. The decision on where governments spend money is always a political one, and this is no different. The decision has been made that the overall spending decisions are not currently fiscally sustainable and so a tax rise has been introduced.

One worrying factor is that this has been announced outside of the budget, which means the claims and analysis of impact that accompanies budget statements carried out and published by the Office of Budget responsibility has not been done reducing parliamentary and public scrutiny of the impact on individuals, the economy and public finances.

Fred Mear:
Associate Professor in Accounting and Finance
Module lead in Public Sector Accounting and Finance.

15/09/2021

Author: Pedro M. Rey-Araújo – Universidade da Coruña (Spain)

The Great Recession brought to the fore the extent to which the extension and intensification of capitalist social relations during past decades had gone hand in hand with its widespread naturalization and de-politicization. Symptomatically, throughout those decades of reigning neoliberalism, critical social theory had experienced an internal split regarding the explanatory power that was to be ascribed to capitalist social relations when accounting for social dynamics. While, no doubt, the study of capitalism has been revived once more ever since, the consequences of such a split have not yet disappeared.
On the one hand, political economy approaches of Marxist provenance, such as, for instance, Regulation theory or Social Structures of Accumulation theory, have certainly excelled at identifying the various crisis tendencies operative within neoliberal capitalism, its main institutional characteristics, as well as its differential implementation across the globe. However, it is our view that their conceptualization of political interests as springing straightforwardly from the self-deployment of capitalist dynamics, together with the insufficient attention paid to non-economic demands and struggles, have resulted more often than not in a reductionist and economicist understanding of political agency.

On the other hand, several other thinkers springing from Gramscian and/or Althusserian traditions, such as Ernesto Laclau, Jacques Rancière or Slavoj Zizek, have provided very nuanced and detailed analyses of socio-political interactions, to be sure. However, they were achieved at the cost of obliterating, in the last instance, the extent to which capitalist dynamics shape the very terrain where those political dynamics they definitely excel at appraising ultimately take place.

In our view, a social theory capable of illuminating our current conjuncture would need to pay due attention to both poles in a markedly non-reductionist fashion. That is, it would need to acknowledge the extent to which the self-deployment of capitalist dynamics moulds and shapes the social field despite the former being neither all-powerful nor all-embracing, while, simultaneously, espousing an understanding of political subjectivity that acknowledges the radical incommensurability of the various factors and motivations informing and affecting it, without presuming the former can ever remain unaffected by the fact that, in the last instance, the social field is traversed by capitalist processes.
In my book Capitalism, Institutions and Social Orders. The Case of Contemporary Spain (Routledge, 2021) I have attempted to develop such a theoretical framework by having recourse to, on the one hand, Social Structures of Accumulation theory and, on the other hand, Ernesto Laclau’s post-structuralist revision of the Marxist problematic.

Capitalist activity, in order to be reproduced over time, does always need the indispensable support provided by an appropriate institutional environment. The latter needs to guarantee a minimum of social stability and predictability for capitalist investment to take place; to pacify inherently conflictive social relations beyond the workplace, thus preventing the emergence of social contestation over the very inequalities the institutional environment institutes and reproduces; to generate internal complementarities among its constituent processes so that the internal dynamics of each do not unsettle the internal stability of the whole; and, lastly, not to compromise its non-capitalist conditions of existence, among which crucially stand the myriad gendered activities undertaken within households without monetary compensation.

Every such institutional structure is thus not only historically contingent but, also, context-specific, that is, its actual shape appears irremediably affected and conditioned by its own legacy of past institutional transformations, on the one hand, as well as by the idiosyncratic constellations of dominant interests within the domestic arena, on the other. From the perspective of systemic reproduction, not all the social processes partaking of such institutional structure will carry the same systemic relevance, insofar as some of them will play a higher-order role in coordinating and structuring the remaining ones. While the social whole is always hierarchically articulated, such a hierarchy is not predetermined ex-ante but, rather, historically contingent. Hence, correctly identifying which ones among those various processes carry higher systemic relevance within a given conjuncture stands as a crucial precondition for any political intervention to be successful in its attempt to reshape and transform the existing institutional order.

Nonetheless, the main issues of political contention in a given conjuncture will not spring straightforwardly from the internal dynamics of the over-arching institutional structure. While such institutional structure will inevitably generate myriad lines of segmentation and exclusion, thus giving rise to various modalities of conflict over the very inequalities it institutes, the very terms in which social contention is articulated will be the result of an autonomous process of political mediation, one through which internal relations of hierarchy among the various social conflicts having access to the sphere of representation will be temporarily established.

In sum, both the various social processes constituting the social totality, on the one hand, and the various social conflicts and demands that managed to gain public visibility, on the other hand, will be hierarchically articulated in a given conjuncture. Nevertheless, while it needs to be stressed that no necessary correspondence exists among both hierarchies, the existence of a fundamental and constitutive hiatus between both domains does not mean they are ultimately dissociated. Firstly, the particular shape adopted by the institutional environment will give rise to unequal opportunities for the various social conflicts to have access to the sphere of political representation. Secondly, the internal dynamics harboured by such institutional structure will be imprint a given unevenness upon the very social field where political struggles are ultimately conducted, thus favouring the advancement of certain conflicts over others, while also conditioning existing opportunities for political intervention over time. Therefore, a correct apprehension of how the various social processes implicated are contingently and hierarchically articulated in a given conjuncture represents a sine qua non condition for any political movement that attempts to successfully reshape and transform the institutional environment where it finds itself immersed. Neither omnipotent nor necessarily doomed to fail, political action ought to apprehend the context-specific conditions of existence of capitalist activity for profound and long-lasting social transformations to be achieved.

by Justyna Lada

Introduction:

 

 

 

Fiscal concepts:

Intertemporal budget constraint requires for the present value of debt to be lower than discounted future revenues calculated at the NPV (Baglioni, Cherubini, 1993). It is a measure used to define the sustainability of debt. Not having enough revenue in the future to cover the present debt can lead to debt default (as per example of Greece back in 2015), resulting in loss of access to borrowing and inevitable shrinking of the economy as the government struggles to support the future growth.

The sustainable deficit looks at the relationship of debt as a percentage of GDP. Through adjusting the rate of growth (G) by deducting the interest rate (and inflation rate) (r) and multiplying by the proportion of debt (D) to GDP, we calculate the level of deficit that can occur before the level of debt would need to be increased to maintain the D/GDP proportion (Mear, 2020). This results in the below formulae:

(G-r) x (D/GDP)

 2013-2017 Debt and Deficit Sustainability

 The trends have been analysed based on the 5-year period between 2013-2017 (Appendix 1). Main findings of the analysis include:

1. Economy and debt:

• economy growth slowing down year-on-year (decreasing rate of growth)
• increasing nominal debt year-on-year
• debt sustainability – although debt/GDP level (85.2%) exceeds the Maastricht threshold of 60% and has a growing tendency which may suggest the unsustainable path (IMF, 2020), the Article IV (IMF, 2018) suggests that debt vulnerability profiles are low. The sustainability of debt will be highly affected if external shocks occur, thus impacting the rate of growth (GDP).

2. Sustainability of deficit:

• closing the gap between sustainable deficit % level and actual deficit % between 2013-2016
• actual deficit became sustainable in 2017 mitigating the risk of debt default (Appendix 2).

