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Dismantling displacement and de-tenanting—Toward a feminist legal
geography perspective on the housing crisis and eviction court cases
in Germany
Sarah Klosterkamp
Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Housing crisis
Feminist Legal Geography
Eviction
Court cases
Urban geography
ABSTRACT
Displacement and de-tenanting are critical issues at the intersection of housing crises and legal frameworks,
demanding a nuanced understanding that integrates class, gender, and race. This article aims to contribute to this
scholarship by employing a feminist legal geography perspective, specically through courtroom ethnography.
The examination of eviction court cases in Germany reveals the intricate ways in which legal mechanisms
mediate and perpetuate. The paper thus demonstrates how eviction processes are not merely legal transactions
but are deeply embedded in power dynamics that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. By
foregrounding the experiences and voices of those impacted, this paper underscores the material realities of
eviction and highlights the importance of a feminist legal geographic approach to understanding and addressing
housing injustices. This perspective not only illuminates the courtroom as a pivotal space where socio-legal
battles unfold and emphasizes the necessity of listening and attuning to the lived experiences of the displaced.
1. Introduction
Displacement and dispossession are critical issues that lie at the heart
of contemporary urban crises, affecting millions of individuals and
reshaping urban landscapes globally (Brickell et al., 2017; Olds et al.
2002; Ramakrishnan 2014) as well as locally (Berner et al., 2015;
Romanos, 2013; Shelton, 2018). Herein, displacement, often understood
as the forced movement of people from their homes (Aiello, 2019;
Harris, 2022; Delaney, 2016), intersects with broader processes of
dispossession, which involves the systematic stripping away of land,
property, and resources from individuals and communities (Linz 2023;
McElroy and Brownstein 2020; Richardson et al. 2016). These phe-
nomena are not merely the outcomes of economic forces or urban
development pressures but are deeply intertwined with legal frame-
works and institutions. In urban contexts, displacement and disposses-
sion are frequently mediated through legal mechanisms such as eviction
proceedings, zoning laws, and property rights (Easton et al., 2019; Lees
et al., 2008; Schipper and Latocha, 2018). Legal geography helps to
illuminate how these mechanisms operate, often under the guise of
neutrality, to facilitate the transfer of land and housing from vulnerable
populations to more powerful actors (Blomley 2009; Delaney, 2016;
Klosterkamp 2024). This eld underscores that legal processes are not
impartial; rather, they are embedded within and perpetuate broader
power dynamics and social hierarchies. By examining the spatial prac-
tices of law, legal geography exposes the ways in which legal systems
contribute to the marginalization and exclusion of certain groups,
particularly along lines of class, race, and gender.
The interplay between displacement, dispossession, and legal geog-
raphy is particularly evident in eviction cases, where the courtroom
becomes a critical site for understanding how these dynamics unfold. In
Germany, where eviction cases often involve complex interactions be-
tween different levels of law (local, regional, national) and various
stakeholders (tenants, landlords, government agencies) (Berner et al.,
2015), courtroom ethnography can uncover the nuanced ways in which
legal and spatial dynamics intersect (Gill and Hynes, 2021; Walenta,
2020). This is because here eviction is a legally sanctioned process that
involves the removal of tenants from their homes by a court order. The
courtroom, as a space where eviction cases are adjudicated, serves as a
microcosm of broader societal processes, reecting and reinforcing the
inequities that pervade the housing market and urban development
policies. Despite the signicance of legal institutions in shaping urban
landscapes and mediating displacement, only a few urban geographers
E-mail address: klosterkamp@geo.uni-frankfurt.de.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Geoforum
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104126
Received 3 November 2023; Received in revised form 19 September 2024; Accepted 20 September 2024
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
Available online 26 September 2024
0016-7185/© 2024 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
have investigated processes of dispossession, de-tenanting
1
and the
issuance of eviction titles within courtroom settings (see: Aiello, 2019).
Even fewer have adopted a feminist lens to explore these dynamics
(Brickell and Cuomo, 2019; Faria et al. 2020), leaving critical gaps in our
understanding of how class, gender, and race intersect in inuencing
eviction processes.
This article addresses this oversight by foregrounding a feminist legal
geography perspective to analyze eviction court cases in Germany,
aiming to illuminate the intricate ways in which legal institutions
perpetuate housing injustices. Grounded in an ethnographic study of 38
legal proceedings around tenant-landlord property relations (carried out
between February 2022 to Juli 2024), this work is structured around
three detailed vignettes, each illustrating the lived experiences of in-
dividuals facing eviction and the legal battles that ensue. These vignettes
demonstrate that eviction processes are not merely legal transactions;
they are deeply embedded in power dynamics that disproportionately
affect marginalized communities for different reasons.
Focusing on these less visible and marginalized sites of housing
contestation, this paper examines a critical but little regarded part of
eviction and displacement that takes place in German cities, enacted
through legal institutions. In doing so, I argue that an “institutional
ethnography” (Billo and Mountz, 2016) of the issuance of eviction court
orders can help to reveal how structural inequalities, along with the
categories of age, gender, income, and race, are further exacerbated in
the context of bureaucracies, which, as Hilbrandt states, “are generally
assumed to regulate according to xed rules” (Hilbrandt, 2022: 32,
translated by the author). By expanding these empirical insights to the
concepts of “survivability” (Lees et al., 2018) and “feminist (geo)legal-
ities” (Brickell and Cuomo, 2019), I illustrate how “listening and being
in the eld” (Klosterkamp, 2023a) and by deploying “embodied ex-
hibits” (Faria et al. 2020), a feminist legal geography lens is well posi-
tioned to investigate these intricacies. Taken together, this approach can
help dismantle processes and logics behind displacement and dispos-
session that occur behind closed doors, day by day.
