Dominika Polanska V.

Södertörn University | sh

Under de senaste decennierna har fastighetsägare, byggbolag, banker och riskkapitalister tjänat enorma summor på bostäder, medan andra förlorat sina hem eller sett sina bostads kostnader öka kraftigt. Den sociala bostadspolitiken har övergivits, hemlösheten har ökat och bostadsstandarden har försämrats. Samtidigt har det finansiella systemet blivit...

How the legal is implicated in the production of space and how displacement is both a material and discursive process stands at the fore of this study. The aim is to examine how the law is interpreted in cases of approval of renovation of rental housing and how these interpretations are articulated, presented, and justified in the Swedish context....

Squatting in Sweden peaked in the 1980s. Stockholm and Gothenburg were the epicenters, among other smaller towns throughout the country. Researchers identified punk music, influences from abroad, anarchist ideas and the emergence of urban social movements as central to the increase in squatting during this decade. Only a fragmented picture of squat...

This article contributes to the emerging body of literature in the field of urban studies that addresses the classical ‘division of labour’ between analyses of the workings of urban power at the macro- and micro-levels. Our theoretical framework aims to capture how processes of power are exercised in processes of urban restructuring. In the field o...

This study explores the renovation of housing governed by two tenure forms in Sweden, rental and cooperative housing. Based on a relational approach, we argue that despite requiring a similar need of maintenance at regular intervals, renovation in rental housing takes a substantially different form compared to cooperatives, regarding the extent of...

Hemmet är den plats som ger oss trygghet och kontroll, det nav i tillvaron där vi umgås med familj och vänner på våra egna villkor. Något har dock hänt. Sedan några årtionden har starka krafter förändrat innebörden av hemmet för den som bor i hyresrätt. Hyresvärdar renoverar som de vill och höjer hyrorna dramatiskt, vilket tvingar hyresgäster att...

While governing practices, as articulated in policies and other documents intended to shape tenants' behavior, have been given considerable attention in research, less attention has been given to the self-regulation of tenants in practice or how these governance practices are challenged and resisted from below. The ambition of our work is to study...

Tenants’ mobilizations are covered unevenly in research and few attempts connect tenants’ mobilizations as transnational or globally linked phenomena, despite the clear connections between national tenants’ associations and international links between tenants’ organizations (i.e. International Union of Tenants, or the European Action Coalition for...

I det här kapitlet berättar författaren om hur hon i ett forskningsprojekt kring hyresgästers upplevelser av bostadsförnyelse arbetat för att inkludera deltagarna i ett gemensamt ” kunskapsskapande”. Vi får följa med från början då forskningsfrågan formulerades, där växelverkan mellan aktivism och forskning varit avgörande för att ringa in probleme...

Utifrån egna erfarenheter av deltagarnära forskning resonerar vi i kapitlet om forskningsetik och forskaretik baserat på olika etiska dilemman och överväganden vi mött, olika betydelser av god forskningsetik och god forskning. Vi reflekterar över hur vi som forskare kan utveckla ett särskilt etiskt förhållningssätt som präglas av närhet och samarbe...

Den förnyelsevåg vi ser i dag gäller i första hand ombyggnationer och renoveringar av hyresbestånd som byggdes främst på 1960- och 1970-talen, men även tidigare. Majoriteten av detta bestånd står inför en välbehövd upprustning av avloppsstammar och el. Många hus har inte fått en upprustning sedan de byggdes. En stor del av dessa tillhör miljonprogr...

This study bridges research on squatting and urban commons by studying squatting-when collectively self-organized for community wide social (material and immaterial) benefit and within largely anti-capitalist and anarchist ways-as a practice of commoning. In this paper we analyze the "why" and "how" of such a practice in a Swedish context. A countr...

Many of the contemporary debates on urban commons lack an anti-capitalist approach. In addition, a number of misunderstandings regarding the common wealth, the city, the state, and the public sphere do not help to clarify the meaning of the commons. As a response to these problems, I first devise two useful concepts that stem from Marx's original i...

Det här huset ska vi ta! Sedan 1968 har hus ockuperats i Sverige. Från Kårhuset, Mullvaden och Gamla Bro via Haga till senare ockupationer som Sollefteå BB. Boken berättar om husen och människorna som skred till handling och är resultatet av flera års dokumentation och kartläggning. Detta är första gången det svenska husockupationsfenomenet greppa...

Research shows there is a current wave of housing renovation in Swedish cities, where private as well as public rental housing companies use "renoviction," or displacement through renovation, as a profit-driven strategy. This article focuses on emotions and renoviction, in particular the emotions of tenants currently facing forced renovations, in S...

I handboken "Renovräkt" kartlägger författarna flera av de härskartekniker som fastighetsägare idag använder mot sina hyresgäster när en renovering står inför dörren. Osynliggörande, hot, gisslantagande och otillgänglighet är bara fyra av alla de subtila, hårda och uttalade metoder hyresgäster får utstå när fastighetsägare, för att driva igenom sin...

This book outlines the history of squatting in Sweden and analyzes the conditions under which squatting has intensified and declined in the country between 1968 and 2017. With close attention to the relationship between civil society and the state in the Swedish context, and the manner in which this relationship, together with attendant political,...

Displacement in the making. Renoviction as cultural trauma Based on interviews with tenants in an area facing eviction following forced renovation, this study presents an analysis of the reactions and forms of resistance that arise among residents in the early phase of a renovation process. The concepts of cultural trauma, resistance and action r...