Current Position

Latest Article IV Surveillance report (2018) indicates that the countries sustainable deficit level stands at 3% with a level of debt to GDP being 85.2% (Appendix 3). In current pandemic (external shock), both levels of debt and sustainable deficit have changed. With the shrinking of the market (negative 9.8% rate of growth) (IMF, 2020) a 10.11% surplus is required (Appendix 4) to maintain current levels of debt to GDP – 100.8% (gov.uk, 2020). All of governments income will be used to cover the current levels of debt.

 National Free School Meal Voucher Scheme and Covid Winter Grant Scheme

 

1. Background

In response to Covid-19, on 31/03/2020, government introduced the Free School Meal Voucher (temporary) Scheme to ensure that children eligible for free school meals are receiving meals despite school closures, and where schools are not providing the meals for collection or delivery.

The school meal voucher value (£15) per child was exceeding the costs of meal subsidise provided to the schools (£11.50/child) (National Audit Office, 2020) to recognise the difference in cost of providing the meal when bulk buying versus provided at retail price by parents (Gov.uk, 2020). The scheme has been extended into school holidays to cover Easter and Summer Holidays 2020 following public demand (BBC, 2020) and has incurred a total estimated (adjusted) cost of £384m for voucher codes issued by supplier. The policy was replaced in November 2020 by Covid Winter Grant Scheme, which extends government support in providing meals to disadvantaged children, up to March 2021 at a cost of £170m. The funding will be provided to the local authorities to distribute as appropriate reverting back to schools providing meals for eligible children in term time only (Gov.uk,2020).

2. Impact on inter-temporal sustainability and sustainable deficit.

Both policies have an unsignificant impact (below 1% each) on the total welfare spending forecasted by OBR (2020) at £246.2 billion in fiscal year 2020-21 (Appendix 4).

• Intertemporal impact – the policy does not have an impact on future growth of the economy or levels of revenue as the Debt/GDP levels remain constant at 109.9% regardless of the policy change. The policies are a temporary measure in response to external shock, supporting the families on the lowest income levels, but being insignificant in terms of % of total welfare spend or total expenditure. The replacement of Free School Meal Voucher Scheme by Winter Grant Scheme improves the fiscal space through reducing the expenditure by £214m.
• Deficit impact – the expenditure increases the welfare spend, therefore increasing the amount of surplus needed to sustain the levels of sustainable surplus considering increasing levels of Debt. The value of the spend is unsignificant on its own and thus does not affect the sustainable deficit %.

Table below provides an overview of spend as per OBR (2020) predictions, showing the impact of both policies as additional spend assuming constant nominal GDP, revenue, and interest.

 

	OBR Forecast*	Free School Meal Voucher Scheme	Winter Grant Scheme
	In billion unless otherwise stated
Policy Cost (p)	–	0.384	0.170
Nominal GDP	2069	2069	2069
Government Revenue (a)	771	771	771
Primary Expenditure with relevant Policy (b+p)	1164.6	1165	1164.7
Primary Deficit (a-(b+p))	-393.6	-394	-393.7
Interest (c)	-28.1	-28.1	-28.1
Total Deficit (a-b+p+c)	-421.7	-422.1	-421.8
Public Debt + Cost of Policy (p)	2274	2274.38	2274.17
Primary Deficit/GDP (%)	19	19	19
Debt/GDP (%)	109.9	109.9	109.9

 

*Note: OBR Forecast figures include the expenditure on Free School Meal Voucher Scheme and Winter Grant Scheme. The table is purely informative to highlight the impact of both policies on deficit and debt levels.

 

Cautionary Notes

1. Main criticism of introduction of both Policies:

• Responsibility of parents – there is an argument amongst MP’s that it should be parents’ responsibility to feed their children, not the governments (Catt, 2020; Elgot and Walker, 2020).

2. Main criticism of withdrawal of both Policies:

• Short-termism of the policies – the demand for government support to provide free school meals outside of term time is high following Mr Rashford’s successful campaign in June 2020 (Lawrie, 2020). An open critique of the lack of government support for the families living in poverty has been voiced again by public figures and organisations after the withdrawal of Free School Voucher Scheme (Siddique, 2020). Support for the continuity of meal provisions for children extends to wider organisations, i.e., Save the Children UK (2020) charity supports the Winter Grant Scheme and other provisions that have been put in place, but already voices concerns over the lack of future continuity of the support.
• Increase in other welfare measures as a sufficient measure of support– in March 2020, an announcement has been made on the temporary increase in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit by £20/week each at a total cost of £6.1m (OBR, 2020). This could be argued as a sufficient increase in the government support to allow for the withdrawal of the policies, the counterargument being that increase in this welfare spends are temporary and subject to being withdrawn in April (Sandhu, 2020).
• Issue of hunger in UN Sustainable Development Goals context – the free school meals being aimed at financially disadvantaged children are fulfilling basic rights to a nutritious meal under SDG’s 2 (United Nations, 2020). It can be argued that discontinuation of the policy undermines the basic human rights of access to food.
• Reduced funding – reduction of funding through movement from Free School Meal Voucher Scheme to Winter Grant Scheme is putting additional strain on the local governments responsible for distribution of the funds considering increasing demand for Free School Meals and means tested benefits (OBR, 2020).

 

Appendix

Appendix 1

 

	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Source	IMF (2017)	IMF (2018)
Growth (%)	2.1	2.9	2.3	1.8	1.7
Interest Rates (%)	2.4	2.6	1.9	1.3	1.2
Inflation (%)	2.0	1.0	0.1	1.2	3.0
Debt/GDP(%)	78.2	80.2	82.6	82.3	85.2
Calculation	2.1-(2.4-2.0)x78.2	2.9-(2.6-1)x80.2	2.3-(1.9-0.1)x82.6	1.8-(1.3-1.2)x82.3	1.7-(1.2-3.0)x85.2
Sustainable deficit (%)	1.33	1.04	0.41	1.40	2.98
Source	OBR (2020)
Actual Deficit/GDP (%)	5.3	4.2	3.2	2.5	0.7
Source	Gov.uk (2020)
Debt Levels (£b)	1,424.20	1,520.90	1,602.60	1,650.90	1,719.60

 

Appendix 2

Free School Voucher Scheme as a % of total welfare spend:

384,000,000 / 246,200,000,000 = 0.16%

Covid Winter Grant Scheme as a % of total welfare spend:

170,000,000 / 246,200,000,000 = 0.07%

 

Appendix 3

(G-r) x (D/GDP)  

2017:

G=1.7%

R=(1.2%-3% inflation)=-1.8%

D/GDP = 85.3%

1.7- – 1.8×85.3 = 2.98%

(IMF, 2020)

 

Appendix 4

2020:

G= -9.8 (IMF,2020)

R= 0.2(Bloomberg, 2020) – 0.8 (IMF, 2020) = -0.6

D/GDP = 109.9% (OBR, 2020)

-9.8- – 0.6×109.9% = – 10.11%

 

References:

