Pub Date : 2022-11-09DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221135610
J. Reades, L. Lees, P. Hubbard, G. Lansley
Over the past 20 years, increasing land values, a rising population and inward investment from overseas have combined to encourage the demolition and redevelopment of many large council-owned estates across London. While it is now widely speculated that this is causing gentrification and displacement, the extent to which it has forced low-income households to move away from their local community remains to a large degree conjectural and specific to those estates that have undergone special scrutiny. Given the lack of spatially disaggregated migration data that allows us to study patterns of dispersal from individual estates, in this article, we report on an attempt to use consumer-derived data (LCRs) to infer relocations at a high spatial resolution. The evidence presented suggests that around 85% of those displaced remain in London, with most remaining in borough, albeit there is evidence of an increasing number of moves out of London to the South-East and East of England.
{"title":"Quantifying state-led gentrification in London: Using linked consumer and administrative records to trace displacement from council estates","authors":"J. Reades, L. Lees, P. Hubbard, G. Lansley","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221135610","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221135610","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past 20 years, increasing land values, a rising population and inward investment from overseas have combined to encourage the demolition and redevelopment of many large council-owned estates across London. While it is now widely speculated that this is causing gentrification and displacement, the extent to which it has forced low-income households to move away from their local community remains to a large degree conjectural and specific to those estates that have undergone special scrutiny. Given the lack of spatially disaggregated migration data that allows us to study patterns of dispersal from individual estates, in this article, we report on an attempt to use consumer-derived data (LCRs) to infer relocations at a high spatial resolution. The evidence presented suggests that around 85% of those displaced remain in London, with most remaining in borough, albeit there is evidence of an increasing number of moves out of London to the South-East and East of England.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"185 1","pages":"810 - 827"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77462980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-07DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221130080
Sarah Hall
This paper examines the internationalisation of Chinese state-owned commercial banks in London's financial centre from the 2010s onwards. These banks have transformed from primarily servicing Chinese state-owned enterprises to making up four of the largest banks globally by balance sheet and undertaking a range of operations including RMB clearing and cross border settlement and yet their future international trajectory remains uncertain. My analysis positions Chinese bank internationalisation within the wider project of RMB internationalisation, arguing that financial centres can serve as important methodological, empirical and conceptual entry points into understanding how state and market interests play out unevenly across time and space. By focusing on place-based policy experimentation in London, my analysis points to the entangled, multi layered and often contradictory formations of actually existing state capitalism.
{"title":"Locating state capitalism: Financial centres and the internationalisation of Chinese banks in London","authors":"Sarah Hall","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221130080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221130080","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the internationalisation of Chinese state-owned commercial banks in London's financial centre from the 2010s onwards. These banks have transformed from primarily servicing Chinese state-owned enterprises to making up four of the largest banks globally by balance sheet and undertaking a range of operations including RMB clearing and cross border settlement and yet their future international trajectory remains uncertain. My analysis positions Chinese bank internationalisation within the wider project of RMB internationalisation, arguing that financial centres can serve as important methodological, empirical and conceptual entry points into understanding how state and market interests play out unevenly across time and space. By focusing on place-based policy experimentation in London, my analysis points to the entangled, multi layered and often contradictory formations of actually existing state capitalism.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"13 1","pages":"1239 - 1254"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81209721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-07DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221136135
W. N. Green
Social impact investment for microfinance has become a dominant form of poverty regulation in the global south. These investments aim to alleviate poverty by extending financial services like credit to the world's poor, particularly smallholder farmers. The International Finance Corporation is a major player in this effort. It has channeled finance capital to microfinance institutions around the world through its Social Bond Program, among other mechanisms. In this paper, I analyze how the International Finance Corporation's impact investments depend on an ideological “way of seeing” poverty, informed by representations of agrarian landscapes, which mystifies the exploitative relations of microfinance debt. I term these representations duplicitous debtscapes. My analysis is based on research about Cambodia, where the International Finance Corporation is a key supporter of the country's biggest microfinance institutions. I argue that the duplicitous debtscapes of the International Finance Corporation and its Cambodian partners veil the conditions of production and social reproduction faced by indebted smallholder farmers, thereby legitimizing capital accumulation for impact investors. Yet these debtscapes are also contested. Thus, I further argue that the outcomes of debtscapes are shaped by the struggle over their representation. By studying impact investment in terms of the visual politics of debt, this paper contributes to scholarship about the financialization of poverty in development and financial geography.