The article is structured as follows: After a brief overview of the
literature and an elaboration of the eld of housing crisis and eviction
cases in general, I detail the methods and methodologies used to
investigate the above tensions of de-tenanting processes and displace-
ment in the German context. In the sequel, I will zoom in on three vi-
gnettes arising from my observations of these day-to-day interactions
between tenants, landlords and judges at district courts throughout
Germany. Taken together, they illustrate on a more general note what
can be gained and what can be additionally taken into account, oper-
ationalized, and made accessible through a feminist approach to
unpacking urban displacement processes by investigating “law-in-ac-
tion” (Travers and Manzo, 1997) processes on the ground. I conclude by
advocating this feminist toolkit as an approach for further investigating
and illustrating the ways in which litigation variously represents or
circumvents the “right to stay” in and in doing so, I detail how such an
approach “extends our thinking about how law-people–place collide and
intertwine” (Gillespie and O’Donnell, 2023: 167). A feminist legal ge-
ography analysis departing from such empirical engagement is then also
well positioned to unpack what might be necessary to counter de-
tenanting processes toward a more just urban future.
2. The housing crisis and eviction (court) cases in Germany and
elsewhere
The examination of the global housing market reveals that in-
dividuals at risk of poverty, particularly migrants and black people, face
eviction at rates signicantly higher than the average (Benfer et al.,
2021: 5; Desmond, 2012; Moatasim, 2024). Furthermore, renovations
continue to serve as a catalyst for the displacement of poorer residents to
maximize prot margins (Polanska, 2023). These dynamics of housing
speculation and displacement are exemplary for current global and na-
tional housing precarity, beyond property relations (Goulding et al.,
2023; Rolnik, 2019). They shift to a focus on the necessity of an inter-
sectional entangled perspective of those who are affected by the owners’
desires for prot, highlighting new dimensions of responsibility from
within (Lees and Robinson, 2021; Rinn et al., 2022).
Zooming into the German context, however Berner et al. (2015)
observed that, like ndings from Sweden and Poland (Polanska, 2023),
evictions are not only tied to the nancialized housing market. More-
over, de-tenanting strategies, which most often result in evictions, have
become a fundamental aspect of management practices employed by all
types of property owners. The decision to end a long-term, non-xed
tenancy is almost always guided by “the criteria of economic rationality
based on a business cost-benet calculation” (Berner et al., 2015: 18,
translated by author). Thus, evictions occur predominantly when it is
economically advantageous for the owner, despite the associated costs
(Maierhofer, 2010). Municipal housing facilitators—both within and
outside the nancialized realm of housing providers—are no exception
to this trend. In their study of Berlin, Berner, Holm, and Jensen, they
primarily attributed this to the fact that state-owned housing companies
position most of their 290,000 properties in deprived neighborhoods,
offering relatively low rents (ibid., 2015: 18). Consequently, many res-
idents with low household incomes live in these properties, making
them particularly vulnerable to eviction. Between 2009 and 2014, state-
owned housing companies were responsible for approximately 5,000
evictions, constituting around 20 % of all evictions in Berlin during this
period, thereby becoming a signicant force in housing displacement
despite their mandate for social care (Berner et al., 2015: 94). However,
the extent to which similar patterns of displacement occur in other re-
gions of Germany remains unclear. This lack of clarity arises from the
absence of comprehensive datasets that track developments of de-
tenanting and dispossession at a granular level.
Aside from the rather cursory numbers provided by regional gov-
ernments
2
who have, moreover, not adopted a single standard for data
collection (e.g. there are different ways for each state for what becomes
listed and what remains outside records—e.g., pretrial legal disputes
between tenants and landlords), there is no systematic recording of the
number of single-property owners up to big, nancialized property
companies suing for eviction for all 16 states of Germany over a longer
period. Initial data from studies of forced evictions in Berlin (Berner
et al., 2015), Frankfurt (Keitzel et al., 2014), and Hamburg
(Klosterkamp, 2024) indicate a broad spectrum
3
of owners seeking to
evict tenants, but economic incentives (still) tend to dictate the way in
which the type
4
of eviction is brought into position to minimize costs
and maximize prot for owners. German legal advocates for property
1
De-tenanting refers to the systematic removal or displacement of tenants
from rental properties, often as a result of legal, nancial, or structural pro-
cesses, typically aimed at repurposing, redeveloping, or increasing the prot-
ability of the property (XX, XX).
2
The most recent data reports only go through 2020, when, despite the
COVID-19 pandemic, at least 29,744 evictions were carried out. This corre-
sponds to an average of 81 evictions by bailiffs per day (Lay, 2021). However,
the real number is likely higher, as gures for Hamburg and Schleswig–Holstein
are missing. Most evictions were carried out in North Rhine-Westphalia (9,161),
followed by Saxony (2,949) and Bavaria (2,867) (ibid.).
3
Overall, 80% of all evictions are carried out in the housing stock of private
owners, professional housing companies, and cooperatives (Berner et al., 2015).
4
There are three different version: the “Hamburger Model,” the “Berliner
Model” and the “Frankfurter Model.” In any case, landlords who evict in Ger-
many are obliged to store the belongings of the evicted. Depending on which
type of eviction a landlord chooses, the costs of storage are higher, but reno-
vation and returning the rental to the market can be done much sooner. The
different modes of eviction are also shaped by different liabilities for paying
reparation funds if items are lost or damaged via transportation or storing
(Maierhofer, 2010: 122).
S. Klosterkamp
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
2
owners (still) tend to favor and thus advocate for the costliest but
quickest option, the “Berliner Modell” (Maierhofer, 2010: 122).