• Bloomberg, 2020. Government bonds: UK. [online] Available from: https://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates-bonds/government-bonds/uk [Accessed 4 December 2020]
• Catt, 2020. Tory MPs attack celebrity free school meal campaigners. [online] Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54620118 [Accessed 13 December 2020}
• Elgot and Walker (2020). Treasury rejects claims it refused extra 150m for free school meals. [online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/26/treasury-rejects-claims-it-refused-extra-150m-for-free-school-meals [Accessed 11 December 2020]
• uk, 2020. New winter package to provide further support for children and families. [online] Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-winter-package-to-provide-further-support-for-children-and-families[Accessed 11 December 2020]
• uk, 2020. Public sector finances. October 2020. [online] Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/936937/Public_sector_finances_October_2020_HMT.pdf[Accessed 02 December 2020]
• uk, 2020. Public sector finances. October 2020. [online]Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/936937/Public_sector_finances_October_2020_HMT.pdf[Accessed 5 December 2020]
• uk, 2020. UK Government debt and deficit: June 2020. [online] Available from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicspending/bulletins/ukgovernmentdebtanddeficitforeurostatmaast/june2020[Accessed 5 December 2020]
• uk, 2020. Voucher Scheme launches for schools providing free school meals. [online] Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/voucher-scheme-launches-for-schools-providing-free-school-meals[Accessed 10 December]
• IMF, 2020. Country Data. [online] Available from: https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/GBR [Accessed 1 December 2020]
• IMF, 2020. United Kingdom 2018 Article IV Consultation Press Release Staff Report and Staff Statement. [online] Available from: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2018/11/14/United-Kingdom-2018-Article-IV-Consultation-Press-Release-Staff-Report-Staff-Statement-and-46353 [Accessed 1 December 2020], pp.5,35,52
• IMF, 2020. Debt and Reserve Indicators of External Vulnerability. [online] Available from: https://www.imf.org/external/np/pdr/debtres/#II [Accessed 03/12/2020]
• Johnston, 2020. Understanding The Downfall Of Greece’s Economy. [online] Available from: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070115/understanding-downfall-greeces-economy.asp [Accessed 1 December 2020].
• Lawrie, 2020. Covid: How Marcus Rashford campaign changed free school meals. [online] Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53053337 [Accessed 13 December 2020]
• Mear, 2020. Sustainable deficit 20-21. [online] De Montfort University. Available from: https://vle.dmu.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_557026_1&content_id=_4791770_1 [Accessed 1/12/2020]
• National Audit Office, 2020. Investigation into the free school meals. [online] Available from: https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Investigation-into-the-free-school-meals-voucher-scheme.pdf [Accessed 12 December 2020]
• OBR, 2020. Public Finances Databank November 2020. [online] Available from: https://obr.uk/public-finances-databank-2020-21/ [Accessed 7 December 2020]
• OBR, 2020. Economic and Fiscal Outlook. November 2020. [online] Available from: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-november-2020/ [Accessed 1 December 2020], pp.20,55,73,146,178
• Save The Children UK, 2020. [online] https://twitter.com/savechildrenuk/status/1325429054955286535[Accessed 15 December 2020]
• Siddique, 2020. Marcus Rashford forces Boris Johnson into second U-turn on child food poverty. [online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/08/marcus-rashford-forces-boris-johnson-into-second-u-turn-on-child-food-poverty [Accessed 12 December 2020]
• United Nations, 2020 Goal 2: Zero hunger. [online] Available from: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/ [Accessed 11 December 2020]

About Justyna Lada

My name is Justyna Lada. I am an Accounting and Finance Final Year Mature Student with one year placement experience and a mum of three. My journey to university was long and rocky. And so was my love for Finance. It all started with an Accounting for Dummies book picked up from the Library, through Bookkeeping course, to applying to the University. I do not come from an accounting background, and neither does anybody in my family full of teachers, environmentalist and admin workers. My passions lay with managing the public spending and business partnering as a means to better corporate finance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike Makin-Waite

Following the Labour Party’s defeat in this month’s Hartlepool by-election, and mixed results elsewhere, including the loss of many council seats, there is renewed debate about the politics of ‘belonging’.

All too often, this debate takes simplistic forms, as if a bit of patriotic signalling and Union Jack waving, or a focus on very localised issues such as the state of the pavements, can offer politicians the route back to popular support. In fact, the politics of belonging are complex, and need to be handled accordingly. They have been shaped by long processes of deindustrialisation which have affected many parts of Britain, as elsewhere – and by the ‘austerity’ policies which were pursued by the Cameron-Clegg coalition government.

My recent research notes how the psychology of regional and local belonging has reshaped politics in northern England. This is partly an expression of the long-term trend of particularist identities developing in response to globalisation. It takes specific forms prompted in part by the growth of Scottish nationalism; the growing significance of the directly-elected mayors serving Greater Manchester, the Liverpool and Sheffield city regions, and, now, West Yorkshire; increased awareness of England’s north/south divide; and place-based reactions to the inequalities which result from the long-term distortion of economic policy to serve the interests of the London-based financial services sector.

I focussed on the town of Burnley, where I was a local government officer from the mid-1990s until 2018: my new book On Burnley Road: Class, Race and Politics in a Northern English Town tracks how deindustrialisation set the context for serious racialised rioting twenty years ago, followed by the first ‘breakthrough’ successes for Nick Griffin’s British National Party. The themes established at that time in Burnley’s local politics – antipathy to immigration, opposition to ‘multiculturalism’ and a desire to leave ‘Europe’, later became more widespread and generalised, shaping 2016’s Brexit vote and providing core arguments for Johnson’s Conservatives as they began defeating Labour in the so-called “red wall” seats.

What lay behind these developments? In Burnley, social changes and serious economic dislocations had made many people feel alienated from their surroundings. Modernisation” in the workplace or the neighbourhood had all too often spelled redundancy, displacement and marginalisation. Most peoples’ sense of their place is based on the time when they established key aspects of their identity. At the time of the 2001 northern town riots, large numbers of Burnley residents remembered working life in the post-war years. The 1960s and 1970s were decades of relative social stability and predictable improvements in living standards. Shared experiences provided common reference points, many of them for town’s Asian-heritage residents and white residents alike.

But the wave of factory closures and job losses from the 1980s led to the removal of referents, underpinnings and co-ordinates that were crucial to people’s sense of self. Working-class life became fragmented, and income levels and living standards were driven down. This did not necessarily reduce ‘belonging’ as such, but generated a form of disturbed, unsettled belonging. Some people reacted to social changes and dislocations by ‘investing’ more in their immediate locality. This was in part an understandable retreat from a world in which local institutions such as the town’s building society, or well-known family firms, had been closed by or drawn into the rootless dynamics of global financial flows, with their chaos and impermanence.

But some forms of ‘pride’ in ‘belonging’ to a neighbourhood involved a distancing from the wider town, and inward- looking and defensive attitudes which could turn into fear of ‘others’. One under-researched aspect of this shift, which happened in many places across northern England during the 1990s, was the increasing salience of ‘small-place identity’. This saw people ‘moving’ psychologically whilst staying in the same place. In the places I know well, some people who have lived in the same house for thirty or forty years have changed their description of home. Once they would have said that they came from their town or city (Burnley or Accrington, Blackburn or Bradford) but would now describe themselves as coming from their particular neighbourhood (Briercliffe or Baxenden, Brownhill or Wyke).

In this context, some political actors began asserting the needs and interests of local neighbourhoods in opposition to the rest of the borough or the city, rather than making a claim for resources and attention which at the same time acknowledged the need for balanced decisions across the local authority area. In Burnley in the late 1990s, a small group of Independent councillors began comparing their own wards to ‘certain other areas’, a counter-position carrying a racist element, at first coyly suggested and then explicitly stated. Unmet needs in some wards were contrasted with small parts of town that had become ‘mainly Asian’ and that were now included in targeted regeneration programmes. Taking up this theme, the local press promoted the myth that unfairly disproportionate funding was ‘going to Asians’. In this way, urban regeneration initiatives began to be a focus of resentment, which many Labour councillors failed to counteract and sometimes indulged. The locations set to benefit were often not much more deprived than adjacent places, which were not going to have money spent in them: residents paying their council tax but living next to regeneration areas felt like money was being taken from the medium poor to give to the poor poor.

