Kirsteen Paton (University of Leeds) is presenting on 21st October to the Sociology Department as part of the Seminar Series run by Laurie Hanquinet.
Kirsteen will be talking about:
Poverty
Porn' to 'Property Porn'?: Housing austerity and the logic of value in land and
people
The logic of capital ostensibly commodifies
every aspect of our lives: this is
evident no more so than in our relationship with land. The distinctly urban
nature of the economic crisis has surfaced gross inequalities. While glib, if
media representations of class are dubbed ‘poverty porn’ we might refer to this
gratuitous commodification of land as ‘property porn’. Land value is a key form
of capital and so the management of (working-class) places and people forms a
crucial part of neoliberal governance. ‘Problem people’ ‘problem places’ are
cast as deviant and recalcitrant barriers to neoliberalisng processes and are
submitted to the logic of capital and rationalising discourses. Here, the value
of land and the (de) value of people coalesce. This paper draws from research
in Glasgow in different neighbourhoods with different regeneration projects –
one pre-crisis, one post-crisis – and under different governments. This
comparison reveals the evolution of state-led gentrification and its wider and
deeper impacts and how this project matures. This involves devaluing the poor
to achieve a revalorisation of land values and as means of governance – the
crucial axis where territorial stigmatisation and gentrification meet.
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