Homelessness, social relations and institutional logics

Property Rights Without Property

Bibliographic Data

ID5000654
AuthorsJ M Luiz (0000-0003-3806-4424, School of Business, Management and Economics, University of Sussex, UK, and University of Cape Town, South Africa, corresponding author), James Rycroft (University of Cape Town, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume18
Issue4
Pages977-999
Publication date2021-02-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocio-Economic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/ser/mwy031
OpenAlexW2810858066
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited72

We explore whether there is evidence of property rights among the homeless, and if so, how these rights are governed. By conducting interviews with 52 homeless people in Cape Town, we show that although the homeless are able to derive some value from assets, and can exclude other members of their community, these rights are precarious and dependent upon state agents not seizing the 'property' and overriding the community's rules of the game. We demonstrate the intersectionality of claims with respect to the same physical property from the varying perspectives of the claimants involved and how this differs depending on the property. Homeless people rely on a community logic to develop rules of the game which results in the appearance of a market logic. In the absence of formal institutions effectively operating in their spaces, they have constituted social norms which provide some semblance of property rights respected intra-group

Business · Epistemology · Law and economics · Political science · Property (philosophy · Property rights · Sociology · State (computer science · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Homelessness and Social Issues · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Law · Philosophy

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access