Struggling Against Entrenched Austerity

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the field of housing politics in contemporary Lisbon: the transition from the end of a period of economic crisis and deep austerity to a fast economic growth based on exportation, tourism and real estate; the intersection of historical housing problems with new trends of financialisation, touristification and gentrification; and growth of social movements concerned with the right to housing and to the city. By reflecting on housing crisis and struggles, the chapter takes two conceptual steps. On the one hand, by building on an understanding of austerity as the downloading of vulnerability to risk from the economic to the social sphere, it explores the entrenchment of austerity in the field of housing. On the other hand, by questioning the capacity of emerging social movements to fight the social vulnerability brought by austerity, it questions social movements’ potential to establish themselves as a ‘resilient’ alternative to the dominant models of economic development.