{"title":"Duplicitous debtscapes: Unveiling social impact investment for microfinance","authors":"W. N. Green","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221136135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221136135","url":null,"abstract":"Social impact investment for microfinance has become a dominant form of poverty regulation in the global south. These investments aim to alleviate poverty by extending financial services like credit to the world's poor, particularly smallholder farmers. The International Finance Corporation is a major player in this effort. It has channeled finance capital to microfinance institutions around the world through its Social Bond Program, among other mechanisms. In this paper, I analyze how the International Finance Corporation's impact investments depend on an ideological “way of seeing” poverty, informed by representations of agrarian landscapes, which mystifies the exploitative relations of microfinance debt. I term these representations duplicitous debtscapes. My analysis is based on research about Cambodia, where the International Finance Corporation is a key supporter of the country's biggest microfinance institutions. I argue that the duplicitous debtscapes of the International Finance Corporation and its Cambodian partners veil the conditions of production and social reproduction faced by indebted smallholder farmers, thereby legitimizing capital accumulation for impact investors. Yet these debtscapes are also contested. Thus, I further argue that the outcomes of debtscapes are shaped by the struggle over their representation. By studying impact investment in terms of the visual politics of debt, this paper contributes to scholarship about the financialization of poverty in development and financial geography.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"10 1","pages":"583 - 601"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85033708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-04DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221135006
J. Mah
Displacement is most commonly conceptualized as forced relocation or dislocation due to physical or economic reasons. However, this conceptualization reduces displacement to a simple spatial moment in time and overlooks indirect forms of displacement. Yet, indirect displacement holds serious implications for equitable planning initiatives that seek ‘revitalization without displacement’, as these initiatives tend to only address physical dislocation. Incorporating a better understanding of the different dimensions of displacement will help inform equitable development efforts that are more inclusive and just. This research uses Detroit as a case study to examine senior tenant experiences of indirect displacement in a rapidly gentrifying downtown. These ‘perspectives from below’ help shed light on the redevelopment impacts on seniors, which could then be concretely incorporated in community planning approaches. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation, the findings illustrate the material ways in which seniors have experienced indirect displacement through feelings of exclusion and non-belonging, diminishing social space, and fears of direct displacement – all of which contribute to an on-going loss of sense of place. These experiences suggest a diminishing ability to create place for some, which reduces their ability to assert their right to the city. The paper concludes by considering how an intersectional approach to understanding displacement could help strengthen equitable planning approaches.
{"title":"Broadening equitable planning: Understanding indirect displacement through seniors’ experiences in a resurgent Downtown Detroit","authors":"J. Mah","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221135006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221135006","url":null,"abstract":"Displacement is most commonly conceptualized as forced relocation or dislocation due to physical or economic reasons. However, this conceptualization reduces displacement to a simple spatial moment in time and overlooks indirect forms of displacement. Yet, indirect displacement holds serious implications for equitable planning initiatives that seek ‘revitalization without displacement’, as these initiatives tend to only address physical dislocation. Incorporating a better understanding of the different dimensions of displacement will help inform equitable development efforts that are more inclusive and just. This research uses Detroit as a case study to examine senior tenant experiences of indirect displacement in a rapidly gentrifying downtown. These ‘perspectives from below’ help shed light on the redevelopment impacts on seniors, which could then be concretely incorporated in community planning approaches. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation, the findings illustrate the material ways in which seniors have experienced indirect displacement through feelings of exclusion and non-belonging, diminishing social space, and fears of direct displacement – all of which contribute to an on-going loss of sense of place. These experiences suggest a diminishing ability to create place for some, which reduces their ability to assert their right to the city. The paper concludes by considering how an intersectional approach to understanding displacement could help strengthen equitable planning approaches.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"27 1","pages":"905 - 922"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88805709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-03DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221127704
K. Young, T. Marple, James Heilman, B. Desmarais
Existing scholarship suggests a deep relationship between elite connections and policy making in the financial sector. But are elite ties between private industry and government a resource for private industry, or a liability? We find that they can be either, depending on the circumstances. We analyze the associations of elite ties within numerous policy-making processes in the financial sector by measuring the network closeness between firms and government regulators. We then relate these measures of network closeness to a range of actual regulatory outcomes, from highly politicized bank bailouts to meetings with regulators both in crisis environments and in more detailed technocratic policy-making. Our findings point to the importance of institutional context in differentiating the role that elite ties might play in different circumstances. Within financial regulatory policy-making, while social ties between firms and regulators matter, they matter in different ways within different institutional contexts.
