From moral critique to moral politics: Bridging everyday struggles and structural transformations in the housing crises

Keywords: Moral Politics, Crises, Knowledge Politics, Transformative Change
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Societies around the globe are undergoing numerous, intersecting, transboundary crises presenting researchers, activists, and policymakers with, often contradictory, challenges. Firstly, how can we reconcile the different spatial levels implicated in these crises in terms of both how knowledge/critique is generated, and responses developed? Secondly, as crises overlap not just territorial boundaries but different spheres of social relations – the economy, the environment, politics, health, etc. – how can crises be known, articulated, and tackled in a holistic way that doesn’t neglect or obscure broader implications? Finally, how can crises be approached in a way that focuses not simply on isolated symptoms but looks towards structural transformations?
A recent ‘moral turn’ in the social sciences has highlighted the moral grammar of social conflict, redeploying concepts such as moral economies and moral critique to understand the current conjuncture. Moral politics draws attention to the multiple, contentious, and often antagonistic ways in which social actors evaluate the actions of themselves and others and the ways in which morals mediate political demands. Using the cases of housing crises in London, Dublin, and Lisbon – analysing campaigns for housing justice, rent controls and against evictions - this paper explores how moral politics makes overt the contingent nature of social relations and draws together broad, often spatially and socially disparate, struggles. Crisis responses are irreducible to techno-scientific fixes but are imbued with the narratives, values, and identities of those enduring them, which in turn implicates different ways of knowing and articulating crises.