‘Urban renewal’ thus had the unintended and perverse effect of contributing to social polarisation. Some people at once stigmatised and resented their neighbours: the soon-to-be beneficiaries of government grants were at the same time blamed for being the authors of the situation which required the ‘handout’, and envied for getting money which others couldn’t access. Subsequent regeneration programmes and social policy initiatives did take account of the dangers which were highlighted by the 2001 riots. Some of the work carried out by Burnley Council, voluntary organisations and the interfaith network showed that used sensitively and confidently, ‘belonging’ can be one of the themes around which we can develop inclusive political identities in our towns and cities. Nevertheless, politicians and professionals need to be continually mindful of the dangers of using ‘belonging’ in simplistic ways, and be alert to the risks and problems that can result.

 

 

Author: Dr. Piero Corcillo

This research is based on fieldwork conducted in the London 2012 Athletes’ Village – now East Village – in Stratford (a Newham Borough’s district located in East London). The thesis argues that various processes, practices and actors come together to produce an environment that prioritises and valorises the perceptions and preferences of white middle-class individuals. East Village, which was presented as a key element of the Olympic Legacy objective “Homes for All”, is a space that actively reproduces the exclusion of working-class and BAME individuals who make up the majority of Stratford and Newham population. Therefore, the intentions of social mixing are not met in practice.

 

The Landlords

In 2009, Triathlon Homes (TH) – a consortium between East Thames, Southern housing Group housing associations, and developer First Base – purchased 1,379 flats that were set to be affordable and social housing. In 2011, Qatari Royal family’s sovereign fund Qatari Diar, and British developer Delancey (QDD) purchased the remaining 1,439 properties, together with the public and retail space, as well as the freehold. QDD have set up Get Living London (GLL) as their housing management arm to let their luxury apartments on the Private Rented Sector. 

TH is a private provider. Nevertheless, it was able to obtain a £110 million public grant from the UK government’s Home and Community Agency (HCA), and purchase socially rented apartments at the East Village. 675 of TH’s properties are available for social rent, while the remaining 704 are a mix of so-called affordable housing: shared ownership and intermediate market rent. Shelter charity and authors such as Paul Watt and Penny Bernstock have raised concerns about the effective affordability of these properties, which are not affordable for East London low to middle-income households. Concerns have emerged even with respect to social rent. In fact, TH’s social housing allocation policy is to prioritise in-work applicants and disabled people. TH also reserves the right to reject an application for affordability reasons, if a prospective tenant has got insufficient financial means to afford the rent and service charge. Triathlon also reserves the right to terminate a tenancy for antisocial behaviour. A private entity such as TH acts like a judge that questions prospective tenants about their financial capacity, entitlements and attitudes to demonstrate their fit in the neighbourhood. The result is that the most marginal applicants are rejected.

When a new social tenancy starts, the combination between rent and service charge is capped at the maximum social rent level allowable by the HCA. However, after the first year, rent and service charge increase annually, such that social rent levels become higher than what is prescribed by the HCA for registered landlords in receipt of public grants. Being privately owned, TH’s social housing units become subject to market logics, and they are no longer a form of welfare support for those who experience housing need.

 

 Tenure Mix, Security and Design

Despite policy-makers claims, there is a sense that a real mix of tenures within East Village was not a genuine part of the plan, given that QDD and TH blocks are separated. Moreover, socially rented flats tend to be concentrated in different blocks. Even in the buildings where there is a mix of shared ownership, intermediate rent and social housing, the various tenures are often located in different floors, and socially rented flats tend to be concentrated on the lower levels. One is therefore left with the impression that the aim was to set the tenure distribution in a way that kept the most affluent residents separated from the least affluent ones. Such a separation has not facilitated social interaction between neighbours with different socio-economic backgrounds. On the contrary, it has fostered the identification of “us”, the hardworking and well behaving home owners, and “them”, the lazy and unruly social renters; with housing tenure becoming a synonymous of class and ethnic divisions. While Triathlon claims that it would be “near impossible” to know which flat is for social housing and which one is not, the residents know very well where social housing is. “The people who live downstairs” to point to social renters’ “antisocial behaviour” was a recurrent expression in the interviews with shared owners. 

East Village’s design has been elaborated in collaboration with Secured by Design, a police initiative that specialises in security features and crime prevention projects. The various plots are equipped with secured entry doors and gates.

 

 

East Village’s Secured Doors and Gates

–(Source: Piero Corcillo)

Moreover, the landlords have set up the East Village Management Company (EVML), which operates 24/7 CCTV, and employs security guards to patrol the public ground. Building gated communities serves the need to capture and defend social space, especially when white middle-class enclaves like East Village are built near lower-end areas. This vicinity fosters fear of crime and Mixophobia, which, according to Bauman means anxiety and discomfort about diversity.

EVML employs private security to protect residents from real and perceived external threats. However, the security also “protects” them from each other. The East Villagers are encouraged to refer to EVML if there is an issue with some neighbours. This could be viewed as an interference with the private sphere of interpersonal relationships. However, affluent residents approve this policy and they are happy to minimise contact with the neighbours, especially with social renters.

 

Residential Space and Lifestyle

The spatial dimension of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory suggests that the Habitus of white middle-class individuals influences their residential trajectory. As Michaels Benson has attested, they look for neighbourhoods congruent with their lifestyle, preferences and perceptions. QDD’s branding strategy is to stimulate affluent home seekers’ pre-existing dispositions. Words and photos representing local parks, gardens, waterscapes and local shops are very frequent in their advertising material. The area is branded as a green island that offers a healthy retreat from the chaos of London.

The Village’s environment requires high levels of maintenance. QDD understands the importance of living near nature and in an aesthetically pleasing environment for the white middle classes. They reproduce glimpses of wildlife, and EVML employs gardeners and streetcleaners to work on a daily basis to maintain the East Village public realm on a high standard of aesthetically pleasing, tidy and clean space. Contact with nature becomes a product for visual consumption. Residents interiorise the landlord’s branding strategy. The idea of East Village as a holiday place, a retreat from the stress of urban life is a recurrent theme in the interviews.

 

East Village Greenery

(Source: Piero Corcillo)                                                                                      

Moreover, with an awareness of the importance that local sport classes and events, such as markets and outdoor cinemas, have for affluent individuals, QDD organises these activities as part of the complete East Village package that they offer. Residents are not permitted to organise events independently. Everything that happens in the neighbourhood’s public realm must be planned and supervised by QDD. When events take place, seldom they foster active participation or interactions between neighbours. Yet, they convey a sense of belonging and localness. 

 

East Village Events

(Source: Piero Corcillo)                                                                                      

However, the processes described above, happen in contrast to an outside world – the Stratford area and its residents. The residents’ narratives of belonging draw clear socio-spatial boundaries between the cleanliness, vibrancy and beautiful landscapes of East Village, and the dirt, disorder and ugliness of the wider Stratford area. A sense of Mixophobia emerges in relation to the “other” that lives in Stratford.  Residents highlight that East Village has a totally different atmosphere from the rest of East London. These feelings demonstrate the fallacy of the promise to deliver an Olympic Legacy “for the direct benefit of everyone who lives there” as the London 2012 bidding team claimed. Even the presence of Stratford children in the Chobham Academy – the East Village public primary and secondary school – generates animosity. They are held responsible for the problems that the East Village children experience at school.