{"title":"A double-edged sword: The conditional properties of elite network ties in the financial sector","authors":"K. Young, T. Marple, James Heilman, B. Desmarais","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221127704","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221127704","url":null,"abstract":"Existing scholarship suggests a deep relationship between elite connections and policy making in the financial sector. But are elite ties between private industry and government a resource for private industry, or a liability? We find that they can be either, depending on the circumstances. We analyze the associations of elite ties within numerous policy-making processes in the financial sector by measuring the network closeness between firms and government regulators. We then relate these measures of network closeness to a range of actual regulatory outcomes, from highly politicized bank bailouts to meetings with regulators both in crisis environments and in more detailed technocratic policy-making. Our findings point to the importance of institutional context in differentiating the role that elite ties might play in different circumstances. Within financial regulatory policy-making, while social ties between firms and regulators matter, they matter in different ways within different institutional contexts.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"16 1","pages":"997 - 1019"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73044072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-27DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221133114
M. Sokol
Monetary policies are not usually considered as part of the repertoire of ‘state capitalism’. However, unconventional monetary operations performed by central banks in recent years make this exclusion increasingly problematic. This paper thus explores whether recent central bank interventions should be considered manifestations of ‘new’ state capitalism. Analysis focuses on the actions of three central banks from the advanced capitalist core in the West – the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. By mobilising the ‘financial chains’ perspective, this paper highlights the fact that, under financialisation, contemporary central banks have assumed a pivotal role in shaping Western capitalism and its uneven geographies. Through these recent unconventional interventions, central banks have in effect become ‘creators’ or ‘generators’ of (financial) capital. As such, their role in shaping uneven economic geographies across space (well beyond their official territorial boundaries) has expanded. Spatial ramifications of central banks’ capital-generating operations could thus fit easily within the framework of ‘uneven and combined state capitalism’. The possibility of considering the unconventional operations of central banks as state capitalist could also go hand in hand with a modified definition of state capitalism. Indeed, the rubric of state capitalism could potentially be enlarged to include configurations of capitalism where the state plays a particularly strong role not only as promoter, supervisor and owner of capital but also as a ‘generator’ of capital. This capital-generating role appears to be essential for the survival of contemporary capitalism.
{"title":"Financialisation, central banks and ‘new’ state capitalism: The case of the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England","authors":"M. Sokol","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221133114","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221133114","url":null,"abstract":"Monetary policies are not usually considered as part of the repertoire of ‘state capitalism’. However, unconventional monetary operations performed by central banks in recent years make this exclusion increasingly problematic. This paper thus explores whether recent central bank interventions should be considered manifestations of ‘new’ state capitalism. Analysis focuses on the actions of three central banks from the advanced capitalist core in the West – the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England. By mobilising the ‘financial chains’ perspective, this paper highlights the fact that, under financialisation, contemporary central banks have assumed a pivotal role in shaping Western capitalism and its uneven geographies. Through these recent unconventional interventions, central banks have in effect become ‘creators’ or ‘generators’ of (financial) capital. As such, their role in shaping uneven economic geographies across space (well beyond their official territorial boundaries) has expanded. Spatial ramifications of central banks’ capital-generating operations could thus fit easily within the framework of ‘uneven and combined state capitalism’. The possibility of considering the unconventional operations of central banks as state capitalist could also go hand in hand with a modified definition of state capitalism. Indeed, the rubric of state capitalism could potentially be enlarged to include configurations of capitalism where the state plays a particularly strong role not only as promoter, supervisor and owner of capital but also as a ‘generator’ of capital. This capital-generating role appears to be essential for the survival of contemporary capitalism.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"25 1","pages":"1305 - 1324"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75704453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-19DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221128302