Bridging the ndings back to the inherent globalized crisis, there is
still much to investigate and think about regarding de-tenanting pro-
cesses and evictions in Germany and around the globe. Nevertheless,
many important contributions have been highlighted, and processes of
evictions are a crucial area of study because of to their profound impact
on individuals, families, and communities, particularly women and
marginalized groups (Aiello, 2019; Benfer et al., 2021). At the same
time, they are happening all around the globe, in both the North and
South (Brickell et al., 2017; Linz, 2023; Olds et al., 2002). They are not
merely legal transactions but events that reshape urban landscapes
(Delaney, 2016; McElroy and Brownstein, 2020), inuence socioeco-
nomic dynamics (Shelton, 2018), and reect broader societal in-
equalities (Lees and Robinson, 2021). Evictions highlight tensions
between tenants’ rights and property rights, state intervention and
market forces and the spatial justice issues inherent in housing policies
(Lees et al., 2018; Linz, 2023; Watt, 2018).
While previous work in urban studies has predominantly focused on
explaning gentrication processes (Elliott-Cooper et al., 2020; Lees
et al., 2008; Smith, 1987); their underlying regulatory and political-
economic mechanisms (Banabak et al., 2024; Bůˇ
zek and Mießner,
2021; Rolnik, 2019); and the increasing nancialization of the real es-
tate market (Aalbers, 2019; Goulding et al., 2023; Schipper, 2021), little
scholarly attention has been paid to institutional and/or legal instances
that translate urban displacement mechanisms and exclusions to the
context of affordable housing in legal practice (Blomley, 2009). At the
same time, other studies on evictions and dispossession uplift how
procedures, instruments, and effects of displacement processes vary
(trans)nationally (Annunziata and Lees, 2016; Brickell et al., 2017; Olds
et al., 2002; Ramakrishnan, 2014; Romanos, 2013) and at the local level,
thorough states, cities, and even throughout neighborhoods (Linz, 2023;
McElroy and Brownstein, 2020; Shelton, 2018; Watt, 2018).
Departing from and engaging with this rich body of literature, this
paper investigate forced evictions and de-tenanting patterns in Ger-
many. Inspired by long-standing, previous work on the intersections of
housing studies and legal geography (Annunziata and Lees, 2016;
Blomley, 2009; Brickell, 2014; Delaney, 2016; Polanska, 2023), I would
like to expand this scholarship by proposing a feminist legal geography
lens to further investigate the issuance of eviction orders by local and
regional district courts in Germany. Revealing how this works through a
feminist (legal geographic) sensibility that is attuned to the power dy-
namics at place has much to offer to further unpack housing inequalities
on the ground. How do claims for a “right to stay” or for the issuance of
“eviction orders” unfold within legal proceedings? What counts as a
legitimate reason to make a claim to stay within a living space (for
tenants) or to throw someone out of a rented property (for owners)?
What can be gained from legal geography scholarship and critical urban
studies when attuning to these law-space intricacies with a feminist eye?
3. Unpacking the housing crisis through legal proceedings
Over the period from February 2022 to July 2024, 38 courtroom
observations were undertaken in one middle-sized city in Germany’s
south and two larger cities in Germany’s north and east to further
investigate evictions and their underlying processes of de-tenanting
through the law from both angles: pointing to those who own prop-
erty and are seeking to evict and to those who live in another’s property
through paying rent based on a legally binding, long-term, and unre-
stricted rental contract. Equipped with a notebook, pen, and paper, I
went to local and municipal district courts where eviction titles are is-
sued in Germany. While already familiar with courtroom observations
due to ve years of anti-terrorism trial observation at Higher Regional
Appeal Courts in Germany during 2015–2020 for my PhD eldwork, I
needed to adapt and re-arrange many of my research tools and methods,
because the way legal proceedings operate when it comes to housing and
tenant-landlord disputes is much different to the one I encountered
before, when the state itself is at risk and thus is ghting back against
“terrorism” in the aftermath of the Syrian war (see for more details:
(Klosterkamp, 2021a, 2023b).
In what follows, I detail both the way German District Courts operate
with respect to the Issuance of Eviction Titles (Section 3.1) and feminist
methods and methodologies that have helped me to observe and analyze
these “law in action” proceedings on the ground, at the courthouse
(Section 3.2).
3.1. Centering the German local district courts on the national housing
crisis
Local district courts in Germany, known as Amtsgerichte, have the
lowest level of ordinary jurisdiction and handle several cases, including
civil, criminal, family and tenancy matters. There are 640 local district
courts distributed throughout the country, ensuring accessible judicial
services for all residents. These courts are organized by judicial districts,
with each district typically encompassing several municipalities. The
courts are staffed by professional judges, and in some cases, lay judges
assist in proceedings, especially in criminal cases. The organization and
jurisdiction local district courts are dened by the German Courts
Constitution Act (Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz, GVG), which ensures uni-
formity in the administration of justice throughout Germany. Rental
disputes between tenants and landlords, which are particularly relevant
to evictions, fall under the jurisdiction of these courts, making them a
critical component of local judicial infrastructure in addressing housing
and tenancy disputes.
Each middle-sized city (>700.000 inhabitants, e.g. Frankfurt and
Cologne) have at least one district court, while larger cities (>1.400.000
inhabitants, e.g. Berlin, Hamburg or Munich) tend to have more—most
often one for each district of the city. All these local district courts have
specialized areas of expertise and professional lawyers that deal with
rental disputes and eviction cases more broadly. Judges play a crucial
role in ensuring fair and impartial administration of justice. They are
responsible for overseeing the proceedings from the initial ling of a
case to its conclusion. Judges in these courts not only interpret and apply
the law but also evaluate the presented evidence, make factual deter-
mination, and issue rulings. In eviction cases, judges assess the legality
of the eviction notices, the validity of the landlord’s claims, and the
defenses put forward by tenants (see Fig. 1). They must ensure that all
parties receive fair hearing and that their rights are respected
throughout the process. In addition, judges may facilitate negotiations
between parties and reach amicable settlements. Their role is to main-
tain order in the courtroom, provide clear explanations of legal princi-
ples, and ensure that verdicts are based on sound legal reasoning and
evidence, thereby upholding the rule of law and contributing to social
stability.