 

The Retail Infrastructure

For middle-class individuals, artisanal products and locally-produced goods have a high cultural value. The East Villagers describe the shops in the neighbourhood as independent, in the sense that there are no chains. They are tailor-made for young, white middle-class residents. The shops are mostly food-based and they are there to complete the environment that the greenery and aesthetics of community have created, and that is intentionally cultivated by GLL on behalf of QDD. In reality, these shops are not independent. They are purposely selected to comply with QDD’s aspirations for the area.

The retail infrastructure becomes a symbol of the middle-class character of the place. The shop keepers act as social and cultural entrepreneurs. When I spent time in one of the Village’s cafés, I saw the managers and staff systematically building relationships with customers. They offer free bread to new customers, so that they come back, they talk to them, and babysit their children. This goes beyond the average staff-customer relationship. However, this is another product for the consumption of an idea of community that QDD offers.

The working-class and BAME residents who do not possess sufficient amounts of economic and cultural capital to afford and frequent the East Village shops are alienated from their middle classed and westernised eateries and atmosphere. QDD pushes back ethnically diverse and low-cost shops, by requiring unaffordable financial conditions to those who would like to open them. They are deemed to threaten public order and the place’s respectability. The affluent East Villagers develop a sense of moral ownership over the neighbourhood’s retail infrastructure. The healthy food restaurants and trendy shops belong “here”, in the Village; downscale shops and unhealthy restaurants as well as their BAME and working-class customers – belong “over there” in the Stratford area.

Despite being unable to afford the prices, several social renters agree with the landlord and their affluent neighbours. They become unconsciously complicit with the unequal power relations, norms and values that become hegemonic in the area, and perceive them as fair and just; a process that Pierre Bourdieu describes as symbolic violence. They claim that East Village is meant to be an upper-class area of Stratford, where they feel privileged to live. Again, this goes to the heart of the Olympic promise. The residents experience the neighbourhood as something very different from what was supposed to be: a 50-50 affordable-private, socially mixed development. Particularly damning is the fact that QDD and TH allowed the East Village’s community café – arguably the only place designed to be truly inclusive of all socio-ethnic groups in the space – to be shut down due to lack of funds to keep it running.

 

Policy implications

Despite the presence of many master-planned communities in London, seldom can we observe this level of micromanagement. QDD captures part of the sovereignty that public authorities exercise over urban space, and uses its authority to tell residents how to behave, as well as deciding who belongs and who does not. A state that aims at delivering socially mixed neighbourhoods and affordable housing through mega-events and partnerships with large housing corporations legitimises instead the logics of social inequalities. 

In this post, Dr Ben Whitham (De Montfort University) and Dr Nadya Ali (University of Sussex) discuss their article ‘Racial Capitalism, Islamophobia, and Austerity’, recently published in International Political Sociology (available in online early-view here). The primary research underpinning the article was funded by CURA grants from 2017-2019.

“A guy called my wife a letterbox, because she wears the Niqab”

Research participant, May 2018

“[I]t is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like

letter boxes … If a constituent came to my MP’s surgery with her face obscured I

should feel fully entitled … to ask her to remove it”

Former UK Foreign Secretary and Mayor of London (now Prime Minister) Boris Johnson,

August 2018

“And a bunch of drunks came by and start shouting at my wife, calling her a ninja,

calling her the “n”-word, calling her—they’re both “n”-words, but the other “n”-word”

Research participant, May 2018

Person A: “Look at all the little ninjas, getting it at the minute!” Person B: “That’s

what happens when they don’t pay their rent!” All: [laughter]

Unidentified men narrating the video of a Grenfell Tower effigy-burning, November

2018

Over the last few years, we have been engaged in a research project exploring ‘The Intersectional Politics of Austerity and Islamophobia’ in London, with generous support from the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) at DMU. We had previously collaborated on an analysis of media and political discourse involved in the construction of a so-called ‘Muslim Problem’ in the UK, highlighting the role of ‘ideological fantasies’ in the multi-faceted demonisation of British Muslims, and how this has exceeded the narrower framings of ‘securitisation’ and ‘suspect communities’ theses. In that research, we touched upon the political-economic dimensions of contemporary Islamophobia – a subject CURA’s funding allowed us to explore more fully. In this blog we present an outline of our approach and findings.

Aims and approach of the project

The aim of our CURA project was to further explore and understand how Islamophobia might be understood through the lens of political economy. Our primary research consisted of interviews and a focus group with Muslim participants resident in and around East London. The three boroughs that we initially focused on to recruit participants – Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Waltham Forest – had some of the highest proportions of Muslim residents at the last census, but also high levels of poverty. Research suggests that cities in general, and deprived London boroughs like these in particular, were subject to some of the deepest impacts from the austerity policies that followed the global financial crisis. Drastic cuts to local public services tend to have more severe effects on racially minoritised and lower-income individuals and families, since they are more likely to rely on these services and infrastructures in everyday life. Our aim was to understand the relationship between two dominant trends of the 2010s – the political economy of austerity, and the rising tide of Islamophobia – in the urban context of East London.

We also stated at the outset of the project that the purpose and ethics of exploring lived experiences of Islamophobia and austerity must be not only to increase academic knowledge or understanding of intersectional inequalities, but also to ‘give more of a voice’ to the socially marginalised survivors of abuse and discrimination who would be sharing their (often traumatic) stories with us. During the course of the research, we were able to address this in part by feeding into the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims’ inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia. Like most of the academic submissions to the inquiry, ours pressed especially hard for any definition to state that Islamophobia is a form of racism, rather than simply ‘religious discrimination’, discussed here. The inquiry’s final report defined Islamophobia as ‘a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’, and cited the evidence we had submitted based on findings from our primary and secondary research. The definition was subsequently voted on and adopted by a wide range of public institutions and organisations, from all major political parties in Westminster and the devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales (with the notable exception of the governing Westminster Conservatives, though their Scottish counterparts did adopt the definition), to local authorities from London to Manchester, and universities, to name but a few. 

Racial capitalism and the disentitlements of austerity

In our recently published article, ‘Racial Capitalism, Islamophobia, and Austerity’, we situate the findings from our primary research in a theoretical and historical field structured by the concepts of intersectionality and racial capitalism. Influenced by the pioneering work of scholars including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Cedric J. Robinson, Robbie Shilliam, Gargi Bhattacharya, Salman Sayyid, and others, we sought to explore lived experiences of Islamophobia in terms of the ways in which they intersect with the policies and politics of austerity, and post-crash Western capitalism. Specifically, the work of these scholars allowed us to understand recent trends in Islamophobia in the UK, and the wider ‘West’, as rooted in much older historical practices of racialisation and racialised ‘disentitlement’ that are central to the development of capitalism. We argue that the rising tide of Islamophobia is not merely a consequence or epiphenomenon of the political economy of austerity, but rather is constitutive of it, with the violent targeting and disentitlement of British Muslims being a central feature of austerity in practice. 

Our findings: everyday Islamophobia, austerity gentrification, and gendered racist violence

The key findings from our primary research are presented in the article as tripartite. First, we note that Islamophobia is often experienced and articulated through the same ‘everyday’ social planes as austerity. Participants spoke of harassment on public transport, of profiling by agents of the state, and of everyday journeys through urban political economy that are marred by Islamophobic racism, in both structural and direct forms. One participant spoke about the pervasive nature of Islamophobia, “Now … it’s like a part of life, you know, as sad as it sounds. It’s just, OK, I’m going to anticipate it in my journey. It’s not like a conscious thing, it’s just, OK, it might happen today.” 