Yannis Dafermos, Daniela Gabor, J. Michell
The era of dollar-based financial globalisation has seen a steady rise in the use of foreign exchange (FX) swaps. We provide a macrofinancial political economy perspective on the geography of FX swaps, and the spatial effects of central bank policies aimed at taming instabilities associated with the uneven geography of the dollar. First, we analyse the mechanisms and potential sources of instability involved in accessing dollars using FX swaps and repurchase agreement (repo) contracts, respectively, in both private and public (central bank) use. Second, we show that the distribution of currencies and institutions involved in trading swaps is skewed, reflecting both the dominance of the dollar as international financing currency and the uneven international distribution of dollar-denominated assets and liabilities. We document the changing composition of dollar swap users on both the long-dollar and short-dollar side and identify potential sources of macrofinancial vulnerability for dollar lenders and borrowers. The Fed's approach to global liquidity provision via both swaps and repos constitutes a spatially variegated strategy to preserve the hegemony of the US dollar. Despite its partial success in reducing instability due to cross-border financial imbalances, the Fed's uneven and hierarchical lender of last resort approach cannot sufficiently stabilise global finance to underpin a new era of macrofinancial stability.
{"title":"FX swaps, shadow banks and the global dollar footprint","authors":"Yannis Dafermos, Daniela Gabor, J. Michell","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221128302","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221128302","url":null,"abstract":"The era of dollar-based financial globalisation has seen a steady rise in the use of foreign exchange (FX) swaps. We provide a macrofinancial political economy perspective on the geography of FX swaps, and the spatial effects of central bank policies aimed at taming instabilities associated with the uneven geography of the dollar. First, we analyse the mechanisms and potential sources of instability involved in accessing dollars using FX swaps and repurchase agreement (repo) contracts, respectively, in both private and public (central bank) use. Second, we show that the distribution of currencies and institutions involved in trading swaps is skewed, reflecting both the dominance of the dollar as international financing currency and the uneven international distribution of dollar-denominated assets and liabilities. We document the changing composition of dollar swap users on both the long-dollar and short-dollar side and identify potential sources of macrofinancial vulnerability for dollar lenders and borrowers. The Fed's approach to global liquidity provision via both swaps and repos constitutes a spatially variegated strategy to preserve the hegemony of the US dollar. Despite its partial success in reducing instability due to cross-border financial imbalances, the Fed's uneven and hierarchical lender of last resort approach cannot sufficiently stabilise global finance to underpin a new era of macrofinancial stability.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"16 1","pages":"949 - 968"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90205766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-19DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221131322
Thomas F. Purcell, Callum Ward
This paper contextualises the political economy of land value capture (LVC) within the shift to an increasingly financialised, rentier-dominated capitalism. Contributing to an emerging dialogue between social constructivist planning literature on performativity in LVC and the critical political economy literature on rents and rentiership, we overview Salford's planning policy trajectory in recent decades in order to highlight how the UK planning system has increasingly been reconfigured as a mechanism to increase land values. In doing so, we explore both Salford's shift to neoliberal planning and its municipal socialist counter-turn in recent years, reflecting on how the centrality of LVC to the latter still leaves it dependent on rentier logics. In doing so, we locate these policy conjunctures within the governance dynamics of Britain's transformation into a rentier economy; wherein the stimulation, disbursement and capture of land values have become central objects of spatio-economic policy.
