Eyes wide shut

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2616436
AutoresMariya Ivancheva (0000-0003-4066-4074, University of Liverpool [email protected], autor correspondente), Stefan Krastev (Sofia University [email protected])
Ano2019
Volume2019
Fascículo84
Páginas18-32
Data de publicação2019-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoFocaal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0920-1297 • E-ISSN: 1558-5263
EditoraBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/fcl.2019.840102
OpenAlexW2972018886
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas36

This article presents the results of a collaborative ethnographic inquiry in contemporary Sofia and Caracas. Combining historical research and ethnography, we compare the ways in which a former and a current left-wing regime treat urban squatting. In both cities, squatters tend to be poor families escaping homelessness. In Sofia, "squatters"-usually of Roma origin-inhabit unregulated spaces deemed illegal after 1989. In Caracas, homeless families have been officially encouraged to squat but not declared legal occupants. A historical comparison shows both socialist governments turn a blind eye to extralegal housing practices. Benign, informal housing arrangements function to display solidarity with marginalized groups as a form of popular legitimacy. Yet, without formalized state protection, such arrangements produced a "surplus" population, vulnerable vis-à-vis global processes of capitalist reorganization

Ethnography · Legitimacy · Political economy · Political science · Population · Shut down · Sociology · Solidarity · Squatting position · Anthropology · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Urban and Rural Development Challenges