Second, we found that the process of ‘austerity gentrification’ has affected Muslims in particular ways, with our London-based participants noting that the trend for house prices and rents to rise in highly diverse boroughs in East London was pushing Muslims to the outskirts of the city, and beyond, where they felt an intensification of Islamophobic violence. As one participant noted, “We moved out because we couldn’t afford to live in that borough anymore. We were priced out, you know, rents were unaffordable. So since I’ve moved into this new borough I’ve, like I said, on the street I’ve been spat at, I’ve been called a fucking terrorist, a man and a woman barged me in the shopping centre when I was with my kids and called me a terrorist.” The ‘whitening’  (and increasingly middle-class make-up) of formerly diverse inner-London boroughs through austerity gentrification made for experiences of increased exclusion and marginalisation.

Third, and finally, we explored the anti-Black and gendered nature of Islamophobic abuse our participants experienced, and the specific targeting of Muslim women who were with their children. Dehumanising colonial and postcolonial discourses that urban colonised / diasporic populations were / are responsible for ‘breeding’ feeds into a narrative that Muslim families take more than their ‘fair share’ of national resources, at the expense of more ‘deserving’ white Britons. As one participant said, “Because we sisters, it’s the women that get the flak for it … the sister that’s going to school or going to the shopping center with a couple of kids, and mothers…You’ve got young children that could possibly—and do, and have—suffered mental health issues, as a result of watching their mothers being abused, whether it’s verbal, children pick up—they have a sixth sense.” The type of Islamophobic abuse experienced by participants was coextensive with whether they were racialised as Black and Muslim, Brown and Muslim, or White and Muslim. 

In addition to these three core findings, our research participants also highlighted the ways in which elite political discourse emanating from Westminster and from the UK’s media was directly implicated in their everyday experiences of anti-Muslim racism, and including the austerity framing of Islamophobia as an economic imperative.

We hope to be able to further develop this research through an exploration of the connections between the political economy of Islamophobia and the ‘libidinal economies’ of the same. That is to say, through future research we want to better understand, and challenge, the range of narratives that have centred Muslims, ‘Muslimness’, and Islam in explanations of social antagonisms, and have mobilised the psychosocial forces of desire, fantasy, and enjoyment, to do so.

The full article ‘Racial Capitalism, Islamophobia, and Austerity’ is available here.

By Dr Adriana Massidda and Dr Valeria Guarneros-Meza

In this blog, Adriana Massidda (Early Career Academic Fellow in Architecture, DMU) and Valeria Guarneros-Meza (Reader in Public Policy and Politics, DMU) reflect on an international workshop that took place in Leicester, UK, in March 2020.

The presence and role of the state in spaces of urban poverty has been widely discussed for decades, and yet each question asked opens up a myriad new ones. Multifaceted, ubiquitous, and concrete while almost ungraspable, the state can be said to hold a promise of social redistribution yet at the same time it perpetuates inequalities.

In fact, on the one hand, the state may materialise itself in low-income neighbourhoods in the form of a school, housing built with council funding, a day care centre for the elderly, or (sometimes mediated) cash-transfer programmes. On the other hand, in its ambivalent monopoly of the legitimate use of violence, the state also emerges in low-income areas through the presence of the police that enforce the law as often as they depart from it, co-creating chains of illegal markets that are observed in drug trade, social and domestic abuse, and interpersonal violence.

Cutting across these issues, the work of Argentine sociologist Javier Auyero, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Professor in Latin American Sociology, University of Texas-Austin and a key name in the sociology of urban marginality globally, addresses and articulates crucial questions when it comes to understanding why and how a certain community interacts with the state the way it does. Javier considers how communities make sense of state-induced domination, by immersing himself in the place and collaborating with local residents.

On the 3rd March 2020 a small but wide-ranging group of researchers and community activists gathered together in the Saffron Lane Neighbourhood Centre in Leicester to discuss the inter-connected themes of urban informality, environmental vulnerability/toxic uncertainty, and the ambivalent presence of the state in spaces of urban marginality. Besides Javier, the group included staff members and doctoral students from De Montfort University (full list at the end) and Neil Hodgkin, director of the Neighbourhood Centre and our host. The event was supported by the DMU Centre for Urban Research on Austerity.

Celebrating the event in Saffron Lane gave us the perfect environment to discuss urban poverty, politics and environmental design since, as highlighted by several of the attendees, the neighbourhood stands amongst one of the most deprived areas in the UK, has been strongly hit by government austerity cuts, and yet it is site of an innovative exploration of passive housing construction and the ways in which it can help residents sustain their cost of living.

In its multiple manifestations, the presence of the state in spaces of urban deprivation is ambivalent and contradictory. In the UK, central government’s grants to local government have been in decline since the 1980s and local authorities faced severe cuts after the 2008/2010 financial crisis, leaving a void that local government initiatives struggle to fill in. The decline of the manufacturing industry, combined with these austerity politics and the reluctance of city councils such as Leicester’s to openly contest this trend, have created a dire situation in areas like Saffron Lane. ‘We are looking at increasing fuel poverty, water poverty; inability to pay the rent’ explained Neil; ‘we’ve got to a point where having a washing machine and a fridge in your house is a luxury’.

In Argentina, poverty is also pressing, though it manifests itself in different ways. The recurrent problems that affect residents deeply in the peri-urban areas of the capital city, Buenos Aires, are related to interpersonal violence, drug addictions, illicit trade, and more pressingly the complicity of the police in many of these issues. ‘What if’, asked Javier, ‘violence at the urban margins is not what urban sociology is telling me – it’s not simply about rich retaliation and retribution but it takes more of the form of concatenations of violence? What if contamination is one of those aspects of durable inequality that we have not scrutinized in the way in which we should?

A counterpoint between the case of Buenos Aires , site of many of Javier’s works, and the UK, was present implicitly in our discussions as we sought to make sense of the paradoxical role of the state in the simultaneous mitigation and co-production of inequalities. Relevant questions to the British case included: to what extent the state in the UK participates in illicit markets? Is it the case in the UK that violence concentrates where the urban poor dwell? What types of violences can be found in the UK? What is the role of the state in the lowest-income neighbourhoods? To what extent does urban marginality change the parameters of legitimacy of the state?

‘The state [in both global north and south] has played an important role in manufacturing forms of informality, in housing, planning, infrastructure and the other areas of life […] albeit in complex and contradictory ways’ argue Valeria Guarneros-Meza and Adam Fishwick in an earlier post. The same could be said of unemployment, illicit trade networks, resource depletion and modern slavery addressed by the presenters throughout this workshop. Cities like Leicester struggle with poverty. The discourse on multiculturalism has been part of an official narrative where the City Council seeks to adapt to a pressing scenario of austerity by highlighting people’s entrepreneurship. In spite of the obvious differences, this position is not that far off in its neoliberal underpinnings from what writers like Hernando de Soto recommended, back in the 1990s, for Peruvian shantytowns: promote residents’ enterprise so that the state does not need to intervene. The twofold problem is that the structural differences faced by the residents are unchallenged; and that with little support, political power, and perhaps even knowledge, individuals left alone to resolve such large issues remain in an extremely vulnerable situation.