{"title":"The political economy of land value capture in the UK: Rent and viability in Salford’s new municipalist turn","authors":"Thomas F. Purcell, Callum Ward","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221131322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221131322","url":null,"abstract":"This paper contextualises the political economy of land value capture (LVC) within the shift to an increasingly financialised, rentier-dominated capitalism. Contributing to an emerging dialogue between social constructivist planning literature on performativity in LVC and the critical political economy literature on rents and rentiership, we overview Salford's planning policy trajectory in recent decades in order to highlight how the UK planning system has increasingly been reconfigured as a mechanism to increase land values. In doing so, we explore both Salford's shift to neoliberal planning and its municipal socialist counter-turn in recent years, reflecting on how the centrality of LVC to the latter still leaves it dependent on rentier logics. In doing so, we locate these policy conjunctures within the governance dynamics of Britain's transformation into a rentier economy; wherein the stimulation, disbursement and capture of land values have become central objects of spatio-economic policy.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"19 1","pages":"1600 - 1617"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74011882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-19DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221128305
D. Hall
Claims about ‘the commodification of everything’ are a staple of 21st century left (and some liberal) analysis and critique. These claims, however, are asserted much more often than they are backed up, and little attention has been devoted to thinking through how they might be substantiated or to what ‘the commodification of everything’ actually means. This paper contributes to contemporary debates over capitalism, commodification and politics by suggesting ways that commodification-of-everything arguments can be better specified and evaluated. It identifies four variants of commodification-of-everything claims; reviews and critiques the literature's uses of the terms ‘commodity’, ‘everything’ and ‘thing’; and articulates three possible definitions of ‘the commodification of everything’ that raise additional questions about defining ‘sale’ and ‘market’ and the implications of thinking of things as commodities. The conclusion suggests reframings of the relationship between capitalism and commodification that seek to preserve the force of commodification-of-everything claims while avoiding their pitfalls.
{"title":"‘Commodification of everything’ arguments in the social sciences: Variants, specification, evaluation, critique","authors":"D. Hall","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221128305","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221128305","url":null,"abstract":"Claims about ‘the commodification of everything’ are a staple of 21st century left (and some liberal) analysis and critique. These claims, however, are asserted much more often than they are backed up, and little attention has been devoted to thinking through how they might be substantiated or to what ‘the commodification of everything’ actually means. This paper contributes to contemporary debates over capitalism, commodification and politics by suggesting ways that commodification-of-everything arguments can be better specified and evaluated. It identifies four variants of commodification-of-everything claims; reviews and critiques the literature's uses of the terms ‘commodity’, ‘everything’ and ‘thing’; and articulates three possible definitions of ‘the commodification of everything’ that raise additional questions about defining ‘sale’ and ‘market’ and the implications of thinking of things as commodities. The conclusion suggests reframings of the relationship between capitalism and commodification that seek to preserve the force of commodification-of-everything claims while avoiding their pitfalls.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"55 1","pages":"544 - 561"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84868663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-13DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221126522
T. Wainwright
The structure of the UK's private rental sector (PRS) is being disrupted by a new series of rental proptech platforms (RPPs). These start-ups are adopting technologies including artificial intelligence and algorithms which draw upon ever broader datasets to automate and mediate the relationships between tenants and landlords. Only recently have researchers turned to examine new RPPs, which are challenging existing processes within the PRS, through their attempts to digitise all aspects of renting, from a tenant's initial search and application, to end-contract management. This paper seeks to provide two contributions: first, to uncover how platform entrepreneur views of ‘ideal’ tenants shape the algorithms and scripts that run within their start-ups, and how they shift to accommodate the demands of external venture capital funding. Second, it seeks to examine how landlords are falling under the gaze of technological surveillance and automated judgements, as well as tenants, to illustrate how fragmented and uneven data topologies create inequalities through automated ordering and judgements.
{"title":"Rental proptech platforms: Changing landlord and tenant power relations in the UK private rental sector?","authors":"T. Wainwright","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221126522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221126522","url":null,"abstract":"The structure of the UK's private rental sector (PRS) is being disrupted by a new series of rental proptech platforms (RPPs). These start-ups are adopting technologies including artificial intelligence and algorithms which draw upon ever broader datasets to automate and mediate the relationships between tenants and landlords. Only recently have researchers turned to examine new RPPs, which are challenging existing processes within the PRS, through their attempts to digitise all aspects of renting, from a tenant's initial search and application, to end-contract management. This paper seeks to provide two contributions: first, to uncover how platform entrepreneur views of ‘ideal’ tenants shape the algorithms and scripts that run within their start-ups, and how they shift to accommodate the demands of external venture capital funding. Second, it seeks to examine how landlords are falling under the gaze of technological surveillance and automated judgements, as well as tenants, to illustrate how fragmented and uneven data topologies create inequalities through automated ordering and judgements.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"212 1","pages":"339 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81506694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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