*Second CFP – **Senses of (in)justice - **Deadline Oct. 15th*
*Call for Papers*
FAAEE 2017 València (September 5-9)
*Organizers*
Marc Morell (Universitat de les Illes Balears) and Irene Sabaté
(Universitat de Barcelona)
Please submit paper abstracts by *October 15th* on the online system
provided at:
http://congresoantropologiavalencia.com/
Original version available in Spanish at:
http://congresoantropologiavalencia.com/simposiums/sentidos-de-la-injusticia-endeudamiento-y-espacio-urbano-en-tiempos-de-crisis/
Proposals in Spanish, Catalan or English are welcome. Be aware that we
expect most of the papers to be read in Spanish. Hence, some knowledge of
the language would be useful in order to follow subsequent discussions.
*SENSES OF (IN)JUSTICE:*
*INDEBTEDNESS AND URBAN SPACE IN TIMES OF CRISIS*
*Outline*
The living standards of broadly-based social groups have severely worsened
during the global economic crisis originated by the financial crash of
2008. This situation has contributed decisively to a deep class
restructuring accompanied by legitimising responses based on austerity
measures by state authorities, as well as those imposed at supra-s and sub-
state level.
This panel proposes an interpretation of these worsening effects of the
economic crisis, and of the policies designed to cope with them; and we do
so from a social justice perspective (Harvey 1973, Fraser 2008, Merrifield
and Swyngedouw 1997, Young 1990) and, particularly, from the socially
situated perceptions of justice or injustice of the social groups
concerned. We suggest that the injustice felt by part of a population that
believes its rights have been breached, is causing the rupture of moral
economy principles while originating a crisis of legitimacy at the core of
the system of governance. Furthermore, in certain circumstances different
forms of reaction are being articulated both at the scale of domestic
strategies and in the field of collective action, which share a common claim
to restore moral justice.
With the aim of building on our previous work on the making of class in
urban society (Morell 2015) and the resurgence of forms of moral economy
linked to mortgage indebtedness (Sabaté 2016), the panel papers will focus
on two interrelated areas of inquiry: spatial justice and financial
justice, framed within the anthropological debates - and those of other
related disciplines - on the production of space and/or the
conceptualization of the social relations involved in the practice of debt
and credit.
On the international social sciences scene there has been a proliferation
of work that relates these two meanings of (in)justice, such as
accumulation by dispossession (Harvey 2003), financialisation (Aalbers
2008, Fine 2010), financial expropriation (Lapavitsas 2009), economy of
debt (Lazzarato 2011) or “creditocracy” (Ross 2014). In the Spanish State,
authors like Naredo and Montiel (2011) or López and Rodríguez (2010) have
also shed light on the consequences of the penetration of financial capital
into both the urban space and basic resources such as housing. However,
with the exception of some work that refers to the years previous to the
crisis (Franquesa 2013, Palomera 2014), it is difficult to find
ethnographically situated research that links financial and spatial
dynamics, and that also focuses on the perceptions of justice and injustice
by the people who are involved, and by potentially resisting social groups.
This call for papers is thus open to contributions that deal with one or a
combination of the following themes:
. Dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and feelings of collective grievance
linked to urban segregation.
. Resistance to the forceful displacement of populations disregarded within
the processes of accumulation of real estate and financial capital.
. Provisioning tactics by social groups affected by the dispossession of
their urban spaces of reproduction.
. Different projects of social emancipation developed by various groups
that aim to live outside of the real estate and financial dynamics.
. Experience of housing finacialization, and of the financialization of
other basic resources of provisioning by domestic groups.
. Popular perception of the alliances set among real-estate capital,
financial capital and the urban and state political elites.
. Role of the State in implementing redistributive justice measures among
territories.
. Forms of identification as reactions to a lack of state provision in
specific urban areas.
. Domestic strategies against over-indebtedness and attitudes against the
obligation of repaying debt.
. Re-signifying debts as illegitimate and claims for them to be
restructured or forgiven.
. The moral criticism of the practices of banking companies and other
components of the “creditor class” during the years of the bubble and the
crisis.
. Governance and disciplining of popular classes via debt and the
capitalist production of space.
. Definition of conventional finances, understood as guilty or responsible
for the current crisis, in contrast with ethical finances, understood as
antidotes for potential future crisis.