This constructed vulnerability sets the conditions for what Laura described as modern slavery, and for the ghastly working situations and social demobilisation analysed by Jonathan Davies. Building upon his research on austerity and the work of Nik Hammer on the fashion industry in Leicester, Jonathan at the start of his talk said, ‘This presentation is not so much about the clandestine hand of the state as it is about how deregulation creates illicit markets’. His presentation provided a thorough contextualisation of how local state policy ultimately creates a clandestine economy in Leicester through fiscal austerity and deregulation of employment practices. In the aggregate the city’s policies envelope practices of modern slavery, while depoliticising (organised) work and informalising the city’s economy.

In a city such as Leicester, poverty is arguably less visible than in Buenos Aires, yet it leaves residents with enormous problems. ‘Even though [Saffron Lane] has the most affordable homes in the city’ stated Neil ‘95% have rent arrears. It does not look like a poverty-stricken place, but most people here have less income than they have outgoings. But what if a house could pay you to live in it?’ he continued; ‘it’s quite futuristic but this is the biggest issue for people here.’ In Mark Lemon’s words: ‘What are the possibilities for scaling up? If you over-spec a house, you should be able to have excess energy, excess heat, excess food.’

The Saffron Lane Neighbourhood Centre partnered with DMU IESD since 2018 to design the Living Labs; a pilot attempt to create a community able to overcome state-induced inequalities. In addition to social concerns, the interest of DMU in the project stems from its multipartnered nature: ‘Living Labs seem to be the flavour of the year’ explained Mark Lemon, ‘but most of them are located in campuses. Our intention, with Neil, has always been that this Lab is located within, and merges with, the community. We’re working beyond the household level.’ In working off campus and beyond the household level, the Living Lab is opening opportunities to explore the questions that Javier’s work has provocatively posed during the workshop. We intend to begin materialising some of these ideas in the next couple of years.

About the contributors:

Adriana Laura Massidda is an architect and academic researcher currently based at the Institute of Architecture, De Montfort University. Her previous work looked at the spatial, social and ecological history of southwest Buenos Aires, Argentina, a landscape of wetlands with rich wild vegetation which was transformed into urban space through the contested actions of shantytown communities and municipal departments (1956-1972). Her most recent work looked at female leaderships in Lima’s pueblos jóvenes in the context of internal violence and rising neoliberalism. She is currently outlining a new research project to explore the potentialities and limitations of phyto- and bio-remediation to mitigate contamination through co-design with low-income communities.

Valeria Guarneros-Meza is Deputy Director of CURA and has an interest in exploring the term ‘informality’ as an analytical tool for understanding local governance under contexts of violence, securitisation and extractivism.

Workshop Participants

Javier Auyero, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Professor in Latin American Sociology at the University of Texas-Austin
Jonathan Davies, Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, De Montfort University
Valeria Guarneros Meza, Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, De Montfort University
Ibrahim Has, Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, De Montfort University
Neil Hodgkin, Saffron Lane Neighbourhood Centre
Daniel Kerr, Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University
Mark Lemon, Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University
Adriana Laura Massidda, Institute of Architecture, De Montfort University
Birgit Painter, Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University
Laura Pajón, De Montfort University Leicester and Leicestershire and Rutland Modern Slavery Action Group
Mahnoor Shoaib, Institute of Architecture, De Montfort University

By Leon Rosa Reichle

PhD Candidate, Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, DeMontfort University, Leicester UK

My PhD research was interrupted by a pandemic. In this blogpost, I reflect on how my fieldwork in Leipzig, Eastern Germany, is changing due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and according social and political restrictions in April 2020.

The third research phase of my project dedicated to understanding how tenants’ relations change in a restructuring city, happened to be interrupted by a pandemic, that disrupts not just global economic production, but also the entire modes of social reproduction (in homes and communities) (Harvey, 2020; Mezzadra, 2020). The respective state of emergency with curfews, strict rules on social distancing, the stopping of entire industries and daily shift of discourses and emotions towards the spreading pandemic, affects not only my practical fieldwork, but also my subject of analysis. Observers from different places in the world witness different relational manifestations of the disease; economic polarization, the stratification of safety, fear and egoism as well as smiles and new ways of socializing, caring and expressing community (Bude, 2020; Harvey 2020; Mezzadra, 2020; Sennett, 2020). Witnessing a historical and completely unplannable moment in time, I am dedicating this research phase to witnessing how tenants’ relations change in a restructuring city in pandemic times.

Departing from my previous research on a restructuring neighbourhood in which current developments exacerbate post-shrinkage processes of the post-socialist city of Leipzig, this research phase should explore existing and emerging tenants’ relations in a state of emergency. I use my preliminary analysis of Post-Shrinkage-Dialectics as a description of economic and geo-political patterns of urban restructuring in Leipzig before the outbreak of COVID-19. In this context of departure, I have gathered initial findings on tenants’ experiences of urban restructuring in daily life, both within the own home, and within the neighbourhood. My understanding tenants’ perception of their role in the process of restructuring, is so far quite limited. The pre-COVID-19 data gives some glimpses at tenants’ self-perception through reactions to experiences within the home and indicates that the perception of their role in restructuring in the wider neighbourhood is strongly mediated by emerging and existing relations.

The current research phase was initially intended to provide an in-depth analysis of tenants’ perception of their role in urban restructuring – in their flats and in their neighbourhood; defining and analysing existing and emerging tenants’ relations in this context of restructuring and illuminating how existing relations of solidarity and divisions/exclusions between tenants mediate their experience of and relational reaction to urban restructuring and urban society. What changes now, is that another independent variable, an external influence has made its appearance: the outbreak and spreading of COVID-19 and the respective regulations of all social interaction. This requires a revisiting of a previous analysis of experiences of urban restructuring: How are experiences of urban restructuring manifesting under a state of pandemic exception? Furthermore, all following research questions will be adapted: How do tenants perceive their role in urban restructuring during pandemic times? What types of tenants’ solidarities and divisions are existent and emerging on a micro- and meso level in a politically polarized city during pandemic times? Why and how do relations emerge in this moment? How do existing relations change with polarized and selective physical proximity during the pandemic? And: How do existing relations and divisions (before COVID-19) mediate their pre-COVID-19 and current experience of (and relational reaction to) urban restructuring?

Experiences of Urban Restructuring

Most experiences of urban restructuring that have come up in my research so far, have been related to different forms of displacement: few cases of direct displacement, exclusionary displacement either causing people to either be stuck in (partly unfavourable) conditions, or leading to segregation and polarization, related anxieties and pressure caused often by neglect. Whereas direct displacements are officially paused by the German Government currently, and tenants are legally enabled to postpone their rent payments (tagesschau 2020), this will undoubtedly lead to piling up of rental debt for some tenants. How does this affect feelings of security versus anxiety and pressure? How does it affect relations to landlords and other tenants?

The consequences of exclusionary displacement might materialize to a more drastic extent now, that leaving the house is highly regulated and limited. What are the consequences of a quasi-curfew for families in overcrowded flats? For seniors in too large flats? How do tendencies of segregation mediate the experience of the curfew? To what extent are distancing, isolation, shielding and quarantine feasible, and for whom? And lastly, living in (strategically) neglected housing could become much more noticeable in times, where more time than ever is spent at home. How do quarantine and curfew influence the experience of neglected housing?

Tenants’ solidarities and divisions

An open-ended list of existing and emerging relational goods and evils (Donati, Archer, 2015) so far entails: friendly encounters; friendships; a dense network of institutional neighbourliness; Hausgemeinschaften (house-communities); mutual help networks on the side of relational goods; the analogy with a village somewhere between a relational good and evil, and an increasing lack of time and space; territorial stigma and racism; competitive racism; language barriers between tenants; shame; a history of denunciation; generational changes hand in hand with fluctuation and anonymization; (resulting) loneliness; conflicts between long-term tenants and newcomers and competing economic interests of different tenants on the side of relational evils.