Legal litigation concerning rental disputes is increasing in Germany
due to multiple factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the en-
ergy crisis. In some districts, as noted by a Berlin judge, courts tend to
“[…] do nothing else than this [court proceedings around housing is-
sues]” (I8, p. 8). This increase in housing-related court proceedings is
partly attributable to the introduction and subsequent invalidation of
Mietendeckel, a legal rent cap regulation issued by the Berlin Senate in
2020.
5
The regulation, which was applicable only to Berlin, got struck
down by the highest court in Germany on April 21, 2021. Unlike the
nationwide Mietenpreisbremse (“rent brake”), which caps rents for new
rental contracts, the Mietendeckel aimed to cap rents for both new and
existing contracts, preventing rents from exceeding more than 20 %
5
The rent cap Mietendeckel applied to around 1.5 million apartments
completed before 2014. For these, rents were frozen at the June 2019 level.
From November 2020, rents that were more than 20% above a dened cap were
also prohibited.
S. Klosterkamp
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
3
above the local standard.
6
The nullication of the Mietendeckel had sig-
nicant consequences for residents who were required to refund rent
reductions to their landlords. This development has exacerbated housing
affordability issues, as former rent-cap apartments continue to be rented
at high prices despite often poor facility maintenances. This situation
highlights the growing challenges in the German rental market and the
increasing burden on the judicial system to resolve these disputes.
In addition to these shifts in legal regulations, other legal pro-
fessionals I have consulted during my research have indicated that
Germany’s district courts have also experienced signicant activity in
recent months due to the cost-of-living crisis, which has particularly
affected lower-income households across the country. Issues such as rent
arrears, mold resulting from inadequate heating, and substandard
maintenance by tenants, private landlords, municipal housing pro-
viders, and real estate companies have led to an inux of court hearings
involving rental disputes. Concurrently, rents have continued to rise in
the three cities studied, resulting in apartments with exceedingly high
prices per square meter but poor janitorial services. These service de-
ciencies are attributed to cost reductions, supply chain crises, and
prolonged sick leaves among maintenance staff. This situation un-
derscores the increasing strain on both tenants and the judicial system,
highlighting the need for comprehensive solutions to address the esca-
lating challenges in rental market.
By ling a case in court, Judges are called upon to solve these
problems, as well as establish some middle-ground solutions with
existing tenants’ rights and legal regulations. Nevertheless, as previously
highlighted, the distinction between “law in the books” and “law in
action” remains signicant. This suggests that investigating legal pro-
ceedings is essential and may yield different insights depending on the
specic context and stakeholders involved (Pound, 1910; Travers and
Manzo, 1997). My initial ndings indicate that the outcomes of legal
proceedings can vary considerably depending on the location and the
individuals consulted (as further outlined in section 4).
3.2. Studying-up power in legal settings: Feminist methods and
methodologies
Inspired by long-standing and more recent calls for “studying up
power” (Nader, 1972), my work foregrounds feminist tools and meth-
odologies of “situated knowledge” production (Haraway, 1988; Rose,
2016). These approaches are well-suited for employing “Institutional
Ethnography” (Billo and Mountz, 2016; Smith, 2005) to examine the
intertwined legal nature of what has been termed “delusional property”
(Blomley, 2009), which most often leads to dispossession and de-
tenanting processes. Courtroom ethnography, a methodological tool
within feminist legal geography, effectively serves this aim because it
allows researchers to delve deeply into micro-level interactions and
power dynamics within (geo-)legal settings (Gill and Hynes, 2021;
Walenta 2020; see for more general accounts on feminist (geo)legalities:
Brickell and Cuomo, 2019).
To conduct a feminist legal courtroom ethnography, several tools are
particularly well-positioned: a) grounded data sets, b) embodied tran-
scripts, c) a global-intimate analysis, and d) antithetical activist schol-
arship, as suggested by Faria et al. (2020: 1097) and detailed in Fig. 2.
Grounded data sets enable the collection of detailed, context-specic
information that captures the complexities of legal processes and in-
teractions. Embodied transcripts involve recording and analyzing not
only spoken words but also bodily movements, gestures, and emotional
expressions conveying meaning in courtroom settings. A global-intimate
analysis connects the local, personal experiences observed in
Fig. 1. How to evict a tenant? An overview of legal orderings and functions in Germany’s court-based eviction processes. © Klosterkamp 2024.
6
According to the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) states that when apartments
are rented in areas with a tight housing market, the rent may not be more than
10% above the local comparative rent. In each case, federal states themselves
decide whether what is or is not a tight housing market.
S. Klosterkamp
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
4
courtrooms to broader global patterns of power and inequality,
providing a comprehensive understanding of the issues of de-tenanting
and eviction and their interrelatedness to current nancialized hous-
ing markets (Heeg, 2013; Polanska, 2023; Schipper and Latocha, 2018).
By observing and analyzing court proceedings, interactions between
judges, lawyers and litigants, and the spatial arrangement of court-
rooms, researchers can gain valuable insights into how legal outcomes
are inuenced by spatial and social factors, particularly those related to
gender. Finally, while courtroom ethnography is generally well-
positioned to illuminate power dynamics on the ground, this approach
is especially critical for research that aims to employ antithetical activist
methodologies in the context of housing studies.
Legal institutions are deeply enshrined with power, and navigating
their spaces often involves ID and body checks for attendance and de-
parture. Studying-up power here, beyond distinctive tools detailed
above, thus also requires sensitivity to the “politics of eldwork” (Ellis
2016; Fernando, 2016), which shape how researchers can acquire
knowledge within these legal institutions (Faria et al., 2020: 1110).