Far from delving into the common places that maintain the concept of social
justice as one of the pillars of any society that takes pride in being
democratic, this panel seeks to inquire into the different scenarios that
make this idea of social justice a process that is constantly redefined. By
exploring the issues highlighted here, we seek to respond to the different
accounts that maintain social justice as a potential field for the
recognition and reparation of social inequalities which appear to be
inherent to the system, and that are presented and represented in everyday
life as a form of injustice:
Where does justice come from? What forms does it adopt? What relative
weights do the claims of redistribution and recognition have in relation to
spatial injustice and financial injustice? How does injustice help class
configuration and re-configuration in terms of the diverse social groups
that we research? In what terms is the social justice represented? How does
it question the State as responsible for restoration of justice? What
answers are articulated against this injustice? How is social justice
practiced? What contradictions does it entail? Are there different notions
of (in)justice depending on the variety of subjects involved? Is there a
conflict among them? Do the same actors use different concepts depending on
how circumstances vary?
In conclusion, departing from these different themes, we aim to contribute
to current debates on social justice in a historic moment of economic,
social and political crisis that requires a special commitment from
anthropology and the other social sciences in their task of describing,
interpreting and explaining (in)justice with the aim of giving sense to
reality.
*Areas of work*
1. Urban society and its place in the current capitalist system.
2. Social justice as a field of struggle for hegemony in the context of
real estate financialization and its immediate consequences.
3. Processes of commoditisation, capitalization and financialization of
urban spaces.
4. The role of the state in the social reproduction of housing under
financial capitalism.
5. Class dynamics of social exclusion in the built environment and
relations of debt and credit.
6. Social movements denouncing spatial and financial injustice.
*Bibliography*
Aalbers, M.B. (2008), “The financialization of home and the mortgage market
crisis”, *Competition and Change* 12(2):148-166.
Fine, B. (2010) “Neoliberalism as financialisation”, in: Saad-Filho, A. and
Yalman, G.L. (eds)
*Economic Transitions to Neoliberalism in Middle-income Countries,*
Abingdon: Routledge.
Franquesa, J. (2013) *Urbanismo neoliberal, negocio inmobiliario y vida
vecinal. El caso de Palma*, Barcelona: Icaria.
Fraser, N. (2008) “La justicia social en la era de la política de la
identidad: redistribución, reconocimiento y participación”, *Revista de
Trabajo* 4(6):83-99.
Harvey, D. (1973) *Social Justice and the City*, Oxford: Blackwell.
Harvey, D. (2003) “La acumulación por desposesión” in *El nuevo
imperialismo*, Madrid: Akal.
Harvey, D. (1996) *Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference*,
Cambridge (Mass.): Blackwell.
Lapavitsas, C. (2009) “Financialised capitalism: Crisis and financial
expropriation”, *Historical*
*Materialism* 17:114-148.
Lazzarato, M. (2011) *The Making of the Indebted Man*, Amsterdam:
Semiotext(e).
López, I. and Rodríguez, E. (2010) *Fin de ciclo. Financiarización,
territorio y sociedad de propietarios en la onda larga del capitalismo
hispano (1959-2010)*, Madrid: Traficantes de sueños.
Merrifield A. and Swyngedouw, E. (1997) “Social justice and the urban
experience” in Merrifield, A. and Swyngedouw, E. (eds) *The Urbanization of
Injustice*, London: Lawrence & Wishart*.*
Morell, M. (2015) “When space draws the line on class” in Carrier, J.G. and
Kalb, D. (eds) *Anthropologies of Class: Power, Practice and
Inequality. *Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Naredo, J.M. and Montiel, A. (2011) *El modelo inmobiliario español*,
Barcelona: Icaria.
Palomera, J. (2014) “Reciprocity, Commodification, and Poverty in the Era
of Financialization”, *Current Anthropology* 55(9):105-115.
Ross, A. (2014) *Creditocracy and the Case for Debt Refusal, *New York and
London: OR Books.
Sabaté, I. (2016) “The Spanish mortgage crisis and the re-emergence of
moral economies in uncertain times”, *History and Anthropology *27(1):
107-120.
Young, I.M. (1990) *Justice and the Politics of Difference*, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press.
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