Law and the Precarious Home: Socio Legal Perspectives on the Home in Insecure Times

355 Pages·2018·6.924 MB·English

by  Helen Carr, Brendan Edgeworth and Caroline Hunter

LAW AND THE PRECARIOUS HOME
This book explores the emergent and internationally widespread phenom-
enon of precariousness, specifically in relation to the home. It maps the
complex reality of the insecure home by examining the many ways in which
precariousness is manifested in legal and social change across a number of
otherwise very different jurisdictions. By applying innovative work done by
socio-legal scholars in other fields such as labour law and welfare law to the
home, Law and the Precarious Home offers a broader theoretical under-
standing of contemporary ‘precarisation’ of law and society. It will enable
reflections upon differential experience of home dependent upon class, race
and gender from a range of local, national and crossnational perspectives.
Finally it will explore the pluralisation of ideas of home in subjective experi-
ence, social reality and legal form. The answers offered in this book reflect
the expertise and standing of the assembled authors who are international
leaders in their field, with decades of first-hand practical and intellectual
engagement with the area.
Oñati International Series in Law and Society
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onati-international-series-in-law-and-society
Law and the Precarious Home
Socio Legal Perspectives on the
Home in Insecure Times
Edited by
Helen Carr, Brendan Edgeworth
and Caroline Hunter
Oñati International Series in Law and Society
A SERIES PUBLISHED FOR THE OÑATI INSTITUTE
FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF LAW
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Law and the Precarious Home (Conference) (2015 : Oñati International
Institute for the Sociology of Law) | Carr, Helen (Law teacher), editor. |
Edgeworth, Brendan, editor. | Hunter, Caroline (Barrister), editor. |
Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, sponsoring body.
Title: Law and the precarious home : socio legal perspectives on the home in insecure
times / edited by Helen Carr, Brendan Edgeworth and Caroline Hunter.
Description: Oxford : Portland, Oregon : Hart Publishing, 2018. | Series: Oñati
international series in law and society | Based on a workshop “Law and the Precarious
Home” hosted by Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, July 2015.—ECIP
acknowledgments. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017056848 (print) | LCCN 2017057314 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781509914586 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509914609 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Housing—Law and legislation—Social aspects—Congresses.
Classification: LCC K3550.A6 (ebook) | LCC K3550.A6 L39 2015 (print) |
DDC 344/.063635—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017056848
ISBN: HB: 978-1-50991-460-9
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ePub: 978-1-50991-458-6
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Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible but for the support of the Onati
International Institute for the Sociology of Law, who hosted a workshop
entitled ‘Law and the Precarious Home’ in July 2015. We thank the Insti-
tute, and its then Director, Professor Adam Czarnota, for all they did to sup-
port the staging of the workshop, but also for their more general assistance
with accommodation and transport for the participants. We are particu-
larly grateful for the administrative support and guidance of Malen Gordoa
Mendizabal, ably supported by Cristina Ruiz. Special thanks also to Emily
Braggins and her team from Hart Publishing/Bloomsbury who have been a
pleasure to work with and the two post-graduate students from the Univer-
sities of York and Kent, Cameron Giles and Joanne Pearman, who helped
with editing.
vi
Contents
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................v
List of Contributors .................................................................................ix
1. Introducing Precarisation: Contemporary Understandings
of Law and the Insecure Home ...........................................................1
Helen Carr, Brendan Edgeworth and Caroline Hunter
Part I: Understanding Precarisation
2. Precarious Homes: The Sharing Continuum .....................................23
Sarah Blandy
3. Property, Well-being, and Home: Positive Psychology
and Property Law’s Foundations ......................................................47
Nestor M Davidson
Part II: Rental Security
4. The ‘Affordable Alternative to Renting’: Property Guardians
and Legal Dimensions of Housing Precariousness.............................65
Caroline Hunter and Jed Meers
5. Public Housing Insecurity in New South Wales: An Historical
Overview (1971–2014) .....................................................................87
Brendan Edgeworth
6. The Tenant’s Home and the Landlord’s Property—The Polish
Struggle to Achieve a Balance of Rights ..........................................109
Magdalena Habdas
Part III: The Home and Governmental Precarisation
7. Law and the Precarious Home: A Case Study of Thermal
Inefficiency in English Homes .........................................................139
Helen Carr
8. Governing Risk and Uncertainty: Financialisation and
the Regulatory Framework of Housing Associations ......................159
Richard Goulding
viii Contents
9. Safe and Sound: Precariousness, Compartmentation
and Death at Home ......................................................................181
Edward Kirton-Darling
Part IV: Global/Local Precariousness
10. The UK as a Precarious Home ......................................................203
Richard Warren
11. Precarious Home and Institutional Ambiguity in China’s
Urbanisation .................................................................................227
Ting Xu and Wei Gong
12. On Shaky Ground: Homes as Socio-Legal Spaces
in a Post-Earthquake Environment ...............................................245
Ann Dupuis, Suzanne Vallance and David Thorns
Part V: Resistance and Strategies
13. Precarity and Defiance in Temporary Accommodation:
The King Hill Hostel Campaign, 1965–66 ....................................269
Laura Binger
14. Responding to the Precarisation of Housing: A Case Study
of PAH Barcelona .........................................................................289
Gabriele D’Adda, Lucia Delgado and Eduard Sala
15. Returning Home? .........................................................................317
Danie Brand
Index .....................................................................................................331
List of Contributors
Laura Binger is a doctoral candidate at Kent Law School, University of
Kent. Her research focuses on housing activism, and she holds a JD from
Harvard Law School.
Sarah Blandy is a solicitor and Professor of Law at the University of Sheffield.
Danie Brand (BLC LLB, LLM, LLD), is Professor of Law, University of
Pretoria.
Helen Carr is a Professor at Kent Law School. Her interests lie in the regu-
lation of housing and homelessness and she has a broader concern with
social welfare law. She has recently completed a research project on shared
ownership (with Professor David Cowan from Bristol University and Alison
Wallace, York University).
Grabriele D’Adda is a doctoral student at Kent Law School, where he
works on the relationship between social movements, legal framework and
right to housing in Spain. He has a Master in Social Development from
Université Paul-Valéri of Montpellier and he graduated in Political Science
at Università degli Studi di Milano.
Nestor M Davidson, a graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law
School, holds the Albert A Walsh Chair in Real Estate, Land Use and
Property Law at the Fordham University School of Law, where he is also the
Faculty Director of the Urban Law Center.
Lucia Delgado is an independent researcher, social activist for the right
to housing, is one of the founders of PAH—Plataforma Afectados por la
Hipoteca.
Ann Dupuis (MA (Hons), PhD), is an Honorary Research Fellow, School
of People, Environment and Planning, College of Humanities and Social
Sciences, Massey University, New Zealand.
Brendan Edgeworth is a Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of
New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Wei Gong is a visiting fellow at the School of Law, University of Sheffield.
He holds a PhD in Law from Renmin University, China. He had practised
law for more than 12 years in China before coming to the UK.
Richard Goulding is a PhD candidate and early careers researcher at the
School of Law, the University of Sheffield. Focusing on how finance acts to