Some of these might be directly mediated by the outbreak and spreading of COVID-19 and/or the resulting restrictions of social life. How does a network of institutional neighbourliness react to a pandemic and with what effects? How do house-communities change? Which mutual help networks change, break or emerge? Does territorial stigma and different forms of racism interplay with the disease at all? How are language barriers reinforced or overcome? How is the lack of time and space changing? What role does shame play these days? Does a history of denunciation mediate people’s response to the pandemic? Which role do generational changes in the neighbourhood play now and are the divisions resulting from fluctuation and anonymization exacerbated, continued or overcome? How is loneliness changing, increasing or interrupted and with what consequences? How do conflicts between long-term tenants and newcomers mediate relations in the neighbourhood now? How do they influence the efficiency of self-help networks? Can they be overcome? And lastly: how do different economic interests play out in the entire scenario? This is just an incipient list of questions resulting from the current material, but it will be inductively sorted, tidied out and complemented with the messy material that is bound to come up in the following weeks.

My research project has a strong focus on temporality defined by its main question on change, disruption and emergence. Now it is complemented with an unexpected, very distinct temporal marker, which might turn out to indicate radical change, continuity, reinforcement or breaks – for the world and for housing relationships in a restructuring city.

Methods

Methodologically, my research project is based on the critical realist principle of retroduction (Belfrage, Hauf, 2017), which indicates both a research motivation of producing critical knowledge on an observed social problem, and a specific practice of research. The practice describes a spiral from de- to induction and back and forth again, hence from theoretical deskwork and initial critical sensitizing theories to open-minded fieldwork and from there on back and forth between fallible existing theories, inductive analysis and theory building. As a supportive friend in my feminist colloquium reminded me in a state of slight panic over the consequences of COVID-19 for the world and my research, this research practice is ideal for my situation, as it permits me to embrace the changing priorities in the field and analyse them critically to complement existing theories.

Yet whereas my research design usually envisages a careful planning of each following state of fieldwork following the analysis of the previous one, this historical moment of potential constant change and unforeseeable consequences demands a certain flexibility and messiness. The following outlines a brief research design which is likely to undergo changes every day. Initially, this research phase designed to conduct interviews and focus group discussions with different types of tenants rendered socially or economically vulnerable. I have classified these so far into financially precarious students or young academics (a); unemployed or working poor long-term residents – of which many are or are becoming “key workers” (b); elderly or retired tenants (c); and tenants with a biography marked by international migration (d).

The biggest challenge of my research under a pandemic state of exception, besides not being able to physically meet people, is just an exacerbation of a general challenge: a lack of existing relationships, which now is much harder to overcome, as physical spaces of encounter are minimized. This permits two practical consequences: using existing relations for research and finding creative methods to build new ones.

Building on existing relations…

… Permits me to reschedule planned interviews as phone interviews and have casual conversations over the phone. This will be my first method. Considering the relations, I already have, this permits me access to tenants of different groups:
(a) financially precarious students and young academics – through my personal friend- and activist networks in the neighbourhood, the access to students is quite easy.
(c) elderly or retired tenants – luckily, a time-line focus group with retired tenants physically took place just before the outbreak of COVID-19. I am now in direct contact with social workers in a seniors’ social centre and have put up a small notification on the website of the centre with my phone number and some lines on my research. Additionally, I have been included on a phone-chain initiated by the centre, meaning that I might be called once or twice per week by an unknown senior tenant informing me on their physical and emotional situation and needs and passing the call on to another elderly tenant. This could be a promising example of emerging neighbourhood relations. Outside of this network, I am planning to ask other future interview partners for contacts to elderly tenants in their houses.
(d) tenants with a biography marked by international migration – potentially, after rescheduling a group interview with three social workers working in different neighbourhood centres from and for international girls and women into a video-call group interview, I could find ways to talk to tenants with a migration-biography. Yet here, I imagine language to be an even bigger barrier, then in person. I will keep this open thread in mind.

… Has encouraged phone conversations with befriended activists in a variety of neighbourhood-initiatives, which then in turn have tilted my intention to not engage in activist scholarship during my PhD. As a result of the current state of exception, I have organized a video conference to discuss the political implications, consequences and chances of the current moment for neighbourhood organizing. A second meeting is about to follow.

… Permits me to engage in virtual spaces, that I already have access to. This mainly centres around chat groups in my neighbourhood. An existing one is “sharing is caring East”, where currently 5765 people are discussing and sharing random stuff. Furthermore, several self-help groups and channels have emerged. I believe, that in terms of groups of interest, these are mainly used by (a) students and young academics. I am already engaging and in a process of participant observation in these groups and have used one of them to advertise the video conference. They can be both spaces to find new interview partners and potential connecting points for further discussion and organizing.

… Has, so far, permitted me to talk to my neighbours both just before and right after my recent move. In both houses many tenants are (b) unemployed or working poor long-term residents, with whom I have had and still have chats (with safe distance) when we meet in the hallways, or when I offered them support for shopping. In my old house I put up my phone number, in case somebody gets quarantined and needs help. So far, I have engaged in informal conversations with old and new neighbours and it is uncertain how these will continue.

Finding creative methods to build new relations…

… Is something I have started diving into, as my contact to (b) unemployed or working poor long-term residents is limited. A means of communication that is currently spreading quickly in the neighbourhood is written communication. Little posters, notes and signs, on doors of supermarkets, residential houses, lanterns complement posters by the city, online adverts for governmental information on COVID-19 and newspapers releasing daily updates. They contain advice, help-offers, cheery messages, translations of the new legal restrictions, scientific information and so on. I have decided to join into this method of communicating, hence also testing how well it works, through posting 100 letters with an invitation to a phone call in randomized letter boxes. My current knowledge on the neighbourhood permitted me to make a rough selection of houses worth considering within certain areas, based on rent prices (and landlords), the state of buildings, previous statements of interviewees and everyday observations. This selection raises the probability of reaching tenants that rely on transfer-incomes, as this determines where people can still afford to live (KDU-segregation). So far, I have received 3 calls from tenants, resulting in short semi-structured interviews, roughly following a previously prepared schedule. In one case this interview permitted me to snowball to another interviewee.

Ethnography

As before, all these methods will be complemented by a critical ethnography of neighbourhood life. This can contain walks, excursions to the supermarkets and online (chat group) observations. Probably the best way to keep track of the constantly shifting circumstances, and maintaining a distance to the field, is a continuous dedication to writing field notes.

Literature

Bude, H. (2020) Die Leute passen aufeinander auf. Frankfurter Rundschau, 18 Mar.
Donati, P. and Archer, M.S. (2015) The Relational Subject. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harvey, D. (2020) ANTI-CAPITALIST POLITICS IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 (Revised version, March 22, 2020). [Online] Urban Front. Available from : https://www.urban-front.com/articles [Accessed 23/03/20].

Mezzadra, S. (2020) Eine Politik der Kämpfe in Zeiten der Pandemie. [Online] de.indymedia.org. Available from : https://de.indymedia.org/node/72570 [Accessed 25/03/20].

Sennett, R. (2020) „Wir müssen wachsam sein“. tagesspiegel, 19 Mar.
tagesschau (2020) Corona-Krise: Regierung plant Schutzmaßnahmen für Mieter. [Online] tagesschau.de. Available from : https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/miete-corona-101.html.