Skłoting – czyli zajmowanie pustostanów bez zgody ich właścicieli – jest od dawna przedmiotem akademickiej dyskusji. Jednak ten fenomen nie doczekał się jeszcze kompleksowego ujęcia z perspektywy Europy Środkowej. Niniejszy raport jest pierwszą tego rodzaju próbą w języku polskim. Autorzy tekstów nie tylko przedstawiają genealogie tego zjawiska w B...

The first decade after the fall of state socialism in Poland was characterized by moderate aspirations to reform or oppose the dominant (neoliberal) rhetoric by social movements in the country. In the last decade, a turn toward more informal grassroots activity has been observed by scholars, above all in the field of urban activism. This article lo...

This article casts new light on the processes of collective claims and identity formation in social movements, with the help of the radical political framework of Laclau and Mouffe (Hegemony and socialist strategy: towards a radical democratic politics, Verso, London, 2001). Polish tenants, classified as “losers” of transition and marginalized in t...

This chapter examines an increasingly important and interesting type of civil society activism, tenants’ activism, which has been understudied thus far and whose members struggle for legitimacy for their claims in the public sphere. The aim is to study how this kind of activism has been delegitimized in public discourse and how tenants’ activists s...

Squatting, or the use of property without authorization, can take many forms in different contexts. It has been used as both a means in a struggle for a more just city by redistributing resources, and a goal in itself. In Sweden, the first squatting attempts occurred in late 1960s, in the same period as many other squatting attempts in Northern and...

Two Polish cities, Warsaw and Poznań, are studied in the article to examine how external structures are handled and used by squatters in these two settings. The aim is to analyze opportunity structures that condition the emergence and development of squatting and how squatters respond to and utilize these opportunities. Our ambition is to understan...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine motivations of social activists in informal initiatives and to understand why they opt for this more spontaneous and self-organized activism while openly defying the hitherto established way of founding non-governmental organizations. Design/methodology/approach On the basis of a case study of Poland...

Radical social movements are more and more often the subject of academic inquiry, where their agenda, identity-building processes and repertoires of action are examined vis a vis the dominant discursive opportunity structures. The case study presented in this article is the squatting movement in Poland. We interpret this movement, its actions and i...

Since the collapse of state socialism in 1989, the transformation processes of Poland in the fields of economy and politics have been characterized by a clear ‘turn to the market’, deregulation, decentralization and withdrawal of the state. The process, also called shock therapy, has moreover been quite rapid and dramatic, causing abrupt changes in...

The prerequisites for squatting are somewhat different from other social movements. Most squatters tend to live (literally reside) in their movement and risk being overwhelmed and burnt-out by the intensity and emotional involvement of this kind of activism. The fact that squatters’ struggles revolve around a physical place, which in itself is a fo...

Book review in European Societies.

Book review in Journal of Housing and the Built Environment

Squatting, or the use of property without the owners’ permission, and tenants’ activism are under-researched areas, in particular, in the post-socialist context. Poland is pointed out as extraordinary on the map of squatting in post-socialist Europe and a considerable number of tenants’ organizations are active in the country. What is most interest...

Squatting has been present in Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of state socialism and Poland is pointed out as exceptional in the development of squatting in the area. However, looking closer at the squatting environment in Warsaw reveals that the movements’ successes are a result of a crossmovement alliance with the tenants’ movement. The...

Gating of residential areas has become an important instrument in demarcating social positions in the late modern or postmodern world. Gates symbolize power to transcend boundaries, to keep out, or to lock in and function often as visual reminders of social distinctions. In Locked In, Locked Out, Zaire Zenit Dinzey-Flores describes the rise of gate...

Introduction: housing policy reformsThe main focus of this special issue is on housing policy reforms in post-socialist Europe and their long lasting impacts on housing inequalities and the position of different socio-economic groups on the housing market. The contributions offer insights into important research issues such as the challenges of aff...

Urban policy and the rise of gated housing in post-socialistPoland Dominika V. Polanska  The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract The aim of this article is to investigateregulations regarding housing and spatial planning todetermine the extent to which these have influencedthe development of gated...

The aim of this article is to suggest an explanatory set of factors to the popularity of gated housing in the Polish context. The explanation focuses on the divide between the public and the private sphere and encompasses economic, cultural and institutional explanations to the gating phenomenon. The empirical material consists of interviews, disco...

The aim of this article is to analyze how social class markers are constructed in the discourse on gated communities in a postsocialist urban context. The case of Poland is used as an example of a post-Communist country where the number of gated communities is increasing rapidly in urban areas. The material of study consists of 50 articles publishe...

This article considers the emergence of gated communities in the post-communist urban context and discusses the reasons for their increasing numbers and popularity. Narrowing in on a Polish city, the description focuses on the forms that gated communities take and on who the residents are, as well as their motives for moving into gated housing. Oth...

The aim of this chapter is to examine the reasons for the increasing residential disparities in the city of Gdansk. Namely, I will look at how the changes in urban policy, urban planning and ownership regulations have affected the development of the old and new residential areas in the city. Processes of decline and the emergence of gated communiti...

This paper examines how different social, economic, historical and physical conditions coincide in the formation of space and processes of decline in the period of transformation in Poland. The focus lies on a specific residential area in the centre of the Polish city of Gdansk and the question why no improvements have been done in this particular...