Marginal gentrifiers, networks of mobilization and new contentious collective identities. The struggle for housing in post-austerity Lisbon

Abstract

AbstractIf literature has stressed the role of marginal gentrifiers in bringing resources to the areas where they move, apart for relevant exceptions, the potentialities and limits of their contribution to urban struggles has not been systematically addressed. This article assesses the role of these newcomers in the defence of the right to housing in post-austerity Lisbon focusing on their interaction with established activist networks. Resorting to a multi-method approach and an interactionist social movement framework, our study is supported by event analysis, 22 interviews, ethnographic observation and a questionnaire-survey. Our findings show that interactions between marginal gentrifiers and previous housing players helped to consolidate the local activist arena and contributed to the emergence of new urban collective contentious identities. Nevertheless, this contribution seems partially affected by further displacement waves in the context of growing gentrification and touristification, which have threatened the survival of resistance networks. The case of Lisbon can help illuminate similar processes in contexts highly impacted by gentrification and touristification.Keywords: Right to housingmarginal gentrifiersgentrificationsocial movementstouristificationLisbon Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Drawing on Alberto Melucci, we consider collective identity as ‘an interactive and shared definition produced by several individuals (or groups at a more complex level) and concerned with the orientation of action and the field of opportunities and constraints in which the action takes place’ (Melucci, Citation1996, p. 70). Collective identities (as well as individual identity, arenas, etc.) are the result of constant relationship and negotiations among actors and contexts, thus being in constant transformation. Accordingly, we also consider the consolidation of collective identities as a fluid process. When referring to contentious collective identity, we mean that the addressed collective identities are engaged in contentious politics, simply considered as all forms of carrying out politics other than voting or party-participation and that have a conflictual connotation (i.e., promoting or opposing changes). When adding the term ‘urban’ to this definition, we mean collective or contentious collective identities specifically connected with the city and its problems, so that the urban aspects are intrinsically part of the identity itself.2 These are groups that take inspiration from the 1970s Italian autonomist groups (and authors) in their political practice in which they avoid political parties and State institutions.3 We will describe these organizations in depth in the following sections.4 In this framework, players are ‘those who engage in strategic action with some goal in mind’ (Jasper, Citation2015, p. 10), and encompasses both collectives and individuals that can play an important role in a specific arena.5 Direct action is the direct engagement of activists in changing some aspects of society, that is without asking or waiting for the intervention of a third part (e.g., a government). Examples are: providing health, education or food assistance to vulnerable people and giving this action a political meaning. Meanwhile, prefigurative politics can be defined as the implementation in the present of the political, social, economic values and changes activists would like to see in the future, without expecting this change to be promoted by other players (such as institutions). Examples of these experiences are, among others, ethical banks, cooperatives, and other kind of organizations, or different collective or individual choices about consumption, transportation, or modes of living.6 It’s impossible to know how big the group is. We describe the characteristic of the interviewees in the methods’ section.7 Some of these groups, as we will explain in the next section, appeared after 2012, while others were already existing.8 By contentious experts we refer to the interviewees who are both involved in housing groups and are academic or policy experts in housing (e.g., planners, geographers, architects). We follow Harry Collins and Robert Evans (2002) in their identification of three levels of expertise, the third level being the one that, in our view, applies to our case, i.e., ‘Contributory Expertise’ which is ‘enough expertise to contribute to the science of the field being analysed’ (2002, p. 254). This expertise is contentious in that it has a potential ‘conflictual’ connotation. This means that it originates in the recognition of existing gaps and problems, and in the dissatisfaction with the way these are addressed by other players or with the lack of strategies and intention to address them.9 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and healthcare precautions, most of these interviews were done online using zoom, and later transcribed by a research assistant. All the interviewees were informed about the context and aims of the research, as well as about the use of the collected information, and all of them signed an informed consent form. To guarantee anonymity, we adopted fictitious names. The interviews’ excerpts quoted in the article were translated from Portuguese to English by the authors.10 Our presence and observation were agreed with the organizers and made explicit to all the participants involved in the activities. The content of the observation and reflections on it were discussed informally and formally with activists on different occasions.11 After this period and particularly in the first months of 2023, street-protests started increasing again. Finishing in 2022, our research does not include this period, but it can nevertheless give information on what happened in the ‘latency’ phase of the movement during the pandemic, while the ‘abeyance structure’ was maintained.12 “Tsunami tour” was a large campaign promoted by Rome’s movements for the right to housing.13 A Portuguese activist, Habita founder and organizer, she is recognized by other players, as the ‘soul’ of Lisbon housing contentious arena.14 It should be stressed that it was not our planned choice to carry out many interviews with foreign activists, but this was an inevitable orientation due to their high presence in the housing contentious networks.15 This is similar to the case of PAH, characterized by ‘qualified professionals as activists’ with ‘capacities for mobilization and protest through both conventional and non-conventional means’ (Martinez, Citation2019, p. 1595).16 Another space existing in the same area of the city at the time, MOB, was the headquarter of the group Precários Inflexíveis (Inflexible Precarious Workers), one the most active organizers of the anti-austerity mobilization. This same space, with a different name (Sirigaita) is now the headquarter of Habita, as of many different other groups.17 ‘Coração Alfacinha’ (Little Lettuce Heart as Lisbon’s citizens are referred to as little lettuces) is the name of an informal group of three women who, after received a letter from their landlord informing that their long-term contract would not be renewed, decided to occupy the building, firing up a mobilization which gained the support of many neighbours, housing associations and local government. Their mobilization was successful, and the women continue living in the building.18 Minho Friends was an old regional association active between 1950s and 2017 in the area of Anjos which also hosted a community restaurant as well as many cultural and political events.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT) under Grant PTDC/GES-URB/28826/2017 and UIDB/03126/2020.Notes on contributorsGuya AccorneroGuya Accornero is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, co-chair of the Research Group ‘Politics and Citizenship’ and Vice-Deputy of the Observatory of Democracy and Political Representation at the Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte). She was the Principal Investigator of the FCT funded Project ‘HOPES: HOusing PErspectives and Struggles’, and board-member of the Council of European Studies Research Network Social Movements. Her main area of teaching and research are social movements, digital activism, policing protest, radicalism, gentrification and housing activism, citizenship. Her work has been published in four languages in book, book chapters and in journals articles including Journal of Common Market Studies, Current Sociology, Mobilization, Social Movement Studies, Journal of Contemporary Religion, West European Politics, Estudos Ibero-Americanos, Democratization, Cultures et Conflits, Historein. She is the co-editor (with Olivier Fillieule) of the book Social Movement Studies in Europe and author of the monograph The Revolution before the Revolution Late Authoritarianism and Student Protest in Portugal (both 2016 Berghahn Books).Tiago CarvalhoTiago Carvalho is a political sociologist interested in social movements, political parties and social classes. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge and he is currently a FCT researcher at the Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia (CIES-Iscte). His book Contesting Austerity: Social Movements and the Left in Portugal and Spain (2008–2015) was published by Amsterdam University Press. His research appears in Social Movements Studies, Portuguese Journal of Social Sciences, New Media & Society, Childhood, Análise Social, among others.