Researchers without ofcial court invitations or legal expert status are
typically viewed as “external outsiders,” sometimes perceived as trust-
worthy, but other times as extra-suspicious, un-wanted and threatening,
especially for those, who are sitting on the docket (Gill and Hynes, 2021;
Klosterkamp, 2023a, 2021b). Opportunities for informal chats and ex-
changes of views and information may arise but are not predictable.
These situations require a feminist sensitivity and well-balanced use of
different tools, such as “embodied protocols” (Faria et al., 2020) and
vignettes for informal and formal side conversations. Engaging with the
multifaceted stories told in court and interacting with individuals
affected by these circumstances, whether landlords or tenants, thus re-
quires curiosity, time, and a willingness to expose oneself to the complex
layers of interests and vulnerabilities at stake. This also necessitates
nding a sensitive way to navigate these dynamics (Billo and Hiemstra,
2013; Hall, 2015) and maintaining a feminist eye on the power imbal-
ances present (Faria et al., 2020; Walenta 2020).
Beyond these hurdles and obstacles, there is also much to gain from
such an approach. Long-term engagement within legal settings enables
researchers to trace the discrimination faced by minorities and reveal
the pitfalls of political instruments designed to serve welfare state
principles, which are often circumvented by prot interests. Integrating
a feminist legal geography perspective into housing studies adds a vital
layer of analysis by highlighting how displacement and dispossession
disproportionately affect women and marginalized gender, often inter-
secting with race, class, and other axes of identity (Brickell, 2024;
Brickell et al., 2024; Hall, 2022, 2015; Nowicki et al., 2023). This
approach encourages multi-scalar analysis that considers local legal
practices within broader socio-legal and geopolitical contexts. This
paper provides the theoretical framework and empirical methods
necessary to explore how evictions are not just legal outcomes but also
spatial and gendered practices that reect and reinforce societal in-
equalities. Additionally, by actively engaging with and advocating for
the communities being studied, such feminist scholarship is well posi-
tioned to challenge traditional academic norms and quantitative ac-
counts of housing disparities, ensuring that the research has a tangible
impact on those it aims to represent.
4. Entering court spaces and listening to stories of (re-)gaining
and losing homes
Drawing from three vignettes based on my ethnography of Local
District Court cases on tenant-landlord disputes, I will explore moments
of hope and loss observed across various sites in Germany. Utilizing
these rich empirical insights alongside a feminist legal courtroom
analysis, I aim to elucidate the broader mechanisms by which the logic
of capital and prot dictates who is heard and who is marginalized,
ultimately determining patterns of displacement and dispossession.
In this endeavor, I engage with the perspectives of Lees, Annunziata,
and Rivas-Alonso, who advocate to “put research on the everyday
resistance of ordinary people at the center, not the margins” (2018: 347;
see also Brickell, 2014). This approach provides critical insights into
urban studies on displacement and dispossession. By highlighting the
experiences and voices of those affected by eviction, this section high-
lights the material realities of displacement and underscores the
importance of a feminist legal geographic framework in understanding
these processes.
4.1. Being hit by the pandemic – How do precarious health and working
conditions lead to precarious housing environments and lost homes
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensied many additional problems
in a world already facing multiple crises. In line with scholarly
Fig. 2. Elements of a feminist legal courtroom ethnography of eviction court cases ©Klosterkamp 2024.
S. Klosterkamp
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
5
investigations around health and housing in the United States (Benfer
et al., 2021), where—with different legal regulations—evictions were
still being processed during the pandemic, a similar but slightly different
picture emerged in Germany, where more than 30,000 people lost their
homes (Lay, 2021). Beginning with this global–local observation, I
began to wonder how mass precarity like this is to be explained in a
country like Germany, which is committed to welfare state principles.
Who was and who is still most affected by these displacement and de-
tenanting processes, while the cost of living crisis is still on the rise?
What goes wrong, if even Germany’s tenants’ rights don’t seem to hinder
the dispossession of disadvantages on the ground?
Out of all 38 court cases, majority addressed various pandemic-
induced side effects, including job losses, precarious part-time and
temporary employment with subcontractors, severe health conditions,
and extended hospital stays. These factors have resulted in signicantly
reduced or unsubsidized wages, making it difcult for many individuals
to afford rent, especially in areas with a particularly tight housing
market. This situation is exemplied by the individual depicted in my
rst vignette:
A defendant in a large city in southwestern Germany claims that he
has arrears in rent payments due to a long period of illness and
temporary work as a result of the pandemic, but he wants to elimi-
nate these arrears as soon as possible. The temporary employment
agency where the worker is employed always pays on the 10th of
each month, and he transfers his rent every month by the 15th at the
latest. The man has his medical records and other documents with
him, but no one wants to look at them. The plaintiff, representing of
one of the city’s municipal housing associations, asserts that the
continual delays in payment are no longer acceptable. Noting that
perhaps the defendant could remit rent in advance instead of always
late, the judge closes the case, saying: “Let’s do it that way, okay?”
The judge does not wait for the stunned defendant to respond; she
dictates the result of the hearing directly into her voice recorder: a
settlement has been reached, which means for the defendant that he
must bear the four-digit sum of the legal costs in equal part and pay
off the existing rent arrears immediately. If he does not pay within
the next four weeks, he is threatened with eviction. The defendant
says that this in particular is difcult for him, but the presiding judge
only replies, “The hearing is closed”—it lasted only 8 min.
Vignette 1, February 2022
The manner in which the court case was conducted, as directed by
the judge in the aforementioned example, presents several problematic
implications. Legal language is inherently difcult for non-legal experts
to follow, posing particular challenges for individuals who are less
educated or for whom German is not their rst language. This was
evident in the case of the tenant, who attended the proceedings without
any legal counsel or language assistance. He struggled to comprehend
the proceedings, yet no attempts were made to translate the legal
decision-making process, nor to speak more slowly or use simpler lan-
guage, as is typically done for non-native German speakers and immi-
grants. In such a setting, defending one’s home in a session lasting less
than 8 min becomes an almost insurmountable task. This pattern of
rental disputes often leaves tenants with little chance of success, a
nding consistent with my courtroom observations in Germany.
