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Call for Papers: International Sociological Association RC43 Housing and the Built Environment Conference in Hong Kong (June 18-21, 2017) Reconstructing the real estate-finance link: Housing financialization after the crisis <http://bit.ly/2eRLFmv> The treatment of housing as a financial asset helped create the conditions for the 2007-2008 global financial crisis. Yet everywhere the crisis was felt most strongly, restoring the link between finance and the built environment has been integral to recovery strategies. While the process of financialization is ongoing, the nature of the process is dynamic. For example, in many of the countries experiencing systemic housing-financial crises in 2008, today rental housing is an important new financial asset class, with some of the world’s largest private equity firms buying up and renting out repossessed properties and rolling out novel rent-backed financial instruments. This shift is rooted in broader social, economic, and political conditions taking shape since 2008, including: pressure for state and financial institutions to dispose of large amounts of distressed assets; increased rental demand as former homeowners become tenants and young people contend with greater indebtedness and diminished economic opportunities; and tighter lending standards. But financialization is at once a global process and one deeply contingent on local and national contexts. As such the path of post-crisis housing financialization outlined above is but one trajectory, and we would expect other paths to emerge in places situated differently with respect to the 2008 crisis. Finally, we must recall that financialization is neither given nor monolithic; rather this process is always incomplete, a work in progress that can fail, break apart, and be reworked and contested. This session invites papers that shed light on the dynamics of post-crisis housing financialization--including work critiquing the notion of ‘post-crisis’. Contributions from outside the heartlands of the 2008 global financial crisis, including Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East,and post-socialist states are welcome. Papers from PhD students and early career scholars encouraged. A range of topics is sought, including but not limited to: - How the link between housing and finance is being reconstructed in specific urban and/or national contexts since 2008 (including comparative perspectives) - The socio-spatial impacts of post-crisis housing financialization - Rental housing as a new financial asset class and tenants as ‘financial subjects’ - How social movements seek to contest or interrupt financialization, including through alternative relationships to land and housing and movements for expanded renters rights - Historical or contemporary counter-examples highlighting progressive possibilities toward de-financialization Please send abstracts (300 words maximum) and your name, affiliation, and title to Desiree Fields at [log in to unmask] by 20th December 2016. -- Desiree Fields Lecturer in Urban Geography Erasmus and Study Abroad Coordinator and Student Experience Officer Office hours: Monday, 11:00am-12:00pm and Wednesday 2:00-4:00pm, or by appointment 0114 222 7969 Department of Geography, University of Sheffield Western Bank Sheffield S10 2TN United Kingdom https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/desiree_fields/home