*Call for abstracts* (EURA - UUA Conference, June 20-22, 2019 | Dublin (Ireland) | http://cityfutures2019.com/)

"Inhabiting outside the law: the variety of housing informality/illegality in Western countries"

Organized by Francesco Chiodelli, Alessandro Coppola and Margherita Grazioli (GSSI, L'Aquila)

Deadline: 25 October 2019

When dealing with ‘Western countries’ (or the so-called ‘Global North’), housing informality/illegality is usually associated mainly (if not exclusively) with minorities and marginalized groups (such as Roma people or refugees living in unauthorised camps that cannot afford, or access, either the privatised housing market, or residual social housing based on their status, income, or restrictive housing regulations. Nevertheless, recent research in the field of social, urban and geographic studies is elaborating an innovative epistemology of these forms of “inhabiting outside the law’, based on the diversified phenomenology that can be observed within cityscapes as well as non-urban areas. These forms of informal/illegal housing can be enacted by individuals, groups of people clustered according to kinship or ethnicity, with the cooperation of social urban movements, or even under the management of criminal organisations. Among those can be counted: squatting of private and public empty buildings; illegal occupation of social housing flats; the construction of unauthorized secondary residencies, or ‘autonomous’ enlargement of primary ones; residential use of non-residential spaces. On top of that, Southern European countries such as Italy and Greece are experiencing unlawful forms of housing managed by mob organisations. Conversely, a likewise diversified range of policy responses can be observed according to the situated and contingent arrangement of where they occur: from processes of planning formalization to national amnesties throughout hard-nosed government interventions aimed at contrasting the proliferation of informal housing and settlements. 

Recent studies are also emphasising the connection between housing informality/illegality, the post-2008 austerity management of housing and welfare, as well as their connection with other crises (such as the border management and migration one), while scrutinising the disruption they represent towards different regulatory regimes (e.g. (e.g. urban planning regulations, building regulations, property rights, public housing rules of access). Given this analytical and empirical complexity, the session aims to trigger a debate that could provide a comprehensive framing (e.g. a typology or an epistemologically rigorous taxonomy) of the different forms of housing informality/illegality practised in Western countries. The contributors are asked to focus on their features in terms of background, causes, and policy responses. A diverse range of potential contributions is welcome, such as: qualitative, critical explorations of specific, local case-studies; national and cross-national comparative overviews; quantitative, geo-spatial accounts and analyses; critical discussions of causal factors and policy responses.