Moreover, the impact of health conditions, particularly those
resulting from the pandemic, is largely overlooked in German court
cases unless they pertain to elderly residents who have severe physical
disorders (see for the US: Benfer, 2021). Despite the critical importance
of having a secure place to live for individuals with severe illnesses, this
consideration is seldom accounted for by judges handling cases of
delayed rent payments (rent arrears). Many tenants with severe illness
face additional challenges in managing their households, such as
handling mail, preparing meals, and maintaining cleanliness. In this
context, as observed in some of the other trials, landlords often claim
that the value of their apartments may decline, leading them to sue for
“misuse” to terminate indenite rental contracts with tenants suffering
from COVID-19, mental illnesses, or physical disabilities.
Notably, only one individual in a court case I observed, a man over
80 suffering from dementia, successfully avoided eviction due to rent
arrears with his legal representative. The judge acknowledged that
moving would intensify his disorientation and deemed it irresponsible to
proceed with the eviction (eldnotes). As a result, survivability, in terms
of resisting and circumventing de-tenanting processes, was predomi-
nantly applicable to individuals in medically unstable conditions who
relied heavily on the assistance of others to act effectively on their behalf
(see also for stories on dementia and housing: Varley, 2008; and for
more general accounts on health effects: Richardson et al. 2016). This
representative successfully argued that the tenant’s medical conditions
rendered him incapable of managing mail or bills, assuring the court
that rent payments would be managed appropriately. This reassurance
facilitated a settlement with the property owner and the judge, stipu-
lating that the at would be cleared and renovated for re-rental after the
tenant’s death.
Conversely, younger patients with long-term COVID-19 in precarious
working conditions found such settlements unattainable (Vignette 1).
These individuals were often forced to relocate to more affordable
housing on the city’s outskirts (see for the US: Benfer et al., 2021). The
judge deemed this relocation “absolutely tolerable” (eldnotes),
reecting a broader systemic disregard for the complex socio-economic
and health challenges faced by these tenants. This disparity underscores
the critical need for a feminist legal geographic perspective that recog-
nizes and addresses the intersecting vulnerabilities of health, labor, and
housing instability.
4.2. Class matters – How income shape court case outcomes
The pandemic’s impact extended beyond working-class households
to nancially well-equipped businessmen and their companies.
Although they appeared less frequently in court, they were not exempt
from legal challenges as defendants. This observation transitions us to
the next vignette, highlighting the broader socioeconomic repercussions
of the pandemic. It underscores the disparate experiences during the
housing crisis, where displacement and eviction disproportionately
affect the most vulnerable, while those with greater nancial resources
often have the means to avoid eviction and mitigate the impacts of
housing instability.
The defendant appears much too late, but in a suit. “Sorry, I was still
involved in business. But now, I am nally here, thanks for waiting.”
“No problem,” replied the judge. “That was certainly important. Your
legal advisor is already here. Please come in.” This case is about an
apartment, centrally located in the third largest city in Germany,
with a oorplan of just under 100 square meters and a rent of 3,200
euros. The businessman lives there alone and one of four apartments
across Germany. He had difculty paying for the apartment because
of the pandemic. “I always thought after every lockdown that things
would soon get better again, that the upswing would come, and the
gures would be black again, but they haven’t been so far,” the
defendant said. He added, “The rent is a little too high anyway”
[according to the municipal tables for rent per square meter]. He
then suggests: “Perhaps we could use also this court date, to discuss
this issue too—if you agreed with me, then my underpayment would
already be covered.” The judge surprisingly says, “Yes, why not.
What do we have here? A gradual rental agreement with an annual
increase.” The plaintiff says: “The parking space in the underground
garage has also not yet been paid for.” [They continue to dispute for
more than 45 min.] The defendant intervenes: “This is my favorite
apartment, I want to keep it”—“but it is not the only one,” the judge
replies. “You have a total of four, and you should be able to afford
them.” The defendant responds: “I am, I was, but… so now, a friend is
currently living there, she has nothing else and urgently needs
S. Klosterkamp
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
6
something. We’re going to sort things out. But what about the
rent—it is far too high, right?” “Subletting is not allowed,” the judge
said. “I can see that from your rental agreement, so that favors the
owner. But, we will have to take a closer look at that again. We will
make another appointment.”
Vignette 2, June 2022
My observations, supplemented by occasional discussions with
lawyers and judges, reveal a signicant disparity in how tenants from
different socio-economic backgrounds navigate rental disputes. Upper-
and middle-class tenants are often able to claim legal rights and high-
light contractual imbalances, particularly in more expensive neighbor-
hoods where apartments are better equipped and rented at rates for the
above municipal rent cap regulations. Wealthy tenants wo are more
willing (and able) to pay these inated prices sometimes employ legal
companies (e.g. CONNY GmbH) to offer specialized services to contest
rent controls, which are only applicable if the legal process concludes
successfully. According to a legal expert I interviewed, “these cases are
decided most often in favor of the tenants” (I9, p. 15). As a result, they
can push back against prot-driven housing providers, trying to avoid or
circumvent rent control instruments. They also appear uniquely capable
of negotiating back payments and rental deferrals.
