Gillespie, T, Hardy, KR orcid.org/0000-0003-0429-2701 and Watt, P (2018) Austerity urbanism and Olympic counter-legacies: Gendering, defending and expanding the urban commons in East London. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36 (5). pp. 812-830. ISSN 0263-7758
Abstract
This article reflects on an occupation led by single mothers to contest the destruction of social housing in post-Olympics East London. In the process, it argues for a more gendered theorisation of the urban commons. Drawing on auto-ethnography, participant observation and qualitative interviews, the article argues three central points: First, that the occupation demonstrates the gendered nature of the urban commons and the leadership of women in defending them from enclosure; second that the defence of an existing urban commons enabled the creation of a new temporary commons characterised by the collectivisation of gendered socially reproductive activities; and third that this commoning has had a lasting impact on housing activism at the city scale and beyond. This impact is conceptualised as an ‘Olympic counter-legacy’ that is characterised by the forging of new relationships and affinities, the strengthening of networked activism and circulation of tactics between campaign groups.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Housing crisis; urban commons; austerity; gender; social reproduction; occupation |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Work and Employment Relation Division (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Jan 2018 11:56 |
Last Modified: | 29 Sep 2018 19:12 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0263775817753844 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:126552 |