Thus, Vignette 2 corroborates Berner et al. (2015) observation,
indicating that German rental disputes involve individuals from all
socio-economic strata. However, as my observations indicate, these
disputes tend to favor those with greater nancial resources and class
markers, such as language prociency, attire, and education. Wealthier
tenants can navigate rental disputes more easily and successfully, often
avoiding explicit eviction demands. This creates an ongoing cycle of
tenancy disputes, potentially leading to tenant relocation. However, this
prospect is less daunting for nancially secure tenants than for those
facing precarious working and housing conditions. The advantages of
dressing well, speaking the same (legal) language, and having nancial
resources tend to produce better outcomes for defendants, leading to
better equipped and maintained apartments and greater legal assistance.
On the contrary, issues such as poor housing maintenance, pipeline
leaks, and mold are rarely seen as the responsibility of property owners
when lower-class tenants are involved. Instead, these problems are often
framed due to misuse. Without legal assistance, these tenants struggle to
challenge these conditions and are at greater risk of being de-tenanted
for alleged misuse. This dynamic further disadvantages tenants with
fewer resources, who face signicant barriers in restraining against
neglectful landlords.
Thus, rental disputes unfold differently across socioeconomic lines.
‘Survivability’ in these legal battles is closely linked to class, manifested
in higher social positions, education levels and the ability to project
credibility. The unequal burden of housing maintenance issues on lower-
income tenants underscores the need for a feminist legal geographic
perspective that addresses these intersecting vulnerabilities and advo-
cates for equitable treatment of housing disputes.
4.3. The double deprived elderly: Black female renters with low pensions
My third vignette underscores a critical issue recognized interna-
tionally: the intersection of race and gender in de-tenanting and eviction
cases. Scholars have consistently shown that individuals at risk of
poverty, migrants, and people of color (POCs) are disproportionately
affected by eviction (Benfer et al., 2021; Brickell, 2014). Similarly, in
Germany, people of color and women are among those most affected by
de-tenanting, reecting broader patterns of intersectional vulnerability:
In a district court in a large city in northern Germany, a retired
doctor sought to establish his personal use of his condominium, in
which an elderly black woman had lived for over 25 years. He in-
tends to transfer it to his son. The tenant claims that the housing
market cannot offer her a comparable apartment in a similarly cen-
tral location because of her skin color and her very low pension; she
has been trying to nd a new apartment for several months. How-
ever, the owner asserts that he bought the apartment for his son 25
years ago, who has now nished his medical studies, had a perma-
nent job, and hopes to be able to lead a secure life with his new wife.
Since the death of his son previous wife, also a doctor, who died in a
trafc accident after her shift work, the plaintiff has lived in fear that
his son, who commutes between his apartment and the outskirts of
the city, might also meet such a fate. “The boy has to get off the
street,” he continued, blaming the tenant for the fact that the danger
to his son’s life still existed, and had caused him sleepless nights. He
rejects the offer of a compensation payment of 10,000 euros to the
tenant to allow her to search in other locations: He cannot under-
stand why he should buy the freedom of his own property. No one is
willing to settle. In the end, the court nds in favor of the owner, and
the woman must leave the apartment within six months or she will be
threatened with eviction.
Vignette 3, June 2022
This type of legal claim, known as Eigenbedarf (subsistence),
frequently results in judgments favoring property owners. In these cases,
‘survivability’ involves navigating between the conicting demands of
leaving the property (by the landlord), which tenants often try to avoid
or circumvent, and seeking nancial compensation while urgently
trying to nd acceptable and affordable housing with a low pension (by
the tenant). Despite the common granting of compensation in many
other court cases involving negotiations over exiting rental agreements
due to subsistence claims, tenants often do not know how to ask for such
compensation. This awareness typically arises only if a legal counselor is
involved and capable of articulating the claim in legal terms.
In this instance (Vignette 3), neither the landlord nor the judge was
willing to honor the tenant’s request for compensation. Although this
approach would have expedited the process, as the tenant’s lawyer
repeatedly emphasized, the nal settlement only provided additional
time for the tenant to search for a new apartment (six months instead of
three). The property owner’s claim ultimately overrode the desires and
needs of a female, elderly, black tenant who had consistently paid rent in
full and was not in arrears. Notably, rent arrears are the most common
reason property owners seek court-issued eviction orders and as such,
they were most frequently noticed when I went to court in different
districts (eld notes). Another aspect that struck me was the fact that
while the tenant had to show evidence of her efforts to nd alternative
housing over an extended period, the property owner was not required
to provide proof of why his son could not live elsewhere or rent another
property. This scenario (again) illustrates the broader systemic in-
equities that prioritize property rights over tenant protections, dispro-
portionately affecting those with fewer resources and support systems.
4.4. Gaining knowledge and adding value through a feminist lens on
eviction cases
Taken together, the analysis of eviction cases through a feminist
ethnographic lens reveals several critical insights into the power dy-
namics and systemic inequalities embedded within tenancy termination
processes.
First, a feminist ethnographic approach to proceedings reveals that
interests and concerns within the context of de-tenanting are often
aligned with the logic of value creation, which favors prot and the
normative underpinnings of property ownership over tenants. In
particular, when tenants belong to disadvantaged groups (Vignette 1,
Vignette 3). The issuance of eviction orders and subsequent forced
evictions and de-tenanting processes underscore this power imbalance,
effectively “reinforcing inequality” (Lees et al., 2018: 347). Evictions are
often, but not always, a direct result of court proceedings. More
frequently, tenants lose their homes because of health issues, rent de-
lays, or subsistence claims. Sometimes these reasons can be leveraged to
obtain a “right to stay,” but more often, tenants are asked to leave the
S. Klosterkamp
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
7
property within a specic timeframe. In such cases, they are de-tenanted
but not formally evicted; thus, they are not included in local and
regional eviction statistics. My observations illustrate that a more robust
welfare system that provides greater nancial assistance is necessary to
mitigate these inequalities.
Second, a feminist eye on these proceedings and their subsequent
outcomes uplifts that judges tend to favor those who are well-educated
and articulate, often members of the upper or middle class. This bias is
particularly evident when individuals are accompanied by legal coun-
selors who can professionally present their case (Vignette 2). For tenants
in precarious jobs with low levels of education, having legal represen-
tation is crucial for successful legal claims. However, even with legal
assistance, not all tenants achieve favorable outcomes (Vignette 3),
highlighting the long-standing discrepancy between “law in the books”
and “law in action” (Pound, 1910; Travers and Manzo, 1997). Judges’
perceptions and positionalities–whether patriarchal, authoritative, un-
derstanding, or caring (Berndt, 2010)–signicantly inuence the pro-
ceedings, often to the detriment of already disadvantaged tenants,
favoring those with prot interests (Vignette 1, Vignette 3). Addition-
ally, judges tend to empathize more with property owners because many
of them also own apartments and thus have responsibility for tenants.
This was noticed during breaks between different court cases, where
they discussed openly legal options on how they deal with rent areas or
the value decrease of buy-to-rent properties in their portfolios (eld-
notes). This shared experience appears to create a bias, making judges
more sympathetic towards property owners and less toward tenants who
are often suspected of misconduct.
Finally, nancial requirements heavily inuence outcomes and ten-
ants’ ability to assert rights and legal claims. Although Germany is a
welfare state, many tenants are unaware that they can apply for legal aid
or government assistance to pay rent arrears. Those who are aware of
miss the critical timeframe required to secure such aid before legal
proceedings begin (eldnotes). This lack of action further jeopardizes
their ability to maintain their homes. Cases of lost or settled court
without a clear win also increase the dept of already indebted tenants,
resulting in a nancial score, which makes it even harder to nd a new
home. While scholarly-engaged activist like the Anti-Eviction Mapping
Projects and US-based research groups and scholars keep worrying over
and problematizing these aspects (Aiello, 2019; Anti-Eviction-Lab,
2024; Harris, 2022; McElroy, 2023; Moatasim, 2024), they seem to be on
the rise also in welfare states like Germany, mostly unnoticed (see also
for Spain: Castellano et al., 2018; Romanos, 2013).
By drawing attention to these legal shortcomings and challenges, a
feminist legal geography approach to housing struggles can illuminate
the lived experiences of those struggling to make ends meet. This
approach underscores the importance of addressing systemic in-
equalities in court proceedings, even those designed to protect tenant
rights.
5. Conclusion
Displacement and de-tenanting are critical issues at the intersection
of housing crises and legal frameworks, demanding a nuanced under-
standing that integrates class, gender, and race. The housing crisis in
Germany, particularly in urban areas, has intensied these issues,
making it imperative to explore how legal institutions play a role in
eviction processes. By focusing on eviction court cases in Germany, this
article reveals the intricate ways in which legal institutions mediate and
perpetuate displacement, highlighting the socio-legal mechanisms at
play. Through feminist legal geographic sensibility, my work not only
illuminates the courtroom as a pivotal space where socio-legal battles
unfold and also calls for a more critical and compassionate under-
standing of housing injustices beyond gentrication research.
Departing from and grounded in courtroom ethnography of 38 trials
throughout Germany, I illustrate how legal decisions are inuenced by
broader societal norms and power structures and how these decisions, in
turn, impact the lives of individuals and communities. This is done in
three detailed vignettes, each illustrating the lived experiences of in-
dividuals facing eviction and the legal battles that ensue. These vignettes
demonstrate that eviction processes are not merely legal transactions;
they are deeply embedded in power dynamics that disproportionately
affect marginalized communities. A feminist legal geography prospec-
tive is essential for several reasons. First, it highlights the ways in which
eviction is not just a legal issue but a spatial and social one, affecting
individuals’ everyday lives and spaces. Second, it highlights the inter-
sectional nature of eviction, showing how class, gender, and race
intersect to shape the experiences of those facing displacement. Third, it
emphasizes the importance of listening and attuning to the lived expe-
riences of those displaced, advocating for a more grounded and justice-
oriented approach to legal geography.
Taken together, the intersection of displacement, dispossession, and
feminist legal geography reveals the complex and often hidden ways in
which legal institutions and spatial practices are complicit in the pro-
duction of urban inequalities. By bringing these issues to the forefront,
feminist legal geography not only enhances our understanding of the
mechanisms driving displacement and dispossession but also calls for
more equitable and just urban policies. Through a critical examination
of legal processes and their spatial impacts, we can begin to challenge
and dismantle the structures that perpetuate housing injustice and work
towards creating more inclusive and resilient urban environments.
Funding
This work was supported by the German Research Foundation
(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) [grant number 52899290]
(2024-2026); and the Argelander Research Starter-Kit Grant for Post-
docs at the University of Bonn (2022-2023).
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Sarah Klosterkamp: Writing – review & editing, Writing – original
draft, Visualization, Validation, Methodology, Funding acquisition,
Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization.
Declaration of generative AI in scientic writing
During the preparation of this work the author used trinka.ai in order
to provide language editing and to check grammar. After using this tool,
the author reviewed and edited the content as needed and takes full
responsibility for the content of the published article.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the editor, Geoffrey
Deverteuil, and the two anonymous reviewers for their invaluable
feedback and constructive suggestions throughout the review process.
Their insightful comments and thoughtful guidance have greatly
contributed to improving the quality and clarity of this work. I deeply
appreciate their time and effort in providing support and encourage-
ment, which has been instrumental in shaping the nal manuscript. I am
also deeply thankful to Katherine Brickell, and the Urban Futures group
at King’s College (including Phil Hubbard, Zheng Wang and Johan
Andersson), who provided valuable comments on earlier versions of this
paper in January 2023. This work was supported by the Argelander
Starting Grant for PostDocs and the German Research Foundation (Grant
No. 528992907).
S. Klosterkamp
Geoforum 156 (2024